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“These themes are hand-picked for their outstanding design quality, features, and customer reviews.”
Keep it simple!
There’s no need to distract visitors with extra frills and flair. Get straight to the point with these simple WordPress themes.
These themes are simple in both form and function. They’ll help you quickly build a gorgeous site that engages visitors and converts them into subscribers, customers – whatever you’d like.
Read further to find the top choices for the simplest WordPress themes of 2018.
Make sure to check out our list of minimalist WordPress themes too.
Top Simple WordPress themes
Have no fear. Each theme below is compatible with the latest version of WordPress. They also look and perform great on mobile devices, tablets, laptops, and widescreen monitors.
Here are my top picks for best simple WordPress themes for 2024.
1. Smiltė by Edge Themes (Themeforest)
Theme Description
Simple doesn’t mean boring, and it doesn’t mean plain either as the vibrant Smiltė
theme proves.This minimalist theme uses bold, bright backgrounds with thoughtfully placed text to create a premium and simple aesthetic. It’s especially well-suited for creative portfolios and agency websites. It would also be the perfect theme for an illustrator, given how nicely they sit on top of the colored backgrounds.
Smiltė includes a premium page builder plugin bundled for free, which gives you total control over the layouts and page templates. It also includes dozens of shortcodes if you prefer them for creating your pages. Overall, it’s a gorgeous theme with a set of highly customizable site-building tools.
2. The Simple by Elle Themes (Themeforest)
Theme Description
While The Simple is really feature-rich, the design is always simple. That’s regardless of which one of the many layouts you choose. You’ll be able to create a clean and minimalist website or even a few using this flexible WordPress theme.
The Simple is actually a multipurpose theme which is why it’s so customizable. But don’t be intimidated by the massive amount of functionality included. There’s a simple setup wizard that lets you prepare your site in a straightforward method before diving into all the options.
On top of the beautiful aesthetic and customization options, you’ll get top-notch support from the Elle Themes team whenever you need it. Click the link below to learn more and see everything The Simple has to offer.
3. Bifrost by Neuron Themes (Themeforest)
Theme Description
Bifrost is the perfect theme if you want to build a simple portfolio website. The ultra-simple layout lets you showcase portfolio items without any distraction.
Bifrost is easy to use and extremely customizable too. Thanks to its special integration with the Elementor page builder plugin, you can simply drag-and-drop page elements into place. Using this user-friendly system, you can create any page you can imagine.
This clean theme also includes a custom header and footer builder, custom fonts, and more than 500+ other customization options. It’s also constantly being updated by the developers and recently received its biggest update ever. Click the link below to see more.
4. Founder by Compete Themes
Theme Description
Founder is a simple one-column WordPress theme, and unlike most of the other templates listed here, it’s totally free! You can install it and get started with Founder in just a few minutes.
Founder is super minimalist stripping away all non-essential elements until only the most critical content remains. This simple blog theme places visual emphasis on each post’s title and Featured Image – the primary image coupled with each post. If you’re looking for a straightforward theme for writing and blogging, your articles will be right at home with Founder.
The Founder theme includes a handful of customization options, such as over 50+ social icons to pick from, post excerpt controls, and a custom logo. It also has a premium upgrade called Founder Pro with a collection of additional customization features for the plain, blank canvas Founder theme.
5. Ignite by Compete Themes
Theme Description
If you’re looking for a simple theme with a warm, colorful flair, check out Ignite. As another theme of ours, the Ignite WP theme is free just like Founder.
Ignite uses an elegant serif font that beautifully contrasts the otherwise modern aesthetic. There is liberal use of white space and splashes of color that add energy to the template. The result is a theme that is engaging and readable on desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.
Ignite includes a variety of easy-to-use features including a custom background color, right- and left-sidebar layouts, five different fonts, and more. With over 150,000 downloads and a 5-star rating on wordpress.org, Ignite is a theme you can trust to run your site reliably, and a great choice for WP beginners.
6. Clean by MyThemeShop
Theme Description
The appropriately named Clean WordPress theme is minimalist and stylish. It balances headlines with images for a design that is both attractive and effective.
There are a handful of layouts available for the Clean theme, but you’ll find the main demo shows off a slider of featured posts followed by a theme column layout. While you may immediately consider this template for a blog, it has the capabilities to readily handle the quantity of content you may publish on an online news or magazine website.
As a premium theme, Clean is quite customizable with plenty of design controls. To name a few, there are 4 image slider types, 4 homepage layouts, and more settings in the advanced options panel. Clean is also an Adsense-optimized theme (ad space and management) and includes WooCommerce support, so it’s great for monetizing your website.
7. Portfolio by MyThemeShop
Theme Description
If you’re looking to show off your photography, graphic design portfolio, or other visual work, the Portfolio theme is a clean and minimalist option.
Like other themes listed here, Portfolio is spacious and light. It makes limited use of color only adding it to the template to accent key elements. Right after the primary headline, you’ll find a filterable image gallery. Visitors can swiftly search through your best work with the instant-updating gallery.
Portfolio lets customize the number of columns in the image gallery grid and choose how large the images will be. It also includes a complementary minimalist design for the blog and posts. With social media icons, hundreds of fonts to choose from, and unlimited color options, Portfolio is easy to make your own.
8. Corporate by MyThemeShop
Theme Description
Need a simple design for your business site? Look no further than the Corporate business theme.
Corporate has a classic layout that visitors will find instantly familiar. Show off your product in the large header image and build interest with a headline and quick burst of marketing copy. A call-to-action button is immediately visible for directing visitors through your sales funnel.
The Corporate theme has numerous sections on the homepage for your team, services, portfolio, and more. There’s even a pricing table for collecting sales via eCommerce. If you need to sell professional services or products and still want a theme that is simple in form and function, Corporate is an excellent choice. Use this theme for selling apps, downloads, educational training courses.
Which simple theme is right for you?
If you want a simple and free theme for a blog, try out Founder. If you want a sidebar for your site too, Ignite may be a better choice.
The Clean theme will work better for magazine and news sites with more content to display. Portfolio is the best option for an artwork-focused or image-rich website, and Corporate is the obvious choice for anyone looking for a simple business theme.
Don’t forget to consider the support you’ll get and what kind of functionality comes with the theme, and you’re bound to end up with an excellent website.
