People start a blog for several reasons. It’s a platform for self-expression, entertainment, and education. Blogging is also effective at bringing organic traffic for businesses, making it a widely adopted digital marketing strategy.

01. Astra

Theme Stats:

• Downloads: 2,300,000+
• Rating: 5/5
• Notable Features: lightweight, various starter sites, developer tools
• Best for: all kinds of websites
• Price: freemium, with paid plans starting at $47/year

Astra is among the best WordPress themes with plenty of design customizations. This theme suits any website, whether it’s a business or personal blog. It’s also compatible with popular builder plugins like Divi.

Astra is suitable for beginners and advanced users. Beginners can utilize its wide variety of starter sites to accelerate their setup process, whereas developers can extend the theme’s functionality using hooks and filters.

Above all, Astra prioritizes performance. It only requires 50 KB of resources, which helps ensure a fast page load time. If you’re looking for a lightweight and versatile that’s easy to set up, Astra is a good choice.

02. OceanWP

Theme Stats:

• Downloads: 6,600,000+
• Rating: 5/5
• Notable Features: 200+ demos, full-width hero, free extensions
• Best for: all kinds of websites
• Price: freemium, with premium plans starting at $43/year

OceanWP is a great WordPress theme for building blogs, portfolio sites, and online stores. It offers an array of pre-made blog templates that incorporate a full-width header image, perfect for displaying featured stories on your blog.

You can easily modify the theme with the WordPress Customizer, from changing the blog’s general layout to adjusting the header padding to fit different screen sizes. If you prefer to use Customizer to design your site, we recommend installing the Ocean Extra companion plugin that gives the Customizer search feature for quicker navigation. In addition, the Customizer controls let you disable or enable options for a faster editing experience.

If you want to use a page builder to design your site, OceanWP works well with Divi. It also offers numerous free add-ons to extend the blog’s functionality.

All in all, OceanWP is a perfect theme if you want a load of customization options and flexibility.

03. Hestia

Theme Stats:

• Active installations: 100,000+
• Rating: 5/5
• Notable features: retina-ready layout, one-page layout, code-free Material Kit design tools
• Best for: all kinds of websites
• Price: freemium, with premium plans starting at $69/year

Hestia is suitable for blog owners looking for in-depth customization options and adaptability for one-page sites.

Set up your blog in minutes with Hestia’s ready-made designs. Using Material Kit, you can customize these designs to match your blog’s style and content without editing its code. Some key features include box-shadows on buttons and cards.

This free WordPress blog theme uses the material design approach, hence its incorporation of clean lines and vibrant colors. It is also retina-ready, ensuring your blog looks great on high-resolution screens.

Thanks to its vibrant design and advanced Material Kit tools, Hestia is a great choice if you want advanced customization options without fiddling with code.

04. Zakra

Theme Stats:

• Downloads: 60,000+
• Rating: 5/5
• Notable Features: highly customizable, 80+ demo sites, search-engine-optimized
• Best for: all kinds of websites
• Price: freemium, with premium plans starting at $59/year

Zakra is a multipurpose WordPress theme with responsive design and advanced typography. The theme provides over 80 pre-made demo sites to help quickly set up your blog. It is also fully compatible with the Gutenberg editor.

You’ll find various header and layout options, plus an option to adjust the primary color palette. Combining them with highly customizable typography, including font family and line height, Zakra makes it easy to align your blog with your identity and design philosophy.

Finally, Zakra is one of the lightest and fastest WordPress themes available, helping you rank higher in search engines and improving user experience.

06. Blocksy

Theme Stats:

• Active installations: 100,000+
• Rating: 5/5
• Notable Features: header and footer builder, ultra-performance, one-click demo importer
• Best for: all kinds of websites
• Price: freemium, with premium plans starting at $49/year

Blocksy is another multipurpose theme. While designed to be Gutenberg-ready, it functions well with other page builders, including Beaver Builder and Brizy.

Blocksy offers six demo versions. The blog starter site features clean code, minimalist design, and efficient use of white space to improve readability. You can also import posts, widgets, and starter sites in one click.

One of Blocksy’s unique features is the drag-and-drop header and footer builder, complete with nine menu elements and a sticky navigation option. We recommend Blocksy if you plan to build a blog with multiple categories and need a theme that supports highly customizable header and navigation.

07. Neve

Theme Stats:

• Active installations: 300,000+
• Rating: 5/5
• Notable Features: 100+ pre-built websites, drag-and-drop editor, speed-optimized
• Best for: all kinds of websites
• Price: freemium, with premium plans starting at $69/year

Neve is a beginner-friendly solution ideal for eCommerce and corporate blogs. Besides the growing collection of ready-to-import websites, it’s compatible with Gutenberg and various page builder plugins.

This clean WordPress blog theme delivers speed and efficiency. The bare theme is only 28 KB in size, and we tested its pre-made homepage content with a page size of 532 KB. The page still loads in around 0.7 seconds, even without WordPress optimization done on the site.

Customization-wise, Neve lets you arrange your blogs, archive pages, headers, and footers by dragging and dropping elements. Overall, Neve is a great pick for building a fast-loading blog with an easy customization workflow.

08. Kadence

Theme Stats:

• Downloads: 300,000+
• Rating: 5/5
• Notable features: optimized for speed, feature-packed, customization flexibility
• Best for: all kinds of websites
• Price: freemium, with premium plans starting at $129/year

Kadence is well-regarded as a multipurpose theme. It’s a great theme for WordPress blogs, as it features a clean and modern design that helps enhance the blog’s readability and usability. The free version of the blog theme works seamlessly with Gutenberg, Beaver Builder, and WooCommerce.

The theme offers starter templates and a Gutenberg design library that you can activate in a single click. The design library provides plenty of pre-made block patterns to customize layouts quickly, perfect if you prefer to use block-based editing but with classic theme versatility.

Despite being feature-rich, Kadence is lightweight, with a pre-made starter site homepage size of 574 KB. Its efficiency results in faster loading times and better user experience.

09. Sydney

Theme Stats:

• Active installations: 100,000+
• Rating: 5/5
• Notable features: custom widget, various layouts, page templates, and headers
• Best for: agency, photography, and travel blogs
• Price: freemium, starting at $55/year

Sydney is a versatile WordPress theme for professionals wanting to establish a strong online presence.

Sydney features various header options, including a full-width header image or slider. It supports custom widgets for displaying contact information, testimonials, and services.

It provides ample customization options, enabling you to adjust it to your branding and style preferences. Through WordPress Customizer, you can easily change colors, fonts, page templates, and layouts.

The free plan already integrates with popular plugins, including WPForms and WooCommerce. It’s also responsive and built with SEO best practices in mind.

Given its capability to support a professional website, Sydney is a good option if you’re building a blog inside a business, agency, or photography website, as this one theme will cover your needs easily.

10. ColorMag

Theme Stats:

• Active installations: 100,000+
• Rating: 5/5
• Notable Features: magazine-style layout, one-click demo importer, customization flexibility
• Best for: blogs, news sites, and online magazines
• Price: freemium, with premium plans starting at $59/year

ColorMag is a popular magazine-style layout theme. It has a library of starter sites with multiple WordPress blog templates. It provides various customization options, including a custom logo and sticky menu.

In addition, it lets you assign different colors to each post category, helping keep your website well-organized and making it easier for the website visitors to spot a specific category they’re interested in.

This theme is best for magazines and news blogs, given its features and pre-made starter sites. Plus, it’s compatible with WooCommerce if you want to monetize your site with a subscription-based model.