Looking for the best & most popular WordPress themes? You may always be confused about where to start.
Why Trust Codeless.co?
As Power Elite WordPress Theme authors ourselves, we have the experience to help you choose the best theme for your needs.
Our process includes these measurements:
- Design
- Code Quality
- Features
- Speed
- Customizability
- Customer Support
We have reviewed in detail how the themes were developed and designed and also tested their speed from the same Hosting provider with Pingdom online tool. Each theme was chosen for being different from the others.
Here is a short list of the best WordPress themes for 2023
- Specular – Best for Customizability (Featured)
- Divi – Most Popular WordPress Theme
- Astra – Fastest WordPress Theme
- Avada – Best for Customer Support
- Uncode – Best with Minimal Design
- Phlox – Best Elementor Theme
- Newspaper – Best for News Websites
- Kalium – Best Portfolio Theme
- Neve – Best Gutenberg Theme
- Remake – Best for Photography Websites
Top 10 Best and Most Popular WordPress Themes of 2023
We have handpicked the 10 most popular and best WordPress themes of 2023. The best part of this article is that all the featured themes are flexible and multipurpose. You can simply go through the comparison table and decide for yourself the best theme among the rest.
| Theme | Load Time (Pingdom) | Theme rating | Cost | Best suitable for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Specular | 378ms | 4.9/5 | $59 – one-time fee | Customizability |
| Astra | 308ms | 4.8/5 | $59 – yearly | Fast websites |
| Phlox | 733ms | 4.7/5 | $49- one-time fee | Elementor Users |
| Uncode | 720ms | 4.6/5 | $50 – one-time fee | Minimal Design |
| Divi | 621ms | 4.6/5 | $89/y – yearly | Multipurpose |
| Newspaper | 302ms | 4.5/5 | $59 – one-time fee | Magazines and newspapers |
| Kalium | 381ms | 4.5/5 | $59 – one-time fee | Portfolio |
| Avada | 492ms | 4.7/5 | $60 – one-time fee | Customer Support |
| Remake | 481ms | 4.9/5 | $59 – one-time fee | Photography |
1. Specular
Best for Customizability
Specular is highly customizable & one of the most popular themes for WordPress. It is multipurpose and has 33+ demos installation at one 1-click. It is also suitable for restaurants, portfolios, medicine, magazine, minimal, shop, and agencies.
The theme is sold on Themeforest and received a lot of 5 stars from more than 7000+ customers.
It offers multipurpose possibilities for outstanding websites. Useful and active demos for your project are only $59 away. Custom sliders are also available plus free Slider-templates plugins with 100 free Revolution Sliders Included.
Specular is the first WordPress theme on the market which lets users customize and test the theme before purchasing it.
Design – 4/5
Comes with 33+ demos that can cover any type of website design. You can find demos about Business, Finance, Minimal, and Portfolio. Also, new demos are constantly updated to fulfill any customer's needs
Customizability: 5/5
Speed: Pingdom – 378ms (Load Time) and 89 Performance Grade
Support: The ticket response time of Specular is about 30 minutes during the operating hours
Pre-built Templates: 33
Page Builders: WpBakery Visual Composer, Elementor, Gutenberg
Theme Options: Customizer, Redux
Last Update: 19 July 2022
Themforest User Rating: 4.41/5
Pros
- Multipurpose
- Numerous options for customization
- WooCommerce support
- Several sliders built-in
Cons
- Hidden visual composer under the menu
- Selecting from a number of customization options is mostly overwhelming.
- Unable to create custom post
2. Divi
The most popular WordPress Theme
It is one of the most popular WordPress page builders due to the huge marketing campaigns Elegant Themes company run. A lot of web designers are fans of this theme because its flexibility and 200+ premade designs which are highly customizable and user-friendly.
It offers hundreds of layouts with content importers just a click away. It also includes templates for page building in different business niches.
There are more than 18 pre-set layouts that help in quickly posting the content. It is highly responsive and is easily resizable for any type of screen or operating system. You can check out our deep Divi theme review for more. Are you in trouble choosing between Divi and Elementor?
This is one of the best all-in-one themes in the market with a lot of templates and plugins. What i dislike is the fact the theme works only with their Divi Page Builder.
Design – 3/5
The style of the theme is overall good but not excellent a lot of templates are pretty basic without a lot of design elements.
Customizability: 3/5 not possible usage of other page builders
Speed: Pingdom – 621ms (Load Time) and 95 Performance Grade
Support: The support response time of Divi is about 30 minutes in the operating hours
Pre-Built Templates: 200
Page Builders: Divi Page Builder
Theme Options: Divi Theme Options which is user friendly and with a lot of options for customization
Last Update: N/A
Pros
- Hundreds of templates
- Fast loading
- Use drag and drop tool
- Design consistency
Cons
- Sometimes it is Glitchy
- Website breaks during updating
Read more on our comparison Divi vs Elementor.
