When it comes to blogging with CMS platforms, WordPress stands at the top. While it has evolved to build any kind of website, at its core, blogging is still its specialty. And it is fully apparent when you take a look at all of the free blog themes available in WordPress.
There are free blog options for just about any niche including blogging. Regardless if you are building a blog about traveling, gaming, or politics, there are free themes that can help you get started.
In many cases, these themes feel like premium layouts with a variety of features for you to take advantage. Today, we will take a look at the 27 best free blog themes in WordPress.
1. Astra
Astra is the most popular theme in WordPress by a mile with its free version having well over 1 million downloads. And that’s because it offers a selection of great features that any kind of blog can take advantage of.
One of Astra’s best qualities is the library of starter websites it offers users. This library is divided into free and premium themes, so you’ll have to search out the free ones, but they are great and easily customizable with the free Elementor plugin.
Perhaps its strongest feature would be its own performance. Astra is extremely fast which makes it a great option for any website looking to climb the search engine rankings. With free demos for any niche, Astra is the ultimate free theme for any blog.
Benefits of Using Astra
- Create stunning archives to save old post content
- Seamless integration with WooCommerce
- Choose from hundreds of built-in Google Fonts
- Upload your logo throughout the theme
- The theme is translation ready with RTL support
2. ColorMag
ColorMag is easily one of the best themes to consider when building a blog in WordPress. It utilizes a magazine design that is perfect for showcasing news stories but can be customized to fit just about anything.
With the free version of this theme, you are limited when it comes to design options. Yet, there is enough to build a great website with, especially when you combine it with the right plugins. And you can even get a head start with demo sites.
While the selection of free demo sites is small, they still include a good selection to choose from for multiple niches. Overall ColorMag offers you a robust selection of tools for a free theme and has compatibility with all major plugins.
Benefits of Using ColorMag
- Excellent site performance ensures your pages load fast
- Demo content can be imported in a single click
- Create sticky menus to help with visitor navigation
- Customize the date of posts to make it seem like new content
- Show related posts to help keep visitors on the site
3. Twenty Twenty-Three
What if I told you that the default WordPress theme is one of the best free blog themes you can install? Well, it is and many users sleep on it.
Twenty Twenty-Three offers you a great selection of free customization options and features that are comparable to premium themes.
In terms of design, Twenty Twenty-Three offers a blank canvas that site owners can customize to fit their needs. It is perfect for showing off your blog content and its respective thumbnails. However, this year’s theme has a very unique feature.
It is actually the first block-based theme, which is likely to become the future of WordPress. It takes full advantage of the 6.1 core update to WordPress and allows you to easily customize global settings in seconds. It’s definitely worth using for any kind of blog.
Benefits of Using Twenty Twenty-Three
- This theme was built for WordPress by its own creators
- Choose from a variety of color schemes that can be changed on a global level
- Create a threaded comment section
- This theme is translation ready
- Includes access to multiple page layouts to fit any design
4. Hello Elementor
Elementor has built a reputation of being the best page-builder in WordPress and has even produced its own free theme. And it’s Hello Elementor, with over 1 million active installs.
This is a free multipurpose theme that was built to be used with Elementor. As such, you can build an awesome blog for any kind of niche, with any kind of header or page layout you can dream of.
It’s incredibly easy to do. Everything is built with an intuitive drag-and-drop editor that you can use to build pages without writing a line of code. It even has over 100 website kits that you can use to get a head start on your design.
Benefits of Using Hello Elementor
- Create unique header and footer areas
- Compatible with WooCommerce
- Built for speed with load times in just a quarter of a second
- Create post galleries to show off your latest content or for categories
- Everything you create is naturally responsive
5. OceanWP
When it comes to the best free themes to build a blog in WordPress, OceanWP should be one of the first to consider. It offers users a powerful and robust selection of customization tools that are ideal for building any website.
While it has a huge library of pre-made themes, most of them are not free, but you’ll still be able to choose from over 10 of them with one of them being tailor-made for blogging. It’s a perfect starting point for any blog.
Perhaps one of its best features would be its integration with Elementor, even the free version has exclusive Elementor widgets you can take advantage of for additional customization options.
Overall, OceanWP is a great option to choose no matter what you are building.
