What is WordPress themes in terms of blogging?
In a simple sentence, WordPress themes are a makeup kit that includes a bundle of features to help the blog look good and to be fast on the internet. A theme determines how your default blog page looks, how your header looks, how your footer looks, how your sidebar looks, and etc.
Therefore, after doing lots of research in terms of ratings and downloads, I found these 4 top wordpress themes which have been widely used by many bloggers for creating an overwhelming blog.
In my personal experience, I have found the OceanWP wordpress themes as a most promising theme in overall design, speed and features.
The other best wordress themes I found for creating a general blog are Astra, GeneratePress, and the last one is ColibriWP.
Top 4 famous WordPress themes brief description is given below:
1. OceanWP
By oceanwp
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- Version: 1.8.3
- Last updated: May 13, 2020
- Active Installations: 600,000+
- Theme Homepage
OceanWP is an excellent wordpress theme for creating a blog. It is lightweight and highly customizable, which will enable you to create almost any type of website such as a blog, portfolio, business website, and WooCommerce store with a pleasant & professional design. It is very fast and responsive with best SEO practices and with unique WooCommerce features to increase conversion, and much more. It enables editing the settings even on tablets & mobile phones so your site looks good on every device. It works with the most popular page builders as Elementor, Beaver Builder, Brizy, Visual Composer, Divi, SiteOrigin, etc. Developers will love his extensible codebase making it a joy to customize and extend. This wordpress theme is the best friend of Elementor & WooCommerce because it is very supportive when editing a page using Elementor or WooCommerce. So, if you are looking for a Multi-Purpose theme, I suggest you go for OceanWP and do not look further! Check the demos to realize that it’s the only theme you will ever need: https://oceanwp.org/demos/
Customize Features that OceanWP wordpress theme contains:
Eye-Catching Blog, Custom Background, Custom Colors, Custom Menu, E-Commerce, Editor Style, Featured Images, Footer Widgets, Full-Width Template, News, Post Formats, Right Sidebar, RTL Language Support, Sticky Post, Theme Options, Threaded Comments, Translation Ready, and Two Columns.
Download: https://downloads.wordpress.org/theme/oceanwp.1.8.3.zip
Preview: https://wp-themes.com/oceanwp
2. Astra
Astra is a fast, fully customizable & beautiful WordPress theme suitable for blog, personal portfolio, business website, and WooCommerce storefront. It is also very lightweight (less than 50KB on frontend) and offers exceptional speed. This wordpress theme is also built with the most reliable SEO in mind. Astra comes with Schema.org code integrated and is Native AMP (Mobile Users friendly) ready so search engines will love your site. It extends unique features and templates so it works perfectly with all page builders like Elementor, Beaver Builder, Visual Composer, SiteOrigin, Divi, etc. It is also absolutely WooCommerce Ready, Responsive, RTL & Translation Read and Extendible with premium addons, Regularly updated Designed. It is Developed, Maintained & Supported by Brainstorm Force which means it won’t allow spam login. The WordPress theme Astra is also highly advisable to use for creating a blog
Customize Features that Astra wordpress theme contains:
Eye-Catching Blog, Custom Background, Custom Colors, Custom Logo, Custom Menu, E-Commerce, Editor Style, Entertainment, Featured Images, Full Width Template, Left Sidebar, Microformats, One Column, Post Formats, Right Sidebar, RTL Language Support, Theme Options, Threaded Comments, Translation Ready, and Two Columns.
Download: https://downloads.wordpress.org/theme/astra.2.4.5.zip
Preview: https://wp-themes.com/astra/
3. GeneratePress
By Tom
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- Version: 2.4.2
- Last updated: March 17, 2020
- Active Installations: 200,000+
- Theme Homepage
GeneratePress is recognized as the most lightweight WordPress theme built with a focus on speed and usability. Performance is important, that is why a fresh GeneratePress install contains less than 15kb (gzipped) to your page size. It has full advantage of the new block editor namely (Gutenberg), which gives you control over creating your content. If you use an Elementor page builder, GeneratePress may not has the same speed and performance according to my personal experience. It is anyway completely compatible with all major page builders, including Beaver Builder and Elementor. It has full compatibility with all well-coded plugins, including WooCommerce. GeneratePress is completely responsive, uses valid HTML/CSS, and is translated into over 25 languages by our amazing community of users. Learn more and check out our powerful premium version at https://generatepress.com
Customize Features that Astra wordpress theme contains:
It has features like microdata integration, 9 widget areas, 5 navigation locations, 5 sidebar layouts, dropdown menus (click or hover) and navigation color presets, Eye-Catching Blog, Custom Background, Custom Colors, Custom Header, Custom Menu, E-Commerce, Featured Images, Flexible Header, Footer Widgets, Full-Width Template, Left Sidebar, One Column, Right Sidebar, RTL Language Support, Sticky Post, Theme Options, Threaded Comments, Three Columns, Translation Ready, and Two Columns.
Download: https://downloads.wordpress.org/theme/generatepress.2.4.2.zip
Preview: https://wp-themes.com/generatepress
4. ColibriWP
Colibri is a beautiful, extremely customizable, and multipurpose wordpress theme that you can use to create an astonishing website by drag and drop. It comes with a predesigned home page, 5 header designs, and over 35 ready to use content blocks that you can easily customize. You can also design your own custom blocks by combining over 25 drag and drop components. Colibri has lots of customization options (video background, slideshow background, header content types, etc) that will help you create a website that stands out in no time. It is also responsive so it works on mobile devices out of the box. Colibri is the only theme you will ever need! CHECK OUT THE DEMOS: https://colibriwp.com/go/demos
Customize Features that Astra wordpress theme contains:
Eye-Catching Blog, Custom Background, Custom Header, Custom Logo, Custom Menu, Entertainment, Featured Images, Food & Drink, Full Width Template, Grid Layout, One Column, Portfolio, Right Sidebar, Theme Options, Threaded Comments, Translation Ready, and Two Columns.
Download: https://downloads.wordpress.org/theme/colibri-wp.1.0.78.zip
Preview: https://wp-themes.com/colibri-wp
Extra Note:
If you are currently using OceanWP and want to switch it to GeneratePress thinking that it is fast, then you are probably wrong. OceanWP is almost fast as GeneratePress. Anyway, if you still want to try GeneratePress; I will suggest you perform a backup of your website before switching to GeneratePress. Otherwise, you may also face problems as shown in the image. Here, the problem I had faced was that the size of all my blogposts got decreased to very small text sizes and my whole website appearance was damaged.