3. Astra
Fastest WordPress Theme
Astra is one of the most modern and fastest WordPress themes. It is easy to use with the Elementor page builder. There are several initial templates that are helpful in launching the website. Also, this is one of the most downloaded free themes on the WordPress directory.
It has hundreds of amazing features such as custom widgets, separate layouts for blogs, color options, Google Fonts, multiple choice of layouts, mega menu, and page headers.
Design 4/5:
Clean design for simple websites, ideal for business and blogs recently they have also added more creative templates but their design isn't comparable to a Themeforest theme.
Speed: Pingdom – 308ms (Load Time) and 98 score performance
Support: The ticket response time of Astra measured on the WordPress Support forum is about 6-7 hours.
Pre-built Templates: 180
Page Builders: Elementor, Gutenberg
Theme Options: Customizer, Redux
Last Update: 12 January 2023
WordPress User Rating: 4.9/5
Pros
- Availability of free version
- SEO-optimized, fast, eCommerce-ready, and translation supportive
- Demos are pre-built
Cons
- Support response is slow
4. Avada
Best for Customer Support
It’s a top-selling theme in the Themeforest marketplace. The theme provides a complete solution for diverse fields of business with its reliability. It ranks highest among its competitors due to its built-in predefined templates, and simple business design style.
The in-house page builder called Fusion was designed lately after years of working with WpBakery Visual page builder. Avada is swiss-knife as it is called by Envato founder Collis Ta'eed.
You can practically build anything, sometimes with all the options it can be overwhelming but their super responsive support made it one of the best themes on the market.
Design 3/5:
Avada was the first multipurpose theme that introduced the general business design which changed the whole market. This general design let the theme to use on any kind of website but without a lot of design details. If you want a creative and unique website Avada is not for you.
Speed: Pingdom – 308ms (Load Time) and 98 score performance
Support: The ticket response time of Astra measured on the WordPress Support forum is about 6-7 hours.
Pre-built Templates: 91
Page Builders: Fusion Builder
Theme Options: Customizer, Redux
Last Update: 12 January 2023
WordPress User Rating: 4.9/5
Pros
- Several options of customization
- Multiple pre-built demos, layouts, and design elements
- Integrated with the theme builder
Cons
- Support is for a limited period i.e. 6 months
- It is different from other page builders so it requires learning
5. Uncode
The best minimal design
It is a premium WordPress theme that offers beautiful and neat designs. It offers amazing features and a huge library with elements. It is highly customization with a modified version of WPbakery Visual Composer.
It emphasizes the professional representation of business, legibility, and brand building. Modern design and minimal at the point you can use it for a business website or simple portfolio.
Design 5/5
This is one of my preferred theme designs because of it its simplicity and pixel-perfect design. The authors are experienced designers from Italy. Uncode comes with an amazing UX and UI. If you are searching for an agency or portfolio theme I highly recommend it.
Speed: Pingdom – 720ms (Load Time) and 89 score performance. Not the best on the list but acceptable
Support: The ticket response time of Uncode measured on the Themeforest comments is about 24 hours.
Pre-built Templates: 70
Page Builders: WpBakery Visual Composer (Modified)
Theme Options: Customizer, Redux
Last Update: 13 December 2022
Themeforest User Rating: 4.89/5
Pros
- Includes premium plugins
- Visually presentable
- Optimized for high performance
- Highly customizable
- SEO optimized
Cons
- Only their Wpbakery Bakery Modified Page builder is supported
- The addition of different fonts in varied sections is a complicated process.
Discover more Minimal WordPress Themes
6. Phlox
Best Elementor WordPress Theme
Phlox is one of the best multipurpose themes in terms of design, especially for Elementor. It is on its official recommended themes list.
The theme has more than 150 complete website templates which you can simply import with one 1-click and used to have a beautiful website with ease. It is truly a multipurpose theme that covers almost all areas such as, Business, Shop, Agency, Consulting, Portfolio, Blog, magazine, Restaurants, Barber, Beauty, and a lot more.
Design:4/5
Overall a good design with a lot of demos and effects. Sometimes there are some elements of the design like big fonts, too many colors, or some extra animation effects that can make it difficult to implement on a real website. Anyway, there are 200+ pre-built templates that make it easier to find something that can fit.
Speed: Pingdom – 733ms (Load Time) and 92 Performance Grade. Too many assets are loaded this can make the website a little slower but acceptable.
Support: The ticket response time measured on the Themeforest comments is about 24 hours.
Pre-built Templates: 200
Page Builders: Elementor
Theme Options: Customizer
Last Update: 10 November 2022
Themeforest User Rating: 4.66/5
Pros
- 200+ Website templates
- Templates are complete and have multiple pages
- Elementor Page builder
- Fancy animation and nice parallax
Cons
- Lots of options
- Slow
- Customer support is valid for 6 months only
7. Newspaper
Best for news websites
It is the best theme for newspapers and magazines for WordPress. It supports Google AdSense, Google Ads, WooCommerce, BuddyPress, bbPress Forum, and Youtube videos. Various prebuilt layouts are also available.