Benefits of Using OceanWP
- Control font and typography options on a global level
- Create custom top bars to include your favorite social media icons
- Integrates with most major plugins like Yoast SEO and WooCommerce
- Gain access to unparalleled support to answer all of your theme questions
- Easily insert your own logo anywhere on the website
6. Poseidon
Poseidon is one of the best free blog themes on WordPress. It offers users a spacious design with a white background that makes it easy for your blog thumbnails to stand out and get the attention they deserve.
It also brings a full-screen carousel to the table that you can use to show off your latest or most popular content. And it even includes social media icons that make it easy for visitors to share your content on their favorite platforms.
Perhaps one of the best features it brings to the table as a free theme is its extensive documentation. You’ll be able to easily answer all of your questions and even find tutorials on how to do things with the theme.
Benefits of Using Poseidon
- This theme is translation ready
- Free email support is available
- A large sidebar area that is great for displaying popular posts
- Excellent use of the white space to improve readability
- Excellent responsive design ensures that it looks great on any device
7. Neve
Neve is another powerhouse when it comes to free blog themes in WordPress. It offers a sleek modern design that is perfect for sharing your stories and it can be customized to fit just about any niche you could imagine.
It also includes several free blog templates that you can take advantage of and use as the base for your website. Each one is built with a specific niche in mind and you choose from over 10 of them.
Of course, you don’t need these templates, as it is compatible with just about every major page-builder plugin. As such, you can easily put together your own design or modify the templates with one.
Benefits of Using Neve
- Great performance with AMP support
- Translation ready with RTL support
- Includes a great selection of branding tools
- Fully responsive lightweight design provides an excellent appearance on mobile
- This theme is WooCommerce ready
8. Blocksy
Blocksy is another terrific free multipurpose theme that is perfect for building a blog. It has several WordPress templates that are perfect for building a blog and each one has a ton of customization options.
For instance, you’ll have access to a free header & footer builder that you can use to create your own custom areas. That said, you’ll also have access to 9 pre-made headers to choose from in case design isn’t your strong suit.
You’ll also be able to archive your old blog posts using one of five layout options. And you can even use WooCommerce to build an online shop to sell merch or products alongside your blog.
Benefits of Using Blocksy
- Choose from several free blogger templates
- Includes social media integration to help increase shareability
- Choose from several color schemes or create your own
- Build your site using multiple widget areas
- Utilize lazy loading to improve page loading
9. Hemingway
Hemingway was made for blogging and offers a two-column design that is perfect for sharing your stories with the world. It utilizes a clean modern design that lets your content stand out against the white background.
As such, your post thumbnails are more important than ever. It also sports a logo uploader to allow you to easily brand the website. It also comes with four post formats to choose from.
These include options like having an image or video appear at the top of the post. It also utilizes a parallax scrolling effect which can be used to great effect with the right background image. Hemmingway is definitely worth a try.
Benefits of Using Hemingway
- Offers support for both the Gutenberg and Classic editors
- Customize the size of the header image
- A simple setup lets you spend more time writing
- Make the accent color whatever you want
- Responsive design ensures it looks great on mobile devices
10. Hestia
Hestia is another wildly popular multipurpose theme that is perfect for building a blog in WordPress for free. And that is apparent right from installation as it has an excellent setup wizard to help you get started.
When it comes to customization options, you really don’t have any limitations. The theme provides a robust selection of tools you can use to customize every area of the theme.
On top of this, you’ll also be able to use any page-builder plugin you want, as it is compatible with most of them. As such, you can style your website to match any kind of blogging topic out there and even sell merch for it through WooCommerce.
Benefits of Using Hestia
- Easily create flat parallel sliders
- Translation ready with WPML support
- Responsive design ensures it looks great on any device
- Lightweight design and clean code ensure fast load times
- Make changes using the live theme customizer
11. Cenote
Cenote is another stunning free theme that is perfect for building a blog. It offers a clean modern design that gives your content the space it needs to stand out and improve readability. Combine that with its excellent performance and you really have something special.
When it comes to design, Cenote brings a lot to the table. You’ll be able to make global site changes for background colors and typography. There are also several header and footer areas to choose from.
You’ll even gain access to a “Scroll to the Top” button to help users navigate longer posts. It also allows developers to add hooks for additional features. Overall, Cenote is one of the best free themes to build a blog within WordPress.
