Brief Summary
This video presents Darrel Wilson's top 10 WordPress themes for 2023 and beyond, based on weeks of testing. Each theme is summarized with its key features and strengths. The list includes themes suitable for various purposes, from blogs and e-commerce sites to portfolios, and caters to different levels of user experience, from beginners to developers.
- Top Picks: Ohio, Flock, Essentials, Rishi, and Bloxy are highlighted for their unique features and overall value.
- Page Builders: The video considers themes that work well with Gutenberg, Elementor, Divi, and Brizzy page builders.
- Recommendations: The video also recommends syron web hosting as a reliable option for WordPress sites.
Darrel Wilson introduces a video where he presents the top 10 WordPress themes for 2023 and beyond. He and his team tested dozens of themes, exploring their features to narrow down the list. In this video, each theme will be summarized in 2-3 minutes, highlighting their features and what makes them stand out. Darrel encourages viewers to like the video, share their favorite themes in the comments, and request detailed reviews of specific themes. He also promotes Elementor and Divi template kits, offering lifetime access for $99.
The Spectra One theme is designed for use with the Gutenberg editor, aiming to simplify the design process. It recommends installing the Spectra Builder plugin, which provides access to columns, rows, and other elements. The theme allows users to enable specific block extensions and offers options for templates, version control, and performance integrations. It includes various design options like navigational styles, page templates, and patterns. The Spectra One plugin also offers a scroll-to-top feature and allows users to adjust the layout, content width, and element justification. Responsive settings enable hiding specific sections for different devices, similar to Elementor. Users can make blocks sticky and change HTML elements. The theme also offers display conditions to show specific blocks to certain users based on their operating system or browser. The Spectra One theme provides unique blocks and styles, simplifying website creation. While there is no provision for a theme builder, upgrading the Spectra One plugin unlocks features like a pop-up builder, loop builder, and dynamic content. Darrel rates this theme 8 out of 10, praising its helpfulness with Gutenberg but noting the need for more features.
The Ohio theme is presented as a creative and modern WordPress theme, suitable for showcasing projects and portfolios. It includes unique elements and styles, along with stunning demos. Upon installation, the dashboard provides access to the registration system, status, and support articles. The demo importer allows users to import templates directly onto their websites. While mainly geared towards portfolios and projects, it can also be used for blogs or e-commerce websites. The theme settings are robust but can be initially overwhelming. Ohio offers seven different unique menu styles, including a vertical menu, along with basic options like logo upload and page layouts. It features a theme builder that allows assigning specific headers and footers for individual pages or categories, but creating one from scratch requires Elementor Pro. Each page and section has options for enabling preloaders, dark toggle mode, and a color mode switcher, which allows customizing the light and dark mode colors. The Ohio theme includes five different blog post layouts and offers 20 different modules, including a custom Elementor blog module with six styles. It excels in portfolio settings, offering various display options with tilt effects and drop shadows. Darrel rates this theme 9 out of 10 for its portfolio capabilities and creative design. It is available on ThemeForest for a one-time payment of $59.
The Flock theme is described as an underrated WordPress theme with a beautiful dashboard that provides access to the theme customizer, template kits, tutorials, and system status. It offers various template kits that can be imported with one click, catering to different needs. Users can also import specific blocks and add them to their template library. The theme includes a general tab for layouts and typography, along with unique animation styles for page loading. A pre-loader can be added by selecting a logo. The appearance tab allows changing global colors and adding a website frame with a specific color. Unique skins are available for video player elements, audio player modules, and pagination. The Flock theme has a contact form option that integrates with the modules, allowing users to build custom contact forms. While the theme customizer lacks a header and footer builder, it offers a builder for the Elementor page builder, allowing users to import and customize headers and footers. The Flock theme is suitable for building blogs, offering several styles and layouts for blog pages and single post pages. It includes 10 unique layout styles, a grid layout, and options for displaying post info and author details. Various load more options are available for blog archive pages, along with styling options for the sidebar. The post options allow displaying a sidebar on either side, adjusting the content style, and using a light box. The theme offers 30+ elements for the Elementor page builder, along with a scroll-to-top button, breadcrumbs, and a custom 404 page. It also includes a custom login page, maintenance mode, and a coming soon page. The WooCommerce options are limited, mainly allowing adjustments to the sidebar and providing a standard layout for shop and single product pages. The pro version offers more WooCommerce customization options. Page options allow adjusting header templates, title bar settings, background style, and sidebar layouts for each page. The pro version costs $39 for one website and includes 80+ more templates, header layouts, a modernized product page, and a diverse portfolio page. Darrel rates this theme 9 out of 10, noting the lack of copyright for images in the demo importer and the need for more templates, which the pro version addresses.
The Astra theme is highlighted as the most popular WordPress theme on wordpress.org, known for its 250+ templates that can be easily imported. These templates work with Elementor, Beaver Builder, Gutenberg, and Brizzy, although Brizzy needs to be enabled in the general options. The theme features a simple header and footer builder with drag-and-drop elements and a canvas mode for mobile devices. Transparent menus are available in the free version. The general options include typography settings for up to six headers, global colors for changing the website's color scheme, and a button feature for globally changing button styles. It also offers a scroll-to-top feature, spacing options for Gutenberg, and smooth scroll. Astra provides container options for pages, posts, blog pages, and archive pages. The blogging features allow hiding or showing elements like comments, categories, authors, date, and time. However, it lacks design options, offering only one generic blog layout and a limited single post page with no image size adjustment in the free version. Darrel finds Astra lacking for blogging features but considers it a solid foundation for beginners. The e-commerce features are basic, allowing adjustments to the shop page by adding rows, columns, and showing/hiding elements. The single product page is limited to adjusting the container layout and sidebar. Astra offers annual and lifetime pricing plans, with templates and Astra Pro sold separately. The basic Astra Pro plan includes only Astra Pro, while the essential plan includes templates, and the growth bundle includes all Astra plugins, themes, and templates, along with future products. Darrel rates the Astra theme 8 out of 10, praising its stable code quality, fast performance, and SEO-friendliness, but noting its shortcomings in features.
