The 10 Best WordPress Themes in 2025 (Free & Premium)

Website creators who use WordPress recognize its position as the prevailing solution to build outstanding, easy-to-use websites. Selecting the appropriate theme is vital because it determines website speed and SEO capabilities and enables smooth usability.

According to professional WordPress developers, the speed of a theme, together with its coding quality, determines website speed and user experience, as well as search engine ranking positions. A lightweight WordPress theme improves Core Web Vital’s performance, which leads to better positions in Google search results, according to WordPress Rocket sources.

That’s why choosing a template that meets your expectations aesthetically and exceeds the user’s expectations functionally becomes critical. So, let’s look at the top ten finest WordPress themes designed to let you outpace competitors in the upcoming 2025 trends.

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The Best Free & Premium WordPress Themes for 2025

As an expert WordPress development company, here are our preferred free and premium WordPress themes that one can use for building their websites:

1. Astra (Free & Premium)

Being a lightweight and SEO-optimized theme, Astra is one of the most frequently used WordPress themes with the ability to work flawlessly with Elementor and Beaver Builder. If WP Rocket users switched from their previous theme to Astra, their pages loaded 40% faster, according to a study.

• Its speed score is 100% on Google PageSpeed Insights
• Astra is ideal for business websites, blogs, and almost all WooCommerce stores
• It’s available free with a premium upgrade starting from $47/year

It is great for both new and experienced users as it is fast, flexible, and provides a multitude of options to make your website look just right for your brand. It supports pre-made designs that can help you get started with the basic layout, and you can tweak the elements, pretty much everything, to make it aligned as per your brand.

2. GeneratePress (Free & Premium)

Another ultra-light theme for customizing and loading speeds is the GeneratePress theme.

• Another ultra-light theme for customizing and loading speeds is the GeneratePress theme.
• The Google PageSpeed Insights report shows a speed score of 99%.
• It can be used for performance-focused websites and agencies
• It’s pricing is free with a premium version at $59/year

GeneratePress is a suitable theme if you want a fast website. The theme is super-speedy which makes it perfect if you want a website with a loading speed just like a flash. It is simple but provides you the complete control of changing its looks and feels. Professional WordPress developers prefer to work with this theme because it starts with a clean and simple design, and you can build up on it to create a website of your vision. Its no-code builder allows you to modify the layout and aesthetic without coding, and if you are familiar with CSS, then you can add your custom styles as well by tweaking the code.

3. OceanWP (Free & Premium)

• With OceanWP, WooCommerce sites come with built-in eCommerce functionalities.
• With a 95% score on Google PageSpeed Insights reports, OceanWP is considered a powerful multipurpose theme.
• It’s beneficial for WooCommerce stores and general business websites
• Cost varies from getting it free with a premium extension starting at $54/year

This theme works seamlessly with the WordPress eCommerce plugin, WooCommerce. It provides different options for shop layouts and product page designs to make your online store look professional. While OceanWP is a suitable option for creating an eCommerce website, you can build any type of website with this theme. Whether you are aiming for a blogging website or a portfolio, the possibilities are limitless. OceanWP works perfectly with page builders like Elementor, Beaver Builder, and Visual Composer.

4. Kadence (Free & Premium)

Kadence is a rising star that, besides having good design flexibility, includes a fully drag-and-drop header/footer builder that is very easy to use.

• The Google PageSpeed Insights speed score is 98%.
• It’s best for beginners and professional designers.
• Its pricing is free, with a premium of $79/year.

Kadence is a lightweight but full-featured WordPress theme. The multi-purpose library supports different themes that help deploy a variety of websites. As a white-label WordPress development company, there is a learning curve associated with implementing advanced features. Still, its high customizability makes it easier to build your envisioned website, from a simple blog to a complex eCommerce store. It supports a global color palette and works seamlessly with Gutenberg and page builders.

5. Neve (Free & Premium)

The future of WordPress website design is inclined towards innovation, user-friendly, and mobile responsiveness. Neve is an amazing AMP-compatible theme with speed as their main priority.

• Neve is an amazing AMP-compatible theme with speed as their main priority.
• Neve has a Google PageSpeed Insights Speed Score of 99%
• It’s best suited for Startups, small businesses, and bloggers
• Its pricing is free from onwards at $69/year.

Neve is suitable for building fast and mobile-optimized websites. It is designed with a mobile-first approach, ensuring that your website runs seamlessly across all devices and adapts as per the screen size. It also offers a flexible customization experience with a drag-and-drop builder to modify the page design as per your requirements.

6. Divi (Premium)

One that stands out is Divi by Elegant Themes, which offers a true-time visual editor and continues to be one of the most versatile and visually appealing themes even to date.