Benefits of Using Cenote
- Support for all major page builder plugins
- Easily create post sliders to share your latest content or most popular pieces
- Includes easy ways to incorporate your social profiles
- Create sticky header menus to always be visible
- Includes post ribbon support
12. Hueman
If you’re looking to create a blog that utilizes a magazine style, look no further than the Hueman theme. This theme sports an excellent design that has resulted in a nearly perfect review score on the WordPress theme directory.
Choose between a full-width page layout or having sidebars on the left side, right side, or both sides. The sidebars are highly customizable with plenty of room for advertising. Best of all, there is no limit on the number of widgets you can add.
Of course, you also have the footer area. You can choose to use up to four columns to add all of the information and links you need. On top of this, you can easily manage and change colors through global settings.
Benefits of Using Hueman
- Easily add social links to your header and footer areas
- Choose from multiple layouts including boxed
- Responsive design ensures that images stay HD on any device
- Easily display related posts to users
- Easily limit the number of images on display
13. Ashe
Ashe is a stylish theme you can use to build a blog in WordPress. It has a load of customization options to choose from, which give you complete freedom over the appearance of your website.
Perhaps the standout feature would be the header section of the homepage which also contains a huge slider. This allows you to show off flashy images or links that lead to popular posts on your blog. Not to mention that there is an excellent selection of layout options.
Perhaps its most unique feature would be the promo boxes. This allows you to choose content and help it stand out or even just show off ads. It is similar to featured content, but a bit more effective. There is also a dedicated shop page you can use if you want to sell merch.
Benefits of Using Ashe
- Translation ready with RTL support
- Clean code ensures your website is SEO friendly
- Add images and wrap blog text around them
- Compatible with most popular plugins
- Responsive design ensures it looks good on any device
14. Zakra
Zakra is easily one of the best themes if you want to build a free blog in WordPress. It has a great selection of blog templates that you can use for free for a variety of site ideas. This includes blogs focused on health, restaurants, travel, and more.
Of course, it can be customized for any blogging niche with the help of the Elementor page builder. When combined with its natural customization options, Zakra allows you to build any kind of blog with no coding skills required.
It’s worth pointing out that Zakra is a multipurpose theme, thus it can be used for things beyond just blogging. For instance, it is fully compatible with WooCommerce, thus eCommerce options are certainly on the table.
Benefits of Using Zakra
- Easily configure color options to match your brand
- Translation ready with RTL support
- Add threaded comment support for a more engaging comment section
- Supports full-width page layouts
- Compatible with most major plugins
15. Spacious
Spacious is an excellent theme made for businesses. Its design is perfect for any business that wants to create a blog about its field, products, or just about anything else you can think of. Of course, with the right design tools, you can make a blog for any niche.
You can easily change the site colors to match your logo, and even upload your logo throughout the theme for better branding. There are also several starter sites you can install with a single click.
These are custom-made to fit niches for blogs like education, health, pets, mechanics, and much more. If you can think of it, there’s probably a starter site that can help you. And if not, you can use a page builder to make one yourself.
Benefits of Using Spacious
- Responsive design adapts your content automatically to fit any device
- Extensive documentation is available to help answer some of the most common questions
- Choose from a light or dark template skin
- Translation & RTL ready
- Includes multiple widget areas to customize
16. Vandana Lite
Are you looking to build a blog around coaching or entrepreneurship? If so, Vandana Lite is one of the best options available in WordPress. It has several homepage layouts to choose from that are beautifully designed.
In terms of design, you can easily configure the color pallet of your site and choose from over 900 Google Fonts. It also has a customizable notification bar that you can add a CTA to help with conversions.
Perhaps its best trait is the excellent performance your visitors will experience. This theme loads pages fast, and thanks to excellent responsive design, it looks great on any device.
Benefits of Using Vandana Lite
- Create a banner with a slider
- Utilizes a “Back to Top” button
- Translation ready with RTL support
- Create a section for your Instagram feed
- Easily add custom CSS to further control the design of your website
17. Blossom Recipe
Finding great recipes and reviews for the new restaurant in town is a surefire way to find success online. And if your goal is to make a restaurant or foodie blog, then there is no better option than the Blossom Recipe theme.
If you plan on sharing recipes, you can rest easy as this theme is fully compatible with the Delicious Recipes plugin. With it, you can create step-by-step recipes that users can follow at home. It also has social media integration to help share these recipes online.