The Rishi theme was recently removed from wordpress.org but is still available for free download on their website. It offers around 25 starter templates for various niches like agencies, software companies, and photography websites. Users can import single pages or entire packs. To access all features, users need to activate extensions like cookie consent, reading progress bar, and social sharing. The theme customizer is structured by general options, post pages, and WordPress defaults. The header and footer builder is intuitive and user-friendly, with more elements available in the free version. The footer builder follows the same format as the header builder. Rishi supports up to six tags for independent customization and includes SEO options like a separator and breadcrumbs. The theme offers four different layouts for designing the blog and archive page, allowing users to adjust the page title, alignment, and style. The single post page allows adjusting the size of the featured image and customizing the post meta and title. One notable template is the affiliate marketing template, which allows users to create affiliate marketing blog posts. The e-commerce features provide layouts like left sidebar, right sidebar, or full width for the single product page. Cool options include enabling a light box and zoom effect, but product width cannot be adjusted. The performance tab includes a built-in optimizer for lazy load and excluding specific images. Rishi is ideal for building basic websites, with the pro version offering advanced blogging features like ad blocker, multiple author credibility, sticky promo, and affiliate disclosure. The Rishi theme offers three different plans: personal for $49, professional for $99, and agency for unlimited websites for $149, with lifetime plans also available. Darrel rates the Rishi theme 10 out of 10, praising the many free features and the additional features available in the pro version.
Darrel recommends syron web hosting as a fast and reliable option, noting that it has been tested for the last 6 months. The test recorded only 34 minutes of downtime over 6 months with a 99.99% uptime. Sites load at around 1.5 seconds with syron. syron allows users to adjust PHP levels and memory limits to accommodate WordPress themes. A link to syron is provided in the video description, offering a free domain upon signup. The grow big plan is recommended for hosting unlimited domains.
The Essentials theme is described as one of the most underrated themes, personally used by Darrel on his website. Upon installation, a setup wizard prompts users to choose their page builder (Elementor or WP Bakery) and recommends installing plugins. Users need to link their pixord account to activate the theme. The theme offers starter templates with modern and professional designs. Users can import templates directly onto their website. The theme options can be confusing for first-time users, with popups, headers, and footers serving as the theme builder. Users can apply different headers on various pages and import pre-made templates from Elementor. Custom headers can be built from scratch using their header builder and assigned to various pages. Custom popups can be built with triggers like exit intent and scroll. The import demo section offers popups, mega menus, portfolios, and WooCommerce products. The Essentials theme includes modern elements for the Elementor page builder, with access to blocks from demo websites in the Elementor library. It offers 30+ elements with styling options for each module. The theme options include general requirements, sidebars, cookie consent, and a custom 404 page. Users can display a banner at the top of their website for sales. The Essentials theme offers several blog layouts and post styles. It works great for portfolios, offering four different styles, and supports e-commerce websites with unique styling for products. Darrel rates this theme 10 out of 10, suggesting the addition of a table of content element for the blog.
The Divi theme has been a popular WordPress theme for a long time, known for its visual drag-and-drop page builder that beginners can learn quickly. Divi comes with more than 1,700 templates. The pricing offers lifetime access for unlimited domains for $249, making it ideal for web designers. Upon installation, users need to activate their license to access the templates. When creating a page, users can start from scratch, import a pre-made template, or clone a website. Users select the number of columns and then select a module. Each module has three styling tabs: content, design, and advanced. The key difference with Divi is the absence of a left sidebar, providing a visual representation of the website in real time. Users can add icons, backgrounds, and import images. Divi includes features like copy and paste and find and replace. Divi has its own theme builder, commerce builder, and dynamic content. The theme builder allows creating custom headers and footers on various parts of the website. Users can create their own shop page using Divi from the ground up, and the Divi theme also has its own product builder. Conditions can be set for all products, specific categories, or just one product. Divi has more than 230 template kits available with more than 1,700 template pages. The Divi theme has a drag-and-drop builder, theme builder, blog post builder, WooCommerce builder, and a visual builder. Purchasing Divi also grants access to the Bloom plugin for email capture forms and the Monarch plugin for social sharing. Darrel rates this theme 10 out of 10, noting the bright future for this theme as it develops and stabilizes.
This section discusses a combination of the Hello Elementor theme and the Brizzy page builder. The Hello Elementor theme is a blank canvas theme, while Brizzy acts as a theme. The Brizzy page builder is user-friendly, with a variety of blocks that simplify website creation. Users can insert a block and design it. Brizzy offers various elements that can be dragged anywhere on the website. Custom headers and footers can be created in the free version by making a row global and adding it to every page. In the pro version, users can set the condition on the entire website. The blocks on the website can be reordered, and the styling can be changed. It also has options like a role manager, maintenance mode, and a template saving area. Darrel rates the Hello Elementor theme 7 out of 10, as it is just a blank canvas. He rates Brizzy 8 out of 10, noting that its development has been slow but it remains a popular page builder.