• The Google PageSpeed Insights Score of Divi is 90%
• It’s beneficial for designers and agencies
• The pricing varies as $89/year or a one-time fee of $249

Divi is a powerful theme, thanks to its visual page builder. Introduced by Elegant Themes, it is the first WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) in WordPress. It gives flexibility and freedom to users to build anything visually using the Divi framework using the no-code builder. The best part? You don’t have to install or configure any plugins to bring in additional features.

7. Avada (Premium)

Avada is the best-selling theme on ThemeForest that can be customized to the maximum and comes with a great intuitive Fusion Builder.

• The Google PageSpeed Insights score of Avada is 92%.
• It’s best suited for corporate websites, agencies, and eCommerce
• The price is $69 as a one-time fee

The Fusion Builder allows you to create column layouts with responsive containers and design elements like headlines, images, text blocks, and sliders. Avada has a user-friendly interface that allows developers to build websites using drag-and-drop functionality. It is easy to understand, and the Fusion Builder simplifies theme customization.

Besides, a WordPress SEO company can provide insights into optimizing your website in terms of on-site, off-site, and technical aspects to boost its potential to rank high on search engine result pages (SERPs).

8. Salient (Premium)

Visually stunning Salient is a theme especially suited for creatives and portfolio websites.

• The Speed Score is 91% on Google PageSpeed Insights.
• Portfolio websites and creative agencies can make use of Salient and reap its advantages to the fullest.
• The pricing states $60 as a one-time fee.

This theme offers access to over 440 professional themes. It is built on the WPBakery page builder as a base and added some additional features to make it more functional. For instance, frontend and backend editors, set unique option values based on screen size, sidebar and modal editing layout options, tree-list element view, and reusable global sections.

9. Hestia (Free & Premium)

Hestia is a minimal and elegant one-page theme that works well for startups and professionals.

• At Google PageSpeed Insight, the Speed Score is 97%
• Startups and professional portfolios prefer Hestia for highlighting their USPs.
• It comes with free pricing and, later, a premium of $69/year.

Hestia is a sleek and versatile theme designed to tackle different web designing problems, like optimized performance, responsive layouts, and integration with popular page builders. It suitable for start-ups and small businesses aiming to design portfolios and landing pages. It emphazies modern aesthetics with a focus on speed and usability. However, the one-page design may not be suitable to all website types.

10. Soledad (Premium)

Designed for bloggers and magazine-style websites, Soledad is a powerful theme with over 6,800 homepage demos and 200+ pre-built websites.

• Google PageSpeed Insights gives us a score of 94% on speed.
• It’s best suited for bloggers and news websites
• The pricing is $59 as a one-time fee.

Soledad is a multi-purpose theme that comes with high-end features to suit a wide range of web designing use cases, like a blogging website or a classic brand website. It is bundled with a visual page builder and an advanced theme options panel, so you can get all the necessary tools to create engaging websites. It is compatible with live page builders, like Elementor, and you can visualize the changes in real-time as you modify your website.

Why Choosing the Right WordPress Theme Matters

As a professional WordPress development company, an ideal WordPress theme should strike a balance between being well-optimized, reliable, and aesthetically pleasing. A visually stunning website without proper optimization will struggle to rank on SERPs. Here are some reasons why you should think about choosing the right WordPress theme:

1. Sets the tone of your brand: The right WordPress theme should align with your brand identity because it is the first interaction with your potential customers. Remember, the first impression is the last impression, so you should do your best to make it your best.
2. Impact website performance: Not all WordPress themes are created equal; some themes are bloated with unnecessary features that decrease the load speed. 83% of users expect the website to load within 3 seconds, so you cannot take a chance with unoptimized themes. Go for the lightweight and well-coded theme.
3. Customization flexibility: A good WordPress theme has room for flexible customization. Try to find themes that are compatible with popular page builders, offer various layout options, and provide customization tools.
4. Rich user experience: The WordPress theme that you choose should prioritize user experience. From being mobile responsive to intuitive and frictionless navigation, it is best not to compromise in terms of user experience while going with a WordPress theme.

The Bottom Line

In 2025, no theme is best for everyone, as it depends on the needs you have, be it for performance optimization, aesthetics, eCommerce functionality, etc. Some businesses focus on speed and SEO-friendly factors and use lightweight themes such as Astra or GeneratePress.

As a WordPress SEO company, we say that the SEO aspect needs to be prioritized regardless of the business, industry, or website type. After all, it will help the search engines to crawl your website and index it on SERPs.

In contrast, some other businesses look for customizability features (as in Avada or Divi). An online store owner might need to obtain our WooCommerce compatibility and product display features; hence, OceanWP or Neve might be a better fit.

With added features such as mobile responsiveness and accessibility, and also the integration of recently developed techs such as AI-driven design tools, being otherwise competitive is no longer possible.

Finally, selecting a WordPress theme in 2025 involves choosing the perfect balance of aesthetics, functionality, and specific business objectives. Buying a future-proof theme ensures your website will always be future-proof, able to change with the trends that arise in the digital world, keeping you ahead of the game.