Searching for the best free, responsive, even SEO friendly, WordPress themes?
The beautiful thing about the WordPress community is that you don’t necessarily need to crack open your wallet just to get a quality theme for your site.
There are a huge number of free WordPress themes that are just as flexible, secure, and optimized as their premium theme counterparts.
In this post, we’ve collected some of the best free responsive themes for any niche, from small business sites to blogs, portfolios, and lots more.
As an added bonus, many of these themes have dedicated Elementor integrations or pre-built demo sites made with Elementor, though you certainly don’t need to be an Elementor user to get value from this list.
Let’s jump right into the themes…
Table of Contents
- 20 Best Free Responsive WordPress Themes in 2020
- 1. Elementor Hello
- 2. Astra
- 3. GeneratePress
- 4. OceanWP
- 5. Business Point
- 6. Neve
- 7. Zakra
- 8. Go
- 9. Sydney
- 10. Rife
- 11. Hestia
- 12. Blocksy
- 13. Ashe
- 14. Phlox
- 15. Airi
- 16. Writee
- 17. ColorMag
- 18. Woostify
- 19. Colibri
- 20. Page Builder Framework
20 Best Free Responsive WordPress Themes in 2020
1. Elementor Hello
Elementor Hello is a lightweight theme that’s designed to pair with Elementor, or any other WordPress landing page builder plugin.
Essentially, Elementor Hello sets you up with the absolute bare minimum needed to run a WordPress site. From there, you can build out your site’s design using the free version of Elementor or Elementor Pro Theme Builder.
If you’re already planning to use a landing page builder to design your site, this is beneficial because it’s going to set your site up to load quickly, which is essential on the modern web.
However, if you’re not going to use a landing page builder plugin, Elementor Hello is probably not for you.
2. Astra
Astra is a flexible, but lightweight, free multipurpose WordPress theme. One of the most notable things about Astra is its 45+ free importable demo sites that are built with Elementor for easy customization. You’ll also find a smaller number of demo sites built with the native WordPress block editor, as well as some other page builder plugins.
At under 50 KB, Astra will set you up with a quick-loading foundation. But at the same time, it doesn’t skimp on flexibility and you’ll find detailed settings in the real-time WordPress Customizer to control how your site looks.
You’ll also get page-level controls to control the layout of each post and page, which is great if you’re pairing it with a page builder because you can control the canvas for your page builder designs.
Finally, Astra offers built-in compatibility with WooCommerce, as well as WordPress LMS plugins like LearnDash and LifterLMS.
WordPress.org Link | Demo Sites
3. GeneratePress
GeneratePress is one of the fastest free WordPress themes that you’ll encounter. Like Astra, it manages to achieve that while still offering you tons of customization options in the real-time WordPress Customizer.
GeneratePress is a multipurpose theme and also comes with WooCommerce compatibility. It does offer importable demo sites built with Elementor and other builders, but those demo sites are, unfortunately, only available in the premium version.
Like Astra, you also get detailed page-level layout controls, which makes GeneratePress a great option to pair with Elementor.
WordPress.org Link | Demo Sites
4. OceanWP
OceanWP is another popular free WordPress theme with responsive design, in the same vein as Astra and GeneratePress.
One notable difference between it and those two themes is that it focuses a little bit more on style and features, but not quite as much on performance. OceanWP is still more lightweight than your average theme, but it’s not as optimized as Astra or GeneratePress.
To customize your site, you’ll get detailed options in the WordPress Customizer as well as a number of free extensions to add sticky content, modal popups, social share buttons, and more.
OceanWP also offers 13 free importable demo sites, all of which are built with Elementor.
WordPress.org Link | Demo Sites
5. Business Point
Business Point is a free responsive business theme from ProDesigns. The importable demo content can help you quickly set up a homepage that displays key information about your business including:
- Services
- Team members
- Clients
- Portfolio
- Testimonials
- Recent blog posts
To help your business connect with customers, Business Point also comes bundled with the free HubSpot plugin, which lets you create forms, popups, and live chat that all connect to the free HubSpot CRM.
WordPress.org Link | Demo Site
6. Neve
Out of the box, Neve is one of the fastest loading themes that you’ll find. It offers a mobile-first approach with built-in Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) capability for faster mobile page load times in Google.
To get started, you can import 22+ pre-built starter sites for a variety of niches, many of which are built using Elementor. You’ll also get detailed layout and style customization options in the real-time WordPress Customizer.
Neve also offers a WooCommerce integration as well as page-level layout controls for better page builder compatibility.
WordPress.org Link | Demo Site
7. Zakra
Zakra is another free lightweight WordPress theme that you can use to build pretty much any type of website.
To set up your site, you can import a range of pre-built demo sites for various niches, most of which are built with Elementor for easy customization.
You’ll also get detailed WordPress Customizer settings to control the style and layout of your site.
WordPress.org Link | Demo Site
8. Go
Go is a free WordPress theme from GoDaddy, the hosting and domain name giant. It’s part of GoDaddy’s foray into the WordPress space.
It offers a clean, business-focused design that’s built to pair well with the WordPress block editor.
This one is a lot simpler than some of the previous themes, but sometimes simple and streamlined is all you need for your business website.