Bloxy is a multi-purpose theme that works with all page builders, especially Elementor and Gutenberg. Upon starting with Bloxy, users are prompted to install the Bloxy companion, which provides access to starter sites, extensions, and plugins. Bloxy offers starter templates for Elementor, Brizzy, and Gutenberg, ranging from basic websites to blogs to e-commerce websites. The Bloxy theme customizer has a clean format with sections for general options, post types, pages, and core, and it comes with a dark mode. Bloxy has unique layouts where users can adjust the max size, content area spacing, and narrow container width. The free version allows adjusting and designing buttons in the general options and includes options for breadcrumbs. Bloxy generates its own breadcrumbs on the blog page, making them visible and easier to customize. It also has features like scroll to top and a website frame. Bloxy has a simple header builder where users can drag elements onto the header builder. Clicking on the elements provides design options for each element. It also comes with canvas mode for designing headers for mobile devices. The footer with Bloxy works the same as the header. The blogging features with Bloxy have a beautiful format and a customizable sidebar with four styles. Users can adjust the post structure with four layouts and hide specific elements on the blog page. Bloxy offers two different post title styles. Bloxy has several different page structures, making it ideal for all page builders. Bloxy also has unique features that allow designing the author page. It has a special extension for affiliate marketing with a product reviews feature. The WooCommerce features in the Bloxy theme have several different styles for displaying products. Users can adjust the rows, columns, or add a sidebar. It also gives two different titles for product pages, and the single product page allows hiding features like the reviews, star rating, and meta. The Bloxy theme also comes with a login page. Darrel rates the Bloxy theme 10 out of 10, noting that it offers so much in the free version and is a multi-purpose theme for any type of website.
The Elementor Royal kits theme is dedicated to the Elementor page builder, lacking theme customization options except for basic defaults. Upon installation, users are prompted to install the Royal Elementor add-on plugin, which provides all the features and integrates with the theme. Users can search various elements and temp kits, with about 30 kits available. The Elementor Royal kit comes with 50+ new elements for the Elementor page builder, some of which are available in the pro version of Elementor, while others are unique like an Instagram feed or image hotspot. When using Elementor, users can import pages and blocks, many of which are in the pro version. One feature in the style section is the ability to add particles and Parallax to every background. In the advanced tab, users can use the sticky section to make any element sticky and use custom CSS using the Royal add-ons plugin. The theme has its own custom theme builder, allowing users to make custom headers, footers, archive pages, single post pages, product pages, and shop pages using the free theme builder. However, specific conditions for each section require upgrading to the pro version. The theme builder allows building custom parts of the website and displaying them with specific conditions, overriding the theme settings. While creating a custom header, users can create a mega menu using all the elements in the free version. The theme builder also supports custom product pages from scratch. Users can design the shop page or any page using the custom elements. Custom popups can be made in the free version, but specific conditions require upgrading to the pro version. The pro version comes with 90+ elements for the Elementor page builder, allows using the theme builder on all aspects of the website, and provides access to the conditions. The pro version is affordable, costing $30 a year or $60 for a lifetime. Darrel rates this theme 8 out of 10, liking the idea behind it but noting that some might argue it is hijacking the Elementor page builder.
Darrel shares some honorable mentions that didn't make the top 10 list. The Neve theme has always been solid but hasn't added any noticeable features over the past year. The Cadence theme is very similar to the Bloxy theme, with no discernible differences. Darrel believes Cadence got too much inspiration from the Bloxy theme. The Green Shift theme is a block-based theme for Gutenberg with its own builder and cool block-based elements. However, Darrel experienced fatal errors and PHP problems while using the theme. The Bricks theme is not intuitive enough for the average web designer and is more suitable for web developers who want to edit the CSS and div lines.
Transcript
Full transcript of “⭐ Top 10 Best Free Wordpress Themes For 2025 (Seriously)⭐”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 finding a solid WordPress theme could be a total pain in the butts trust me I have I have been there I have licked the pot clean I've been through countless themes to find out that most of them were pretty useless so I went on a mission me and my team scour dozens of Wordpress themes we tested the features the ins and outs and we spent a few weeks testing out various WordPress themes and now we narrow down our list to 10 WordPress themes that I think you're going to find really useful in this video we will dive into each WordPress theme give a 2 to 3 minute summary of each WordPress theme explore their features and explain what we liked about them in case you're new here what is up party people my name is darl Wilson today in this video I'll be showing you the top 10 best WordPress themes for 2023 and Beyond or I guess we're going into 2024 soon so in 3
0:45 months we're going into 2024 so I guess 2023 2024 whatever uh but this video took me a lot longer than I thought it was cuz I had to really dig through the trenches and test the ins and outs of tons of Wordpress teams so I really do hope that you guys find a lot of value in this video video and before we begin if you guys do need help with web design inspiration we currently offer more than 280 Elementary template kits that's a total of, 1500 templates we also offer 50 templ kits for the divy theme we hired the best designers in the world to start this project and each kit has a minimum of 10 pages and the best part we add 10 templ kits to our websites every single month we offer lifetime access for all of our kits plus future kits for just 99 bucks I'll leave a link to to all of our kits in the description of
1:31 this video and before we start make sure to give this video a big thumbs up and also let me know your favorite WordPress theme in the comments below also if you guys do want to see any detailed review on any of these themes let me know in the comments below and with that said let's take a look at the top 10 best WordPress themes first up the spectro one theme if you are using the Gutenberg editor or you've always wanted to try it this is a good theme to start with along with the Spectra one plugin that the theme recommends the theme does its best to simplify the design process with the Gutenberg page builder I'll be honest I'm not a big fan of Gutenberg but this theme and Builder definitely streamline the process to make it easier when you first install the theme it recommends to install the Spectra Builder which is a plug-in this gives you access to the columns rows and all the elements that