This theme is optimized to be fast, readable, and clean and authors have added an infinite number of features that are needed for an online newspaper or magazine.
Design:3/5
Perfect for Newspapers, magazines, and blogs, and sometimes I have even seen it used on Institutional or NGO websites. This theme for what is created can't be 5/5 but in its category is simply the best.
Speed: Pingdom – 630ms (Load Time) and 100 Performance grade. It is fast and also it shows one of the lowest TTFB values of 376ms. This makes it a very good theme for search engines.
Support: The ticket response time measured on the Themeforest comments is about 6-7 hours.
Pre-built Templates:120
Page Builders: Elementor
Theme Options: Customizer
Last Update: 9 January 2023
Themeforest User Rating: 4.82/5
Pros
- Supports Google AdSense
- Good Documentation
- Responsive and modern templates
- SEO optimized
- Fast in performance
- Live customization
- Drag and drop editor for page building
Cons
- Does not support RTL
- Multiple features are overwhelming
- Technical knowledge is required for this theme
8. Kalium
Best for portfolio
Kalium is one of the best portfolio premium WordPress themes.
There are over 38000+ licenses sold by Kalium. It is highly suitable for creatives, businesses, agencies, professionals as well as beginners. Moreover, Kalium is a constantly updated, visually stunning, and well-organized theme.
Design 5/5
The theme is built to be minimal with a clean design that is ideal for portfolio and agency websites. Pixel-perfect design and perfect for those who want their showcase to be a dominant part of their website instead of the website design. Their designer and developers from Kosovo had made incredible work.
Speed: Pingdom – 381ms (Load Time) and 90 score performance. It is a fast and lightweight theme.
Support: The ticket response time measured on the Themeforest comments is about 24 hours.
Pre-built Templates: 25
Page Builders: Elementor, WpBakery
Theme Options: Customizer, Redux
Last Update: 8 November 2022
Themeforest User Rating: 4.95/5
Pros:
- Fast
- Customizable
- Free Life Time Updates
- 6 Months of Free Support
Cons:
- A lot of options can be confusing
- A limited number of pre-built templates
9. Neve
Best Theme for Gutenberg
Neve is a free theme and is very known in the WordPress community. The theme was created by Themeisle and they update it regularly. Neve comes also with a premium version that is purchased with a yearly subscription. It has no bugs, is fast have great support.
The theme works with Gutenberg and Elementor page builders and comes with simple demos for each need.
Design 3/5:
You can find templates for any needs but the design is pretty basic and without any design elements that made it different from other themes.
Speed: Pingdom – 329ms (Response Time) and 97 score performance. It is a fast and lightweight theme.
Support: The ticket response time measured on the WordPress.org comments is about 6 hours.
Pre-built Templates: 120
Page Builders: Elementor, WpBakery,
Theme Options: Customizer, Redux
Last Update: 9 January 2023
Themeforest User Rating: 4.95/5
Pros:
- Gutenberg Compatibility
- Fast WordPress Theme
- Free Version Available
Cons:
- The free version is too basic
- Design can be improved
10. Remake
Best for photography websites
Remake is one of the best themes of our portfolio, it was built with the latest design trends so in case you want to build a super creative website or photography you have found the best theme. The sliders and the layouts are very unique, you will not find something similar in other WordPress themes.
It is easy to use because everything is created with Elementor and predefined options. It is not the most customizable theme out there but you have to sacrifice that in exchange for this amazing design.
Design 5/5
The design was inspired directly by WWWAwards nominees and winners so the styling and the concept are minimalistic and brutal. We have put a lot of effort into coding this theme to make it pixel-perfect and every transition, effect, or slider looks smooth. The theme is perfect for creative photographers and artists.
Speed: Pingdom – 481ms (Load Time) and 90 Performance Grade.
Support: The ticket response time measured on the open support is about 30 minutes.
Pre-built Templates: 10
Page Builders: Elementor
Theme Options: Customizer
Last Update: 10 January 2023
Themeforest User Rating: 4.48/5
Pros:
- Creative
- Fast theme
- Easy to use
- Perfect for portfolio and photography
Cons:
- It can be used only with Elementor
Want to Learn More?
Still not sure which WordPress theme to choose? Check out some of our top collections below:
Comments
Thanks for sharing this article. These WordPress Theme listings are well. Personally, I prefer Divi and Avada WordPress themes from this list. Avada Theme is the Bestselling MultiPurpose WordPress Theme in the World. These theme functions are awesome.
NIce and useful blog. It also help me to know about wordpress theme for writing content in my blog. Thanks for sharing this valuable information.