In terms of design, it has a stylish modern layout with a lot of room to show off images, which is perfect for creating tasty thumbnails. You’ll also have a lot of options when it comes to choosing a font with over 900 Google Fonts to choose from.
Benefits of Using Blossom Recipe
- Excellent responsive design ensures it looks good on any device
- Create a slider to show off your best dishes
- Integrates with Instagram to show off your food dishes on other platforms
- Easily upload your own logo to the theme for better branding options
- Utilize a pagination page style
18. Olsen Light
Lifestyle blogs are incredibly popular. They allow the writer to show off their lifestyle from their daily routine to what traveling is like for them. Olsen Light is one of the best free blog themes to build within WordPress.
Perhaps its best aspect would be its ease of use. Olsen Light is incredibly easy to use and highly customizable, which makes it ideal for beginners creating their first lifestyle blog. That said, it can be customized to fit other niches, so there’s plenty of room to innovate.
You can take this to the next level by using the Elementor page builder. In terms of design, the theme sports a minimalistic appearance that uses a white background to allow your content to stand out.
Benefits of Using Olsen Light
- Create an Instagram carousel to show off your feed
- Includes social icons to help increase shareability
- Translation ready with RTL support
- Includes multiple blog designs including a two-column design
- Includes a slider for your homepage to show off your most recent content
19. Editorial Gaming
Did you know that the video game industry is larger than both the movie and music industries combined? As such, there are a lot of blogs dedicated to gaming, and Editorial Gaming is easily one of the best free themes to build a gaming blog within WordPress.
It is built with a magazine style that is perfect for delivering gaming news or game updates when a new patch goes live. It even includes a variety of widgets that complement the magazine style.
You’ll also have no shortage of customization options, which makes it easy to match a game aesthetic or create your own using the built-in tools. Overall, it is a terrific theme for any site looking to capitalize on the popularity of gaming.
Benefits of Using Editorial Gaming
- Create dynamic colors for each category
- Great support to help troubleshoot problems
- Responsive design ensures it looks great on any kind of device
- Easily change site colors in just a few clicks
- Live Customizer allows you to see changes before they appear on your site
20. Sports Club Lite
Sports coverage comes in many forms, and blogging is absolutely one of them. Regardless of what sport you cover, there is absolutely an audience waiting to hear your take. You can build one today with the Sports Club Lite theme.
The theme was built to fit any type of sports or athletic content. It is perfect for blogging and also has a magazine-style interface, which is perfect for displaying the latest stories in your field.
In terms of design, the theme is quite stylish with the home page sporting a full-width slider. This can help you show off your biggest stories or the latest news. And yes, there are social media icons to help make it easier for your content to be shared.
Benefits of Using Sports Club Lite
- The footer area is widgetized and supports up to four columns
- Compatible with WooCommerce to sell sports memorabilia
- Excellent search engine optimization ensures high rankings
- Easily upload your own logo and icons
- Support forums are available to help you solve any problems
21. Lovecraft
Lovecraft is another stunning theme to blog on that utilizes a two-column design. It’s perfect for long-form or short-form blogging with a lot of design options that allow it to fit into specific niches.
This is better achieved by pairing the theme with a page-building plugin. Its best feature would probably be the full-width image header. It is replaced with the post thumbnail for Individual posts.
In terms of features, Lovecraft is fully compatible with Jetpack. As a result, you can easily add infinite scroll to your posts to help keep feeding content to your loyal readers. Not to mention all of the other features available in Jetpack.
Benefits of Using Lovecraft
- The minimalist design helps show off images and long-form content
- Create a tiled masonry grid using Jetpack
- In just a few clicks, upload your logo throughout your site
- Add custom-colored accents
- Supports both Gutenberg and the Classic editors
22. Gym Fitness WP
Staying fit and losing weight has been a popular topic since the dawn of the internet. Thus, there are literally hundreds of fitness-related blogs with huge audiences. You can find your audience today by building with the Gym Fitness WP theme.
This theme provides an excellent foundation for any fitness blog with excellent customization options. It provides a huge header image slot that you can fill with your physique or others that have followed the workout regime.
Of course, working out is only part of the battle. It also has a lot of features that are suited for nutrition blogs that go hand in hand with your exercise routines. As such, it provides the perfect setting to really make a fantastic platform for everything related to staying fit.