2:17 correlate with the theme before going to the page editor in the Spectre section you can enable specific block extensions in the settings they also have various other options like templates Version Control performance performance Integrations and a few other features when you first go to the editor you'll see different design options like navigational Styles Pages templates and also patterns there'll be options for the template and the blocks the Spectra one plugin also offers a scroll to top feature on the right side the Spectra theme comes with a list of patterns and styles you can use for your website here is a list of some elements like the post Carousel the marketing button and various other elements you can add in the pattern section this is where you can have access to more of the templates that come with Spectra here I'll insert a hero Banner then I can change the
3:04 width to make sure it's full width and on the right side this is where the Spectra one theme comes into play here under the settings tab you can adjust the layout on the section such as the contents and also the width of the section you can also adjust the justification of the elements in the block there are also some responsive settings that allow you to hide specific sections for specific devices this is very similar to the Elementor page builder you can also make specific blocks sticky right under here under the the positions tab by clicking on the sticky section this will make specific blocks sticky within the editor and for those developers who want a little bit more in detail there are some other options to change the HTML elements for the Block near the bottom of the options they also do have display conditions that allow specific users operating systems browsers systems to see specific
3:49 blocks in the editor on the Styles tab there are several options to change the color text and also the background of the block it also showcases a small topography section where you can control the font F within the block and also adjust the dimension for the block settings the Spectra 1 theme does offer various unique blocks and styles for your websites creating a website with the spectral one plugin is pretty simple you simply insert a pattern then you can adjust the width and keep going as usual you can also make the menu transparent and also sticky there is definitely a learning curve with the Gutenberg page builder but the Spectra one theme does its best to bridge the gap to make it easier for all users who want to use Gutenberg as their default page builder I don't think there is a provision for this theme just yet however there is an option to upgrade the Spectra 1 plugin which gives you access to the pop-up
4:35 Builder Loop Builder and also Dynamic Contents I would give this theme a solid eight out of 10 it's very helpful when building websites with Gutenberg but I would like to see more features in the future next up is the Ohio theme the Ohio theme hands down is one of the most creative and modernized WordPress themes on this entire list it truly shines as something different and creative that you can showcase your projects portfolios or just bring a modern twist to your websites the theme has elements and styles unlike any other WordPress theme on this entire list it also comes with several demos that look stunning that are unique for showcasing projects or portfolios so let's take a look at it when you first download and install the Ohio theme you're greeted with a dashboard where you can look at the registration system status and a few other support articles you can also go
5:21 over to the demo importer and import a templates directly onto your websites the templates each look modern professional and have tons of features inside of them the theme is mainly geared for portfolios and projects but you can pretty much use it for anything like a blog or even at e-commerce websites the theme settings with Ohio can be a little clustered at first it'll take time to get used to it each option has tabs such as the topography menu the header the footer and so on and so forth the options with this theme are extremely robust there are tons of features for each specific section the one thing that stood out for this theme was the Creative Design aspect the theme comes with seven different unique menu styles including a vertical menu of course it has all the basic options like page layouts logo upload and all the
6:06 basic necessary options you need for a WordPress theme what's interesting about this theme well it sort of has a theme Builder you can assign specific headers and Footers for each individual page or categories like blogs posts and shops but you can't create one from scratch not unless you're using Elementor Pro for each page and section there are options to enable preloaders and dark toggle mode and also a color mode Switcher what's really awesome about the color mode switcher is you can actually make the light and dark mode switch to any color that you want in the theme options in the color mode section all you need to do is change the dark mode background color to any desired color that you'd like then when you go to the light and dark mode it'll then be the new color that you selected in the theme options the Ohio theme comes with five
6:51 different blog post layouts that you can apply for each individual blog post you can also make the left part of the blog sticky just in case you wanted them to see see the left side then users can scroll down and they can also select between different blog posts the Ohio theme comes with 20 different modules that you can use and add on your websites it also comes with a custom Elementor blog module with more than six different styles but the Ohio theme really shines in the portfolio settings the Ohio theme has several different ways on how to display your portfolio with several different design options this also includes a really interesting tilt effect drop shadow and just a lot of other cool neat ways to Showcase your portfolio honestly I love the demos for this theme overall I really think this theme stands out as one of the best WordPress themes I would give this WordPress theme a
7:38 solid 9 out of 10 for being a portfolio theme I think it has a lot to offer you can purchase the Ohio theme on theme forest for $59 and that is a onetime payment for Lifetime access next up the flock theme the flx theme is one of the most underrated WordPress themes on this entire list when you first install the flock theme you're greeted with this beautiful dashboard you can access the theme customizer check out their template kits get access to tutorials and also check the system status to make sure everything's running smoothly on your WordPress website the flock theme offers various template kits that you can import on your website with one click and I'll be honest the template kits with the flx theme look really nice and there's definitely something for everybody you can also import specific blocks and add them to your template library for your page builder this theme is loaded with unique features let's
8:24 first start with the general tab the general tab gives you various layouts or you can pick a specific size it also allows you to change the topography for your H1 through H5 tags and it also comes with a really unique animation style when you load a page you can pick specific animation types of how you want your pages introduced you can also add a pre-loader by selecting your logo to add a pre-loader to your websites in the appearance tab you have more options to change the global colors of your websites you can adjust the background color and also add a website frame if you enable the website frame you'll be able to add a specific color frame around your entire website there are also really unique skins for the video video player elements the audio player module and also a pagination skin just in case you guys are running a Blog on your websites the fox theme also has a contact form option that integrates directly with the modules where you can
