10 Fastest Free WordPress Themes
As the foundation of a website, WordPress theme has a significant impact on the loading speed of a website. A poorly designed WordPress theme with cluttered code will seriously affect the loading speed of your website, which in turn will affect your website ranking. On the contrary, a well-designed WP theme with clean code will load quickly and help improve page ranking.
In this article, we have collected some of the fastest free WordPress themes for you, the basic versions of these themes are free, when let if you want to use the premium features, you can also pay to upgrade.
GeneratePress
Loading time: 1.967 s
Size: 32 KB
HTTP requests: 10
GeneratePress is one of the fastest WordPress themes, focused on improving speed.
Developer Tom Usborne has focused on clean, lightweight code. It is only 30kb in size and was created primarily to improve loading speed with clean and simple pages.
Multiple areas can be customized, including 9 widgets, 5 navigation positions, 5 sidebar layouts, dropdown menus (click or hover) and navigation color presets.
It is fully compatible with all major page builders (including Beaver Builder and Elementor). WooCommerce store functionality is supported.
In addition to its great performance, it is super versatile and has a large number of users. And, if you are willing to pay for the premium version, there is also access to many beautiful demo templates that can be easily imported.
Astra
Loading time: 1.599 s
Size: 46 KB
HTTP requests: 9
Same as GeneratePress, Astra is another particularly popular WordPress theme. astra does not work with jQuery and is only 50 KB in size. suitable for blogs, personal portfolios, business websites and WooCommerce storefronts.
In addition, Astra theme is also super flexible and adjustable. If needed, you can import many free demo templates.
Or, you can also adjust the page layout yourself flexibly according to its flexible page setup options.
With SEO in mind, Astra integrates with Schema.org code and supports built-in AMP, so mobile will load fast.
It provides special features and templates so it works perfectly with all page builders such as Elementor, Beaver Builder, Visual Composer, SiteOrigin, Divi, etc.
oceanWP
Loading time: 1.886 s
Size: 198 KB
HTTP requests: 18
OceanWP is another lightweight theme. You can customize it for any theme you want, such as blogs, investment, business websites and WooCommerce storefronts.
Like Astra, OceanWP also offers free template sites, so you can import ready-made template themes if you don’t want to start from scratch.
It can be used with Elementor, Beaver Builder, Brazy, Visual Composer, Divi, SiteOrigin and other most popular page builders.
Neve
Loading time: 2.134 s
Size: 80 KB
HTTP requests: 11
Neve is an easily customizable and versatile lightweight WordPress theme from ThemeIsle, which was built specifically to work with the release of the new WordPress block editor (AKA Gutenberg).
It comes with built-in menu support, many WordPress customization options and importable templates.
It is perfect for blogs, small businesses, startups, agencies, companies, e-commerce stores (WooCommerce storefronts) as well as personal portfolio sites and most types of projects.
Neve is compatible with Gutenberg and the most popular page builders (Elementor, Brzy, Beaver Builder, Visual Composer, SiteOrigin, Divi).Neve also supports WooCommerce.
Zakra
Loading time: 1.181 s
Size: 39 KB
HTTP request: 11
Zakra is ThemeGrill’s ultra-lightweight WP theme that can import 12 different templates. These templates include different areas such as cafes, spas, charities, yoga, weddings, dentists, education and more.
In addition to that, you can switch the colors and layout of your website using a lot of customization options. It is suitable for personal blogs, portfolios, WooCommerce stores, business websites and other niche websites. Works with Elementor and other major page builders, so you can create any layout you need.
The theme is fast responsive, Gutenberg compatible, SEO friendly, translatable and compatible with major WordPress plugins.
Writee
Loading time: 1.536 seconds
Size: 205 KB
HTTP request: 17
Writee is a lightweight wordpress theme created for writers or other creatives. It just provides you with a simple, clean design so you can focus on writing.
The theme is perfect for personal, food, travel, fashion, business or any of its blogs and websites. writee is fully responsive and mobile friendly.
Arke
Loading time: 0.957 s
Size: 20 KB
HTTP request: 6
Arke is a super minimalist WP theme that is one of the fastest free WordPress themes.
It’s pretty much just blank and text. No sidebars, no widgets, no settings.
If you are looking for a minimalist page, like a writer, this is a good choice.
bloggo
Loading time: 1.500 s
Size: 132 KB
HTTP requests: 15
Bloggo is another lightweight blogging theme, but it doesn’t look as minimalist, so if you don’t like the super minimalism of the Arke theme, consider this one.
You can also customize the look of this theme with many customization options if you want to make something yourself.
Primer
Loading time: 1.576 s
Size: 143 KB
HTTP request: 15
Primer is a free WordPress theme from GoDaddy.
It has a nice look and can be adapted to multiple uses.
Twenty Nineteen
Loading time: 1.376 s
Size: 69 KB
HTTP request: 9
Finally, our recommendation is the default WordPress theme for WordPress. In addition to actually looking good, this theme has some excellent performance indicators.
Twenty Nineteen also offers full compatibility with Gutenberg.
Conclusion
All of these free WordPress themes can be loaded quickly, so the performance of each theme should not be any problem. Let’s discuss which one is the best from the point of view of page design and usability.
If you want a versatile theme that can be used for almost anything, GeneratePress, Astra and OceanWP are three of the most popular options, and you’ll probably be happy with any of them. Of these three, GeneratePress and Astra are definitely the fastest, although OceanWP is still very optimized.
On top of that, Zakra and Neve offer you a lot of flexibility and provide ready-made demo site templates.
If you prefer blogging, you should check out Arke (ultra-minimalist), Writee (regular minimalist) or Bloggo (neat, but not so minimalist). Or, the default “Twenty Nineteen” theme is always a good blogging option as well.
Finally, GoDaddy’s Primer theme is also a good choice for simple business sites, but you can certainly use it for other purposes as well.
Of course, a good WordPress web hosting server is also essential if you want to improve the loading speed of your website, check out our best WordPress hosting recommendations.