Benefits of Using Gym Fitness WP
- Translation ready
- Responsive design compatible with HTML5
- Includes access to a slider to show off your best posts
- Set up a shop to sell merch with WooCommerce
- Display testimonials from customers or followers
23. GuCherry Blog
GuCherry is a multipurpose blogging theme. It has the tools necessary to build any kind of design to fit your blogging. The base design uses a minimalistic approach to let your content stand out.
It excels at having images front and center, which makes it a great choice for fashion, food, and lifestyle blogs where images are key. It also has a lot of room for advertisements which can help you earn more from your posts.
You’ll also have a lot of great blogging tools like displaying related posts, showing social icons, and even a dedicated widget to display your Instagram feed with. And that’s really just scratching the surface of what this theme brings to the table for free.
Benefits of Using GuCherry
- Provides free customer support to answer any questions
- Excellent responsive design
- Easily works with Google AdSense
- Control the length of your excerpts
- Translation ready with RTL support
24. Masonic
Masonic is another excellent choice for building any kind of blog that will rely heavily on images. This is because it utilizes a masonry layout to showcase your post thumbnails for maximum effect.
Customization is incredibly easy with several ways to control the colors and fonts that appear throughout your website. And if you have the knowledge, you can easily insert custom CSS to further control the design.
And if this sounds like a lot, let me assure you that this is only the beginning, as it is also compatible with most major page builders like Elementor, Beaver Builder, and SiteOrigin. Masonic is highly customizable, to say the least.
Benefits of Using Masonic
- Supports threaded comments
- Easily embed videos to your post content, or even use the video as the thumbnail
- Import the demo content in a single click
- Clean code ensures fast load times
- Translation ready with RTL support
25. Author
Author offers one of the most attractive designs on this list with excellent contrast between the light and dark site elements. It helps make all of your site content stand out and provides a lot of great design elements.
For instance, you can easily add an image of the main blogger, or alternatively use this slot to display a company logo. It also has plenty of room to display social icons. And it’s even compatible with WooCommerce.
Of course, all of these features are responsive in design and readers will get excellent load times. This helps prevent losing users when a page takes too long to load. Overall, Author is an excellent theme to use.
Benefits of Using Author
- Use Elementor to expand your design options
- Get same-day support to help with any theme-related issues
- Easily display your most recent posts on the sidebar
- Display excerpts below post thumbnails
- This theme provides tutorials to help you get started
26. Tracks
Tracks offers a unique design when compared to other entries on this list. Many of the themes we have looked at so far focused on a much lighter design that used a whiter background, but this one goes in the opposite direction with darker colors.
It has plenty of room to show off post thumbnails and room for short excerpts, of which you can control the size. You can also use custom CSS to control what appears when posts do not have a thumbnail.
As is standard for most themes, but important to point out, you can easily add social icons for all of your favorite platforms in a dedicated area.
Overall, if you are looking for a more unique design to stand out with, Tracks is worth consideration.
Benefits of Using Tracks
- When users hover over images they can see a zoom-in effect
- Highly customizable footer area
- Choose from over 50 social media icons
- Gain more control over your comments section with threaded comments
- Translation ready
27. Radiate
Closing out this list of the best free themes to build a blog with is the fabulous Radiate theme. It offers users a clean design for image-heavy blogs, which is apparent by the large header image size.
It utilizes a grid layout that is perfect for showing off thumbnails and small excerpts from the post. You can also easily customize the menu and even add social media icons to it to improve shareability.
In terms of customization, you have a good number of options to choose from by using the live customizer. You can also add your own custom CSS for more unique options. Overall, Radiate is an excellent theme for any kind of blog.
Benefits of Using Radiate
- Add the “Read More” button to post excerpts
- Choose from multiple post layouts
- Easily add your own custom colors to match your brand
- The Parallex header appears interactive to users
- Get free support to answer any theme-related questions
Build Your WordPress Blog With These Free Themes
As you can see, WordPress has an impressive selection of free themes that are perfect for building blogs. Many even include demo sites that are ready to use and don’t require any coding whatsoever to fully utilize.
This makes WordPress the best place to build a blog if you are just starting out. And while some of the free themes lack advanced customization options on their own, this can easily be made up for by installing a page-building plugin like Elementor.
Remember the hardest step in building a blog is getting started, so don’t waste another moment.
What are the most important features you look for in a WordPress theme? Do you think free themes provide enough customization options?