9:10 build a custom contact form from scratch the theme customizer doesn't have a header and photo Builder but it offers a builder for the Elementor page builder you can actually pick the header you want right here and import it directly on your website then you use the element or page builder to design and customize the header and the same goes for the footer now if you're looking for a free theme to build the Blog the flock theme might be it the flock theme has several different styles and layouts for your blog page and single post Pages the flock theme comes with 10 unique styles of layouts plus a grid layout and many other options like displaying the post info showing the author and it also has various types of load more options for blog archive pages and it comes with various styling options for the sidebar style the post options are even better you can display a sidebar on either side with the sidebar you can adjust the
9:56 content style to a box or a full width and there are tons of other various styling options like a light box a comment number and much more another cool feature is the elements the fox theme offers 30 plus elements for the elements or page builder a lot of these elements are useful and they look nice overall I would say it's an amazing free theme for any type of blog some of the extra options are a scroll at the top button breadcrumbs and a custom four or four page that you can create from scratch it also comes with a unique custom login page when you log into WordPress it also comes with a maintenance mode and a coming soon page just in case you want to hide your website while you're building it the woocommerce options are a bit lacking alls you can really do is adjust the sideb bar and it gives you a standard layout for your shop page and your single product page although they do
10:41 look great I would like to see more customization there are more options for the woocommerce options in the pro version another great feature is the page options for every page you can adjust the header templates the title bar setting the background style and have different sidebar layouts for each specific page the flock theme is definitely loaded with features with beautiful templates that'll make it really easy to get your website up and running quickly the pro version is also fairly priced it gives you access to 80 plus more templates tons of header layouts a much more modernized product page and a very diverse portfolio page and there are a few other notable options that might be worth upgrading the pro version only costs around $39 and that's good for one websites I would give this WordPress theme a solid 9 out of 10 the only thing it's really lacking is the copyright for the images in the demo importer and it should offer a
11:28 little bit more templates however upgrading to the pro would solve all these problems next up the Astro theme the Astro theme is the most popular WordPress theme on wordpress.org asra is known for having more than 250 templates that you can easily import on your website with one click making it really easy for beginners the templates work with Elementor Beaver Builder Gutenberg and Brizzy but you'll need to turn it on in the general options to enable the brzy templates I'm not sure why they did this the theme comes with a robust header and footer Builder that's really simple to use it allows you to drag and drop elements to build out your header and footer plus it offers the canvis mode where you can build custom headers for mobile devices you can also add transparent menus in the free version the general options with Astra are pretty standard like most themes it comes with a topography option
12:14 where you can have custom fonts for up to six different headers it also comes with global colors which allow you to instantly change the color scheme of your website for trying out new color schemes it also comes with a button feature which allow you to globally change all the buttons on your websites it offers a scroll to top feature and a few other features like spacing for Gutenberg and smooth scroll Astra also comes with several different container options for Pages posts blog pages and archive Pages which allow you to add different container layouts for each page next let's talk about the blogging features Astra does have some options for the blog page and post page you can hide elements or show them like the comments categories authors date and time which is pretty cool however it really lacks as far as design Astra only offers one blog layout that doesn't
13:01 really look that nice the single post page is also very generic and there's no way you can adjust the image size in the free version leaving you with a pretty large featured image my honest opinion I never like the look of Astra for the blogging features I do think there are better options out there but it still does provide a solid foundation for beginner bloggers and lastly let's talk about the e-commerce features the e-commerce features with Astra are pretty basic the theme customizer allows you to fully adjust the shot Page by adding in rows columns changing the width and showing and hiding in elements such as the price or reviews The Single product page is a bit limited you can adjust the container layout and sidebar but that's pretty much it it's not a bad option for those getting started with an e-commerce website the Astro theme pricing offers an annual and lifetime plan the templates and Astro Pro are
13:47 sold separately the basic Astro Pro Plan gives you access to only Astro Pro if you want the templates with Astro Pro you'll need to purchase the essential plan if you want all the Astro plugins the theme and the templates you can go with the growth bundle and this will also give you access to all of astra's future products I do have a discount for all these plans and I'll leave that in the description below of this video I would give the Astro theme a solid 8 out of 10 the code quality is stable and reliable it's also a fast lightweight theme that's good for SEO as far as feature goes I think Astra does fall short in this category next up Rishi now before I talk about this WordPress theme I just want to let you guys know that this was recently removed from wordpress.org a few months ago apparently there was some drama but you can still download the WordPress theme for free on their websites so let's talk about it when you
14:34 first install the REI theme you can import some of their starter templates they offer around 25 templates ranging from agencies software companies photography websites or digital marketing you can import just one page or you can import the entire pack on your website making it really convenient in order to access all the features with Reet you'll need to go to the extensions Tab and activate them and they also have additional features like cookie consent reading progress bar so social sharing and a few other features the theme customizer for Rishi is a bit more unique and well structured unlike the other themes on the list they structure the theme by the general options post pages and the WordPress defaults the header and footer builder for this theme are a bit more intuitive and user friendly compared to Astra you do get a lot more elements to use in the free version of this theme the footer Builder
15:20 is also simple to use because it follows the same format as the header Builder the REI theme supports up to six tags where you can customize them independently it also has some SEO options where you can add a separator breadcrumbs and a few other various basic options that you guys can mess around with with reishi there's various ways on how to design the blog and the archive page they give you four different layouts it also allows you to adjust your page title for your blog page and change the alignment and style where you can add a Blog description and fully design everything in the general options you can also fully design the archive Pages author pages and the search page for the single post page you can adjust the size of the feature your image to other various sizes you can also adjust the post meta and the title within every option with these options
