Ever since Google released the Core Web Vitals update penalizing websites with poor user experience and slow load times, theme developers started building their themes with performance in mind.
Here is the list of the seven fastest-loading free themes:
Theme Name | Page Load time | CSS + JS Size | Core Web Vitals | DOM Count |
Neve | 900 ms | 29 kb | 90% | 484 |
GeneratePress | 854 ms | 25 kb | 96% | 312 |
Astra | 878 ms | 32 kb | 99% | 399 |
Kadence | 700 ms | 32 kb | 94% | 400 |
Sydney | 700 ms | 33 kb | 90% | 381 |
OceanWP | 800 ms | 148 kb | 92% | 371 |
Zakra | 600 ms | 138 kb | 100% | 356 |
Although there are many others, I shortlisted these themes because they have better designs and good support teams behind them.
Anyway, If you notice in the above table, the fastest loading theme is Zakra.
It loads at least 200 ms faster than the rest of the free themes.
But if I had to pick Zakra for my personal website, I wouldn’t do that because I don’t like their designs. They look outdated to me.
It is just a personal opinion. You might like their design. If that is the case, Zakra is top on the list.
The point I am trying to convey here is that the theme of being performant is important, but the following aspects of a website are equally important:
This is because passing the Core Web Vitals test is not just about the website loading super fast.
It is also about providing the best possible user experience to your visitors.
So, it is equally important to pick a theme that is beautiful and follows other website best practices.
“But bro, a Free theme doesn’t usually look good, right? Also, most of the features will become available only when we purchase a premium theme.”
Hahaha, times are changing 🙂
I feel that the following four free themes stand out from the crowd in terms of speed, design, and best practices:
Theme Name | Page Load time | CSS + JS Size | Core Web Vitals | DOM Count |
Neve | 900 ms | 29 kb | 90% | 484 |
Astra | 878 ms | 32 kb | 99% | 399 |
Kadence | 700 ms | 32 kb | 94% | 400 |
Sydney | 700 ms | 33 kb | 90% | 381 |
If you want to understand how I choose the fast WordPress themes that follow best practices, read this article.
“Got it. But from the above four themes, what theme would you pick for yourself?”
It is a clear winner for me. It has fewer flaws when compared to other free themes.
“How did you figure that out?”
I created a realistic demo site with each theme listed above to get a deep understanding of how each theme supports some of the important features of WordPress, such as Block Editor.
After a lot of back and forth between the themes, I decided to stick with the Neve theme because:
What more do you want from a free theme?
After trying many themes, I don’t think any other free theme provides these many good options while being performant.
“Interesting, What are the flaws that you found on the Neve theme?”
Haha, It does give you a good number of irritations if you are working with it for the first time.
Neve is not perfect, but I feel like it is better than other free WordPress themes.
Anyway, If you want a more detailed analysis of the themes mentioned above, please read this article.
I will see you in my next analysis.