9. Sydney
Sydney is a popular free WordPress business theme that offers a bold full-width slider at the top of your homepage. It also comes with dedicated Elementor widgets to help you create an effective homepage that displays your:
- Services
- Story
- Portfolio
- Testimonials
- Team members
- Latest blog posts
Sydney’s homepage is built with Elementor and those dedicated widgets, which means you can easily customize it using Elementor’s visual, drag-and-drop interface.
WordPress.org Link | Demo Site
10. Rife
Rife is a free creative WordPress theme that you can use for pretty much any niche.
It comes with seven importable demo sites, all of which are built with Elementor for easy drag-and-drop customization.
In addition to the Elementor integration, you also get lots of customization options in the real-time WordPress Customizer, as well as WooCommerce compatibility.
WordPress.org Link | Demo Site
11. Hestia
Hestia is a free multipurpose WordPress theme built with material design principles. If you love material design, this might be the best free WordPress theme for you.
It offers a smooth scrolling one-page design that’s easy to customize with some built-in tools. You’ll get pre-built sections for team members, testimonials, and other important content, as well as WooCommerce compatibility if you’re looking to add eCommerce to your site.
WordPress.org Link | Demo Site
12. Blocksy
Blocksy is a new free WordPress theme that’s quickly making a name for itself in the WordPress space thanks to its modern, block-focused design and detailed customization options.
Its React-based components easily let you customize your blog header, footer, and other layouts. It also includes a free companion plugin that offers cookie consent notifications, Instagram feeds, Mailchimp forms, some custom widgets, and more detailed WooCommerce compatibility.
Currently, Blocksy offers one importable demo site, though that number will likely increase as it mature.
WordPress.org Link | Demo Site
13. Ashe
Unlike a lot of the multipurpose themes on this list, Ashe is more focused on blogging than creating any type of static website.
It offers a minimal design that’s well suited for fashion or lifestyle blogs, or anyone who likes the general aesthetic of those niches.
It’s responsive, Retina-ready, and still offers WooCommerce compatibility if you want to add a shop to your store.
WordPress.org Link | Demo Site
14. Phlox
Phlox is a free WordPress theme that’s packed with style and design options, as well as a tight Elementor integration. If you want to create a beautiful, unique website, then Phlox is a great option. With that being said, performance takes a bit of a back seat, unlike other flexible free themes like Astra and GeneratePress.
With Phlox, you’ll get access to heaps of importable demo sites and tons of layout and style controls in the real-time WordPress Customizer.
One of the notable things about Phlox is that it also includes its own set of 30+ Elementor widgets and 40+ Elementor page templates.
WordPress.org Link | Demo Site
15. Airi
Airi is a free WordPress theme for businesses and creatives. It gives you lots of style options in the real-time WordPress Customizer, along with multiple importable demo sites that are built with Elementor for easy customization.
As the name suggests, it’s also fairly lightweight and can provide you with an optimized foundation for a quick-loading website.
WordPress.org Link | Demo Site
16. Writee
Like Ashe, Writee is another free WordPress theme that’s more focused on helping you create a blog. As the name suggests, it’s for writers who are looking to put the focus on their writing.
It also offers space for large, full-width featured images and a full-width slider of your most recent posts.
If you just want a simple, lightweight blogging theme, this one is a good option.
WordPress.org Link | Demo Site
17. ColorMag
Active on over 100,000 websites, it’s one of the more popular WordPress magazine themes out there.
In addition to the general magazine-style layout, other notable features include:
- Built-in spots for advertisements
- 15+ widget areas for easy customization
- Custom widgets to fill those areas, including widgets to feature certain posts or categories of posts
WordPress.org Link | Demo Site
18. Woostify
Woostify is an excellent free WooCommerce theme for eCommerce stores. However, it’s 100% focused on eCommerce, so it’s not a good fit for other types of WordPress websites.
Still, if you are launching an eCommerce store powered by WordPress and WooCommerce, Woostify will set you up with a strong, customizable foundation and tons of eCommerce-focused features like:
- Two importable eCommerce demo sites, both of which are built with Elementor for easy customization – you can access more importable demo sites with the premium version
- Optimized slide-out side panel shopping cart
- Built-in integrations/styling for shopping wishlists
- Optimized and customizable checkout pages
WordPress.org Link | Demo Site
19. Colibri
Colibri is a free WordPress theme that lets you design your entire website right from the real-time WordPress Customizer using a unique block system. In addition to customizing your headers and footers, you’ll also be able to control the rest of your content and layout using pre-built blocks.
This approach can give you some of the flexibility of a page builder like Elementor without requiring you to install another plugin.
However, the free version only includes a limited selection of pre-made designs as compared to the premium version.
WordPress.org Link | Demo Site
20. Page Builder Framework
Finally, Page Builder Framework is, as the name suggests, a lightweight free theme that’s specifically built to pair with a WordPress page builder plugin like Elementor.
Essentially, you can use Page Builder Framework to control your header, navigation, footer, etc. Then, you can use your page builder of choice to design your content itself.
It is, as the developer states, your page builder plugin’s “best friend”. So if you’re already set on designing your content with a page builder plugin, Page Builder Framework can be a great free theme to pair with it.
Now that you have a list of the best WordPress Themes, learn how to build your very own website and how to order hosting from InterWeb SA.