16:05 you can further customize each element which does give Rishi a bit more customization for blogs versus other themes now one template I really did like from Rishi was the affiliate marketing template they have one demo of it where you can install a plugin and create a beautiful affiliate marketing blog post that's all ready to go next let's talk about the e-commerce features the e-commerce features with Rishi are pretty ideal they give you various layouts like a left side bar right side bar or a full with approach for a single product page there are some cool options like enable light box and also a zoom effect but you cannot adjust the product width to be quite Frank I didn't really see anything out of the ordinary with the newcommerce options they do seem a bit basic there is one cool unique feature in the extensions for the performance tab you essentially have a built-in Optimizer where you can adjust
16:52 lazy load and exclude specific images from lazy load overall I would say Rishi is an ideal WordPress theme theme for anyone building a basic website however I will say the REI theme does shine in the pro version with the advanced blogging features they have tons of features like ad blocker multiple author credibility sticky promo affiliate disclosure and many many more features the reishi theme offers three different plans a personal for $49 professional for $99 and agency for unlimited websites for $149 they also do offer lifetime plans that require only a onetime payment I would give the Rishi theme a solid 10 out of 10 there are many free features available in the free version and there's a lot more available in the
17:38 Pro hey party people real quick I just want to give you guys a quick heads up if you guys do like a lot of these WordPress teams that we're showing you we definitely recommend cyron web hosting now cyr web hosting is among the fastest and the most reliable web hosting out there now how do you guys know I'm not just lying to you right well we've actually tested cyron for the last 6 months so here you'll see that we recorded the web host for pyr and we've only had 34 minutes of downtime over the course of 6 months with a 99.99% up time which is very good our sites also load at around 1.5 seconds with syr so you'll see here that we're modering the entire test speed with cyron so just to know that you guys will get a fast and reliable web post with cyron web hosting now some of these themes actually require specific PHP
18:25 levels and memory limits with cyr you can adjust the HP and also the memory limit to accommodate a lot of these WordPress themes now there is a link to cyon in the description of this video and if you guys do use our link to sign up with cyron you guys will also get a free domain now cyron has three different plans and we always recommend the grow big plan because with this plan you guys can host unlimited domains which is a pretty big difference from just one single domain right so many of the themes that we showed you guys do require solid web hosting so again if you guys are using other host companies like Blu host or page we definitely recommend to make the switch to syr.com and again you guys can use our Link in the description of this video and you will receive a free domain with that said let's jump back to the video next up the essentials theme the essentials
19:12 theme is definitely one of the most underrated themes on this list I personally use this WordPress theme on my WordPress website and I'll explain what I like about it and why it made the list when you first install the essentials theme you're greeted with a setup wizard you'll need to choose your page builder Elementor or WP Bakery it also recommends to have some plugins installed but it's not required you're going to need to link your pixord account with your WordPress theme in order to activate it you can first import some of their templates on your website and I'll be quite honest this theme has some of the best starter templates I've ever seen on any WordPress theme design the designs are modern nice and they really look professional they really push the limits of design with this WordPress theme to start simply go down and pick a template you'll then click on import where you
19:57 can ins insert one of these templates directly onto your website you simply wait a minute and just like that you have a brand new website so next let's talk about the theme options these can be a little confusing for firsttime users on the left side you'll see popups headers and Footers this is essentially the theme Builder where you can apply different headers on various Pages you can also import pre-made templates from Elementor in the demo import section under headers you can also build a custom header from scratch using their own header Builder once you create it you can assign it to various pages on your websites you can also build custom popups and it's really simple to build your own custom popups from scratch when it's created you can also set the pop-up conditions and they have various triggers like exit intent
20:43 show pop-up on scroll and tons of other various Options under the import demo section there are popups where you can import popups with tons of various pop-ups to choose from there's also Mega menus that you can import along with portfolios woocommerce products and a few other various templates the essential theme comes with tons of amazing modern elements for the Elementor page bilder like no other plug-in what's even better you have access to all the blocks for all the demo websites in your Elementary library so you can import any section from any demo while you're building your website the essentials theme comes with more than 30 different elements you can use for your websites the elements look nice and modern and they have tons of styling options for each individual module next let's explore the theme
21:29 options the theme options allow you to do the basic WordPress themes like General requirements sidebars cookie consense and a few others you can also create a custom 404 page they also do have options where you can display a banner this is great because if you guys are having sales you can display this Banner at the top of your website with the essentials theme you'll have several different blog layouts if you choose to use a default theme style they also do have some really nice post Styles and post layouts for your blog here's an example of my website using the blog module as you can tell it works really smooth it looks clean and it's easy to navigate and the essential theme works great for portfolios they offer four different styles to present your portfolios and the theme works for Ecommerce websites the woocommerce
22:15 options offer unique styling for your products they offer five different styles for your products as you can tell the shop page is really clean and modern I just like the look and feel of this e-commerce Style here's some example shop pages and product pages there's a lot more but I'll let you check it out on their website I randomly sbled across this theme a year ago and it felt like it has everything it's great for blogs great for e-commerce and great for modern websites with these modern amazing designs I felt like it was a no-brainer I would give this WordPress theme a solid 10 out of 10 the only thing I would suggest is adding a table of content element for the blog very similar to the J news theme but overall it's an amazing WordPress theme next up the divvy theme the divy theme
