Top 27 Most Popular Free WordPress Themes

There are over 18 million WordPress publishers as of November 2009: 9.2 million blogs hosted on WordPress.com plus 9.7 million active installations of the WordPress.org software. These nearly 10 million self-hosted WordPress.org powered blogs can utilize all the free WordPress themes and plugins available through the WordPress.org and numerous independent web sites.

These free WP themes can be downloaded and taken into use on any WordPress blog in matter of seconds (Go to Appearance >> Add New Themes in your WordPress Dashboard). There are over 1000 free themes available at WordPress.org alone and this post shows you the most popular of them.

Most Popular Free WordPress Themes

These are the most popular free WordPress themes and theme frameworks. The list is based on number of all time downloads on WordPress.org free theme directory. The themes popular right now were given a little bit more weight for the list and there are some themes on the list that are not in top 27 for all time downloads, but are likely to make it there in the future.

I included a trend count based on number of last weeks downloads, estimating the total amount of downloads in a year. The trend index is based on downloads last week vs downloads yesterday. (So in short, number higher than 1 means that the popularity of the theme is going up, lower than 1 means the popularity is going down).

1. iNove

iNove is stylish, widget supported and doesn’t require any plugin. The most downloaded theme on WordPress.org.

• All Time Downloads: 374,375
• Trend: 510,719 (1,01)

2. Atahualpa

Atahualpa has configurable options for your unique, professional and browser-safe theme: 1-5 columns, fluid or fixed width, rotating header images and 2 dozen option pages.

• All Time Downloads: 340,598
• Trend: 605,373 (1,01)

3. Fusion

Fusion is a light and clean theme from digitalnature. Localization support and theme options are available. Fusion has a special place in my heart as this was theme I used when Zemalf.com was launched. I only used the theme for a while before I went on to create my own theme from ground up. Great theme, and as the numbers show, a classic.

• All Time Downloads: 202,091
• Trend 240,675 (0,95)

4. Pixel

Pixel is a Dark WP theme with 2-3 column layout, dropdown categories menu, multiple widget-ready placement and feedburner email form integrated, easy to customize.

• All Time Downloads: 180,447
• Trend 467,695 (1,01)

5. Arclite

Arclite is a simple but elegant theme with lots of theme options.

• All Time Downloads: 149,600
• Trend 341,792 (1,01)

6. Thematic

Thematic is a highly extensible, WordPress Theme Framework featuring 13 widget-ready areas, drop-down menus, grid-based layout samples,plugin integration, shortcodes for your footer, & a whole lot more. Perfect starting point for theme development.

In general, theme frameworks are not ideal for beginners, unless they want to build their own theme from the start on top of the framework. Without customization, frameworks don't look as fancy as full themes, but on the right hands, anything can be built on top of it.

• All Time Downloads: 145,456
• Trend 311,752 (1,01)

7. LightWord

LightWord is clever theme with two columns, right-sidebar, fixed-width, widget-ready and threaded comments.

• All Time Downloads: 136,656
• Trend 297,804 (1,02)

8. Inanis Glass

Inanis Glass is a theme with 2 col. fixed w/right sidebar, widget & multi-language ready, 7 reader selectable themes saved by cookie, and default sub-theme is admin selectable.

• All Time Downloads: 133,418
• Trend 332,474 (0,80)

9. Elegant Grunge

Elegant Grunge is an unwashed yet crisp theme with a feature footer, styled image frames, a page template with a uniquely configurable sidebar and a photoblog tag page.

• All Time Downloads: 126,396
• Trend 189,316 (1,04)

10. Carrington Blog

Carrington Blog comes with customizable header, colors and AJAX options; and developer friendly theme with atomic templates and an elegant override hierarchy.

• All Time Downloads: 121,683
• Trend 167,235 (1,00)

11. Arras Theme

Arras Theme is a magazine-styled theme with tons of features. Ready for alternate styles. Includes featured posts slideshow, different post layouts, multi-tabbed sidebar, custom single meta fields for reviews and many other customisable features.

• All Time Downloads: 110,457
• Trend 266,405 (0,92)

12. Sliding Door

Sliding Door is a unique template featuring sliding images in the header based on phatfusion imagemenu. Sliding images in header link to pages, or can be redirected using the Page Links To plugin.

