8 Fast and Free WordPress Themes in 2024

Choosing a lightweight, performance-optimized WordPress theme is essential for achieving excellent site speed and enhancing user experience. Fast load times are critical, as users expect instant responses, and Google prioritizes websites that load quickly in its search rankings.

In this guide, we recommend some of the best lightweight, fast, and free WordPress themes for 2024. Whether you’re building a blog, an eCommerce store, or a simple website, these themes will provide a solid foundation for high performance.

Key Criteria for Choosing a High-Performance WordPress Theme

When selecting a theme, keep these essential factors in mind:

• Simple design with only essential features for faster load times.
• Fully responsive, ensuring fast loading on all devices, especially mobile.
• SEO-friendly with clean, semantic HTML markup and support for schema.org structured data to improve rankings.
• Built-in caching and CSS/JS minification to optimize asset delivery and reduce load times.
• Compatibility with performance-enhancing plugins (caching, image optimization, CDN tools) and popular page builders.
• Support for lazy loading to delay media loading until users scroll, reducing initial load time.
• Minimum HTTP requests (fonts, icons, scripts) to prevent slow page loading.
• Regular updates to stay compatible with the latest WordPress versions and security standards.

All the themes we recommend are free, open-source, and offer optional premium features for enhanced functionality. Before highlighting their unique strengths, let’s take a look at the features they share:

• Multi-purpose use, suitable for both developers and non-coders.
• Clean, SEO-optimized code for improved search engine rankings.
• Extensive customization options, including layout controls, typography, and color settings via the WordPress Customizer.
• Compatibility with the most widely used WordPress plugins.
• Seamless integration with popular page builders like Elementor, Beaver Builder, SiteOrigin, Thrive Architect, Divi, and Visual Composer.
• Multilingual support and accessibility-ready features.
• Regular updates for enhanced security and performance.
• Comprehensive documentation and support via active community forums.

NOTE: All themes performed impressively in our speed tests, with only slight variations. Each provides a strong foundation for building a fast website. However, keep in mind that final performance depends heavily on how the site is built. Adding plugins or custom code can increase page load times. Therefore, instead of delving into detailed speed tests, we’ll focus on the features and use cases of each theme, helping you select the best option for your needs.

Let’s dive into these recommendations, highlighting their unique features and comparing key data and performance metrics.

Astra

Active installations: 1+ million, Rating: 5/5

Astra is a lightweight WordPress theme widely used for blogs, portfolios, business websites, and WooCommerce stores. It’s an excellent choice for users seeking high performance without sacrificing design flexibility.

• Astra uses minimal resources, resulting in fast load times (<0.5 seconds).
• The default installation loads the homepage with less than 55KB of transferred data and just 6 HTTP requests.
• Utilizing Vanilla JavaScript instead of jQuery reduces render-blocking, enhancing performance.
• It supports schema markup, a method of HTML markup that helps search engines better understand and rank your content.

Astra provides:

• Its own flexible header and footer builder.
• Extensive customization options for typography, colors, and layouts.

Brainstorm Force, the creator of the Astra theme, has over 70 team members across 9 countries. They have developed multiple WordPress themes and plugins that are used by more than 3 million websites.

GeneratePress

Active installations: 600,000+, Rating: 5/5

GeneratePress intention is to offer the right amount of customization while staying light and stable. It is well known for its clean code and is very popular among developers and non-coders.

• The default installation loads the homepage with under 37KB of transferred data and only 6 HTTP requests.
• Like Astra, it uses Vanilla JavaScript instead of jQuery.
• It supports schema markup.

GeneratePress is one of the lightest themes in this review, though it provides only basic functionality out of the box.

Hello Elementor

Active installations: 1+ Million, Rating: 4.5/5

Hello Elementor is a WordPress theme crafted to work seamlessly with the Elementor page builder.

• Designed with minimal styling, Hello Elementor utilizes only the essential code to load Elementor. This approach avoids script bloat, creating a blank canvas for Elementor users.
• It employs Vanilla JavaScript instead of jQuery for optimal performance.
• Loading almost instantly, it requires just 30.7KB of transferred data and only 7 HTTP requests, making it significantly lighter than most other themes.
• The theme offers a bare-bones structure alongside 100+ ready-made designs, empowering users with full control over their site’s design. Elements include headings, videos, spacers, Google Maps, posts, and more.

Hello Elementor also emphasizes comprehensive documentation, providing valuable resources for both casual users and developers.

Neve

Active installations: 300,000+, Rating: 4.5/5

Neve is a performance-oriented, multi-purpose WordPress theme, recognized for its exceptional balance of extensibility, performance, and mobile optimization—a combination that distinguishes it from other themes.

• With a lightweight load of just 28KB of transferred data and only 6 HTTP requests, Neve significantly outperforms most other themes.
• It utilizes Vanilla JavaScript instead of jQuery for enhanced performance.
• The theme features a powerful, flexible, and user-friendly mega menu.
• Its responsive design and AMP compatibility further improve both speed and SEO for mobile users.
• Neve provides a variety of ready-to-use starter sites.
• The theme is highly extendable, offering advanced controls for blog and archive layouts.