23:01 has been one of the most popular WordPress themes in the industry for quite some time and with good reason the divy theme has its own visual drag and drop Page Builder and most beginners can learn how to use this right away when I first started using Wordpress I mainly used Dy to build my websites the funny part back then they didn't have a visual Builder But as time went on they developed their own visual Builder the D theme also comes with more than 1,700 templates which is just staggering so what makes the divvy theme so good well let's talk about it now before we go into this theme the pricing for this theme is incredible and I think this is why it's chosen among the community you can get lifetime access for unlimited domains or $249 which makes it an ideal theme for any web designer in the industry when you first install divvy you need to
23:46 activate your license this is not required to use the Builder but it is required to get access to their templates when you create a page you'll first be prompted to start from scratch import a pre-made template or clone a website you first start by selecting how many columns you want then you click on the plus icon and select the module when you select a module there'll be three different styling tabs the content tab the design Tab and the advanced Tab and this is universal for all elements you simply add it in elements adjust it to your liking and then you just keep adding in elements the key difference with divy versus other page buer is there is no left sidebar so it's a bit easier to get a visual representation of how you want your website to look in real time so here you can add icons you can add back backgrounds and also import your own images and get total freedom to build your
24:33 websites there are a lot of amazing features that come with a divvy theme like copy and paste find and replace and other amazing features in order to speed up the design of your websites I can't cover all of the features this theme offers but I do have a dedicated tutorial on divy and I'll leave that in the description below of this video once you are done designing your website you can click on the save icon and your website is published divvy also has its own theme Builder Commerce build Builder and dynamic content with the theme Builder you can create custom headers and Footers on various parts of the websites you can also create your own shop page using divvy from the ground up and the divvy theme also has its own product Builder where you can build products from scratch using the divvy Builder you can also set conditions like all products specific categories or just one product I do like this theme Builder
25:19 because I feel like the interface is simple and easy to learn and it's really organized going back to the templates divy has more than 230 template kits available with more than 1,700 template Pages they also do have a design initiative where I believe they make two template kits every single month the divy theme has everything it's simple to use drag and drop Builder a theme Builder blog post Builder woocommerce Builder and a visual Builder that most beginners can adopt right away when you purchase divy you also get access to the bloom plugin and the Monarch plugin this plugin is a great email capture form and the Monarch plugin is a social sharing plugin I would give this theme a solid 10 out of 10 I think the future is very bright
26:04 for this theme and as they develop and stabilize the theme it's only going to get better next hello Elementor with the Brizzy page builder now the next one is sort of a crossbreed between the hello Elementary theme which is basically a blank canvas theme then we have Brizzy which basically acts as a theme the brzy page builder is definitely one of the most userfriendly builders for WordPress with a variety of blocks it makes making a website so simple when you first install Brizzy all you need to do is create a new page once you create a page you can simply insert a block there are two different kits for the blocks they also come in a light scheme and also a dark scheme mode when you select a block you can simply click on the element and then design it Brizzy also offers various elements you can take these elements and drag them anywhere you want on your websites you can then design
26:51 them style them click on update and that's it your whole page is made you can also create custom headers and foot Putters on your website in the free version you'll need to click on a row and make it Global and then just add it to every page in the pro version you'll be able to set the condition on the entire website I actually recommended the same Builder to my friend's girlfriend for her accounting business and within 1 hour she had her website up and ready on the left side you'll be able to reorder the blocks on your website and this will actually adjust and change your websites you can also change the current styling to different styles to get a better idea of what you want for your websites it also has a few options like a role manager maintenance mode an area to save templates and a few other options but I'll be saving that for a whole another video I would give
27:36 the hello Elementor theme a solid 7 out of 10 it's just a blank canvas for the page builder to do all the work I would give Brizzy a solid 8 out of 10 the Brizzy page bilder development has been slow but it still resigns as one of the most popular page Boulders in the WordPress Community next up bloxy bloxy is a great multi-purpose theme it works with all page Builders like Elementor and especially Gutenberg when you first start with bloxy you'll be prompted to install the bloxy companion this gives you access to the starter sites extensions and other useful plugins bloxy does also offer various starter templates for the elements are page builder Brizzy and Gutenberg that range from basic websites to blogs to e-commerce websites the bloxy theme customizer is in a really nice clean formats they have a section for General
28:24 options post types pages and core and also comes with a dark mode which is pretty helpful bloxy does have many unique layouts where you can adjust the max size with and the content area spacing and also the narrow container width in the free version you can also adjust the buttons and design them in the general options and it does also have options for breadcrumbs what's cool is bloxy generates its own breadcrumbs right on the blog page making it visible and easier to customize it also has features like scroll to top and a really cool feature is the website frame which allows you to add a frame on your websit and adjust it in other various colors bloxy has a simplet to use header Builder where you can drag the elements onto your header Builder if you want to customize an element simply click on the elements and this is where you can have all the design options for each elements
29:09 it also comes with canvas mode where you can design and customize your headers for mobile devices for the bloxy theme you can design the background and style for each row you can give each row a specific background color a transparent state or even a gradient color the footer with bloxy also works the same as the header making it pretty simple to learn the blogging features with bloxy is where this theme tends to shine it has a beautiful format and also a really nice sidebar that you can customize with four different styles you can also adjust the post structure with four different layouts you can choose a wide layout or box you can also hide specific elements on the blog page as well bloxy does also offer two different post title Styles but I think type one is more ideal the second type you might need to
29:54 find an image that really fits the background bloxy has several different page structures making it ideal for all page Builders where you can choose narrow normal left side bar and a right side bar bloxy also has unique features that allow you to design the author page this is great if you have multiple authors bloxy does also have a special extension for affiliate marketing they have a special feature called the product reviews this enables you to generate reviews for products bloxy will autogenerate a template with custom post types that make it really easy to add reviews for any product and lastly the woocommerce features the bloxy theme does have several different styles on how to display your products you can adjust the rows columns or at a sidebar it also gives you two different titles for your product pages and the