• All Time Downloads: 87,966
• Trend 147,298 (1,07)

13. Mystique

Mystique is a feature-packed theme with a solid design, built-in widgets and a intuitive theme settings interface. One of the hottest free themes right now.

• All Time Downloads: 77,031
• Trend 566,143 (1,27 HOT! #1 at the time of writing this post)

14. Pyrmont V2

Pyrmont V2 is a dark theme with built in links and archives pages.

• All Time Downloads: 72,583
• Trend 176,687 (1,00)

15. Magazine Basic

Magazine Basic is a magazine theme with a fully customizable layout. Theme options include site width, 1 or 2 widgetized sidebars, header logo, multiple front page grid layouts, Google Analytics, pagination, drop-down menus and tons more. Also includes dynamic SEO keywords and page descriptions.

• All Time Downloads: 67,933
• Trend 141,357 (0,90)

16. monochrome

monochrome theme supports widget, threaded-comments, theme-options,and translation is ready. Also including page-navigation and multi leveldropdown menu.

• All Time Downloads: 64,818
• Trend 218,530 (1,45 HOT!)

17. AutoFocus

AutoFocus is a WordPress theme specifically for photographers looking for a simple and elegant way to display their work online.

• All Time Downloads: 62,863
• Trend 145,647 (1,00)

18. Constructor

WordPress Constructor Theme, it's many-in-one theme (six layouts, configured colors, fonts and slideshow, widget ready). Build your own theme on settings page.

• All Time Downloads: 58,561
• Trend 252,001 (0,89)

19. P2

P2 is a group blog theme for short update messages, inspired by Twitter. Featuring: Hassle-free posting from the front page. Perfect for group blogging, or as aliveblog theme. Dynamic page updates. Loads of features.

• All Time Downloads: 57,999
• Trend 175,779 (0,95)

20. Hyprid

Hyprid is a user-friendly, search-engine optimized theme framework, featuring 18 custom page templates and multiple widget-ready areas, allowing you to create any type of site you want.

Like Thamatic, Hyprid is a theme framework, so by default it's not the shiniest of them, but with childthemes and customization, pretty much any kind of theme can be built on top of it.

• All Time Downloads: 50,191
• Trend 112,435 (0,96)

21. Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace is a lightweight, super-optimized WordPress theme packed with features (SEO, Adsense & Widget Ready).

• All Time Downloads: 47,911
• Trend 75,367 (0,97)

22. jQ

jQ has two columns, four widget areas and loads of jQuery functions (dropdown navigation, font resizing and more). The theme options include a movable sidebar, custom colours, excerpts on index pages, category or page navigation, different font and colour schemes.

• All Time Downloads: 46,568
• Trend 193,260 (1,06)

23. F8 Lite

F8 Lite is a photography & multimedia portfolio theme for WordPress.

• All Time Downloads: 41,799
• Trend 81,839 (0,96)

24. Vigilance

Vigilance, clean WP theme featuring standards and search friendly code. A built in Theme Options menu allows plenty of customization.

• All Time Downloads: 40,692
• Trend 85,100 (0,72)

25. iBlog2

The iBlog2 theme already has support for the native WordPress 'post thumbnails' added in 2.9.

• All Time Downloads: 35,334
• Trend 113,022 (0,88)

26. Suffusion

Suffusion is a lightweight theme with a huge set of options.

• All Time Downloads: 34,080
• Trend 187,168 (1,10)

27. Piano Black

Piano Black is a relatively new theme, gaining huge amounts of downloads each day. We'll see how this one does on the longer term.

• All Time Downloads: 11,871
• Trend 252,423 (0,89)

The number of free themes available has been increasing rapidly, and there are over 1000 free themes hosted on WordPress.org that has been downloaded over 10 million times (and counting). This is a showcase for the most popular of those free WordPress themes.

There are thousands, if not tens of thousands, of additional free themes available through download directly from the developers, but the themes hosted on WordPress.org are generally higher quality and better supported, which makes them a great choice for beginning WordPress bloggers.

More and more bloggers are buying and using with premium WordPress themes, especially the most customizable ones or even go for fully unique designs, but free themes are where most bloggers start. And that's the beauty of a content management system, where the content is separated from the design, meaning you can change your WordPress Theme at any time without losing any posts you've written.

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