Built by Themeisle, Neve is the product of a dedicated team of designers, developers, testers, and marketers who have created multiple WordPress themes and plugins.

OceanWP

Active installations: 600,000+, Rating: 5/5

OceanWP is a highly regarded, multi-purpose WordPress theme known for its speed and mobile-friendly design, making it suitable for both beginners and advanced users.

• This lightweight and highly scalable theme ensures fast load times for websites of all sizes.
• It requires only 344KB of transferred data and 22 HTTP requests.
• It includes schema markup to enhance search engine visibility.
• The theme offers extensive customization options, allowing users to tweak almost every aspect of their site, from headers and footers to typography and layout settings.
• A library of free extensions is also available including modals, post sliders, custom sliders, social sharing tools, and more.

OceanWP LLC, the creators of this theme, is a WordPress software development company comprised of an international team of dedicated WordPress enthusiasts committed to producing high-quality themes.

Customify

Active installations: 40,000+, Rating: 4.5/5

Customify stands out for its exceptional flexibility and performance. This theme’s versatility and user-friendly customization make it a popular choice for business websites, e-commerce stores, personal blogs, and portfolio websites.

Key features include:

• Fast page load that requires 140KB of transferred data and 8 HTTP requests.
• The use of Vanilla JavaScript instead of jQuery to prevent render blocking.
• A library of ready-to-import websites.
• Extended Header & Footer Customization: The theme features a true WYSIWYG builder, designed exclusively for Customify, that integrates seamlessly within the WordPress Customizer.

Overall, the Customify theme makes an excellent choice for users seeking extensive customization options while maintaining a strong focus on performance and user experience.

Sydney

Active installations: 100,000+, Rating: 5/5

Sydney is renowned for its aesthetics, ease of use, and impressive performance, making it a top choice for users eager to build clean, modern websites swiftly.

• The default installation features a page load requiring only 41KB of transferred data and 7 HTTP requests.
• It utilizes Vanilla JavaScript rather than jQuery, enhancing its efficiency.
• Sydney expands your customization options by offering custom Elementor blocks, parallax backgrounds, social icons, a built-in slider, header media display, a sticky header, and more.
• With the aThemes Starter Sites plugin, you gain access to a variety of professional, modern, and clean ready-to-use demo templates suitable for all types of websites.
• The development team provides enhanced support for free users, including video tutorials, feature requests, and additional resources.

Sydney is created by aThemes, a fully remote team distributed across different countries, united by a shared passion for crafting exceptional WordPress themes.

Zakra

Active installations: 40,000+, Rating: 5/5

Create any layout you can imagine with the lightweight Zakra theme. Its minimalist code ensures quick loading and high performance across various industries, making it ideal for users who value both performance and aesthetics.

• Zakra features a block-based design with a mobile-first responsive layout.
• Extensive customization options are available through the WordPress Customizer, allowing you to adjust colors, layouts, and typography without compromising performance.
• The default installation page load requires only 73.4KB of transferred data and just 10 HTTP requests.
• Zakra utilizes Vanilla JavaScript instead of jQuery.
• A variety of ready-to-use demo templates are available after installing and activating the ThemeGrill Demo Importer plugin.

Developed by ThemeGrill, a trusted WordPress company, Zakra provides powerful free and premium themes and plugins.

Comparison

The following table summarizes the characteristics and some important data of the themes discussed. Please note that the metrics were collected using the default installation, without any additional modifications.

	Schema	Vanilla JS	HTTP requests	Transferred Size (kB)	Load (ms)
Astra	Yes	Yes	6	54.1	<500
GeneratePress	Yes	Yes	6	36.2	–
Hello	No	Yes	7	30.7	<250
Neve	No	Yes	6	41.3	<1sec
OceanWP	Yes	No	22	344	–
Customify	No	Yes	8	140	–
Sydney	No	Yes	7	41	–
Hestia	No	No	17	215	–
Zakra	No	Yes	10	73.4	–

These are valuable insights; however, we recommend thoroughly evaluating their benefits in your environment before making a decision. For example, one theme may be slower than another but offer more ready-to-use features, which might better suit your project needs.

Is Lightweight and Fast Not Enough for You?

Here’s a comparison of the official load times of these themes alongside their actual performance on Pressidium hosting:

	Astra	GeneratePress	Hello	Neve	OceanWP	Customify	Sydney	Hestia	Zakra
Load (ms)	<500	–	<250	<1000	–	–	–
Pressidium Load (ms)	<300	<300	<230	<250	~500	<380	<250	<600	<400

Pressidium achieves these lightning-fast page loads through its advanced server-side caching and built-in Enterprise CDN. The platform’s N-tier architecture prevents bottlenecks, while automatic load balancing ensures consistent performance during high traffic. This is all backed by a global server network, delivering low latency for users worldwide.

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