30:41 single product page you can also hide features like the reviews star rating meta and a few others the bloxy theme also comes with a really nice login page for your customers the bloxy theme is a great multi-purpose theme for any type of website whether you're running a normal websites an e-commerce website or a Blog there are some notable features in the pro version but I think I'll save that for another video bloxy does have really good pricing you can purchase the HC plan for unlimited websites for $100 a year it also offers lifetime plans just in case you don't want to be stuck on a subscription I would give the bloy theme a solv 10 out of 10 it offers so much in the free version and it's a multi-purpose theme for any type of website next up the elementary Royal
31:26 kits if you guys like to use the Elementor page builder then this theme might be for you this theme is 100% dedicated only to Elementor in fact they don't have any theme customization options except for the basic defaults for this theme so let's explore this theme a bit and see why it's different now when you first install the theme you'll be prompted to install their plugin the Royal Elementor add-on plugin this essentially gives you all the features and it also integrates with the theme when you first install the theme you'll be able to search various elements and temp kits they have about 30 kits and they look pretty good these are fully completed websites that you can import on your websites the Elementor Royal kit also comes with 50 plus new elements for the Elementor page bowler some of these are available in the pro version of Elementor and others are unique like an Instagram feed or image hotspot when using Elementor
32:12 you'll have access to import pages and blocks with the Elementor page buer many of these are in the Pro version but there are still a good amount you can use in the free version one noticeable feature in the style section is the ability to add particles and Parallax to every background this allows you to make some creative landing pages using these elements in the advanced tab you'll be able to use the sticky section to make any element sticky you can also use custom CSS using the Royal add-ons plugin now what makes this theme really unique well it's their own custom theme Builder you'll be able to make custom headers custom Footers custom archive Pages custom single post Pages custom product pages and Custom Shop Pages all using the free theme Builder however if you want specific conditions for for each section then you'll need to upgrade
32:59 to the pro if you're not familiar with the theme Builder the theme Builder allows you to build custom parts of the website and display them with specific conditions the theme Builder overrides the theme settings allowing you to add any section you want on your websites this is great because it doesn't limit you to the basic WordPress default and helps you get more creative when you build your websites while creating a custom header you'll also have the option to create a mega menu using all the elements or elements in the free version of this WordPress theme as far as woocommerce goes the theme Builder also supports in custom product pages from scratch you'll have a list of elements where you can design the shop page or any page you would like using the custom elements you'll have a list of elements where you can design the shop page or single product page using the custom elements however you can only have one in the free version if you want multiple product pages then you'll need
33:44 to upgrade to the pro you'll also be able to make your own custom popups in the free version of this WordPress theme however if you want specific conditions you'll also need to upgrade to the pro the pro version does come with many extra features at your disposal it it comes with more than 90 plus elements for the Elementor page builder it also lets you use the theme Builder on all aspects of your website and gives you access to the conditions it also comes with other various extensions that are only included in the pro version the pro version is fairly affordable you can get the pro version for $30 a year or $60 for a lifetime I would give this theme a solid8 out of 10 I do like the idea behind this theme however some might argue they are hijacking the element or page builder which could be an issue for some all right party people so what did you guys think of the top 10 list let me know I want to hear it you know also we
34:31 do have some honorable mentions and some themes that I wanted to mention but I felt like didn't deserve the list one of them was the ne theme the ne theme has always been a pretty solid theme but they really haven't added anything inside of their theme in fact over the entire year they only added in one noticeable feature so it's hard for me to say like that's the best theme like it is a solid theme but I wouldn't put it in the category of the best and the second honorable mention is the Cadence theme now the reason why Cadence didn't make the list is because it is pretty much the same thing as the bloxy theme now I'm I know I'm going to get a lot of heat from the the the Cadence Community but if you look at Cadence and bloxy there is literally no difference it's very hard to find where these teams differ so when Cadence came out it looked like just a watered down version
35:17 of bloxy I do believe that Cadence got too much inspiration from the bloxy theme I mean I think they got a lot of inspiration uh from the bloxy theme so so in this case I would definitely just go with the bloxy thing and that's my position on that okay and the third honorable mention is the green shift theme now the green shift theme is a block based theme for Gutenberg now the theme actually has its own builder and it has a lot of really cool block based elements unlike any other Builder and it was neck and neck with Spectra 1 to be honest but while I was using the theme I was getting a lot of fatal errors and PHP problems now this could have just been an isolated incident right with me and my other plugins but it was consistent and I couldn't recommend it as the best theme if I ran into some fatal air problems so again it could
36:04 have just been an isolated incident but if you guys do use Gutenberg you guys can always check out the green shift theme now this last honorable mention I know I'm going to get a lot of heat from from the community and this is the bricks theme now I tested out the bricks theme I really tried it out and I tested the elements I tried to use the page builder the problem with the bricks theme is that it's just not intuitive enough for the average web designer I think this tool is specifically for web developers who want to edit the CSS and the div lines and move it around but for the average user on WordPress I don't think it's a suitable option but it is a very cool Tool uh if you guys are a developer you can do a lot of really cool creative things with it versus like Elementor but uh for the average user and the beginner with WordPress I would not recommend it but if you are an
36:50 experienced WordPress user or you're a developer it is worth checking out all right Party People well I hope this video brought a of value to you guys this video took me quite a bit of time to make you know I had to open up each WordPress theme I had to screen record it I had to write down the script as I was like you know writing uh you know learning all the features and stuff so I hope this video did bring a lot of value to you guys well until then make sure to stay safe and I will see all of you party people in the next video guys take care