Your WordPress theme is the foundation of your website, which means it plays an important role in the loading speed of your website. Of course, you can use a lot of strategies to speed up your WordPress website afterwards. But your theme will always become a bottleneck.
In fact, I have done some tests on my collection website. By switching to one of the lightweight WordPress topics in this list, my page load time has been reduced by nearly 50% (and the website has been well optimized before switching!).
So, whenever possible, you always want to choose a lightweight WordPress theme. But – how do you find a lightweight WordPress Theme ？ I mean, no developers promote their theme as "slow loading", so how can you go beyond marketing copy and choose a theme that can be loaded quickly?
To make this choice easier, we have compiled this list of the best free lightweight WordPress topics. All of these themes will provide you with a basis for fast loading without costing you a penny. To prove this – I will install each of these themes on my test site and show you data on file size and HTTP requests.
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What is the "lightweight" theme? 1.GeneratePress 2.Zakra 3.Astra 4.Airi 5.OceanWP 6.Page Builder Framework 7. Neve Start using lightweight WordPress themes now!
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What is the "lightweight" theme?
Unless you test a lot of WordPress topics yourself, I realize that "lightweight" doesn't mean much without context. Therefore, before I show you the data of the best free lightweight WordPress theme, I will first show you the performance of average themes in terms of file size and number of requests.
For this reason, I // WordPress.org Some tests were conducted on 4 random popular topics (these are not lightweight topics). I know this is not the most scientific experiment. But it should provide a good benchmark for your "average" theme performance:
Newsmag – 848.3 KB and 37 requests Hueman – 582.9 KB and 21 requests Ashe – 1.6MB and 24 requests (the file is particularly large because it uses the background cover image by default) Activello – 612.4 KB and 22 requests
You can see a pattern there – WordPress Theme The average size is far more than 600 KB, and only one blank site's HTTP request lasts about 20 seconds, some of which can be easily exceeded.
For all the data in this article, I used a new WordPress installation, with only the default content and no plug-ins. In addition, the file size number applies to the entire WordPress website – not just theme files. This is why you may see a difference between my number and the number placed by the theme company in its marketing copy.
1.GeneratePress
Newly installed file size: 108.4 KB Newly installed HTTP request: 11
Right away, you can see GeneratePress There are some impressive figures in terms of "lightweight". Its number is far lower than your average theme, which will provide you with a good foundation.
although GeneratePress It doesn't look like out of the box, but the biggest advantage of this theme is its customizability, which is why it is a good multi-purpose choice.
With the real-time WordPress customizer, you can easily switch the title, layout, color, etc. of the site.
If you are a WordPress page builder fan, GeneratePress It is also easy to pair with the page builder, because you can get a metabox for each content, allowing you to:
Turn off content titles or other information to change the width (for example, use Page Builder to create a full width design). Disable Header/Footer to use Page Builder to design the entire page
If you are willing to pay, GeneratePress Premium Many new customization options will be added, as well as a large number of hooks that developers will like. Of course, all new functions are modular to retain GeneratePress Lightweight method.
GeneratePress Premium It also allows you to access the prefabricated site library that can be imported as needed.
2.Zakra
Newly installed file size: 96.8 KB Newly installed HTTP requests: 10
On Zakra's new WordPress installation, the file size is less than 100 KB.
image GeneratePress Similarly, instead of providing a large number of out of the box styles, it has chosen to provide you with many WordPress customization controls to set according to your preferences.
From the WordPress customizer, you can control:
Title layout, single layout, color layout, etc.
In addition to these customized controls, you can also choose from more than 10 free entry sites. Like GeneratePress, you can also get page level controls that make it easy for Zakra to pair with page builders. You can:
Change the layout, adjust the sidebar, and so on.
As for the content you can disable on each post/page, it is not as flexible as GeneratePress:
Currently, there is no paid version of Zakra - everything is 100% free.
3.Astra
Newly installed file size: 174.1 KB Newly installed HTTP requests: 9
Astra It is another lightweight WordPress theme, especially popular with people who use page builders.
I like it best Astra One thing is that it has a large prefabricated website library, which can be imported with a few clicks. These sites are using Elementor 、 Beaver Builder Or Brizy for customization. Although paying users can access all prefabrication sites, even free users can still install a large number of prefabrication sites.
In addition, you can also get a lot of detailed WordPress customization settings to precisely control the appearance of your website and the options of each post/page:
Change content width Disable title, header, featured pictures, or footer Change the number of sidebars Enable transparent headers
Astra It also has WooCommerce , Easy Digital Downloads, and some LMS The special integration of plug-ins allows you to control the appearance of plug-ins through the WordPress customizer. If you use one of the plug-ins, it will be a good bonus.
If you need more features, there is also a Pro version, which can add more modular options for only $59.
4.Airi
Newly installed file size: 543.6KB Newly installed HTTP requests: 19
Airi is slightly larger than the first three themes, but it makes up for it through its out of the box appearance. This is a good choice for enterprises, agencies and freelancers.
To make further changes, Airi includes several demonstration sites that can be imported, all of which use Elementor Page builder creation, which means you can easily customize the template using simple drag and drop editing:
For other adjustments, you can use the real-time WordPress customizer.
If you need more functions, Airi Pro will add more demonstration sites and some new Elementor Widgets to extend with the following widgets Elementor Free version of:
Slider back grid and more
Professional edition also provides you with more WooCommerce Option.
5.OceanWP
Newly installed file size: 625.8KB Newly installed HTTP requests: 18
With GeneratePress and Astra Together, OceanWP is the third member of these three themes, which are very popular among people who use page builders to build WordPress websites. This is the most important topic in this list, but it has many customization options to compensate for this.
It has many similarities with these two themes:
It includes detailed WordPress customizer controls. If you want to use the page builder, you can obtain page level controls to disable some information (as long as you install the free supporting Ocean Extra plug-in)
OceanWP's post/page meta box is more detailed than other topics, and even allows you to access things such as bread crumbs and custom logos with specific content:
You will begin to see that some of the greater differences with OceanWP are the advanced version. In addition to adding a bunch of importable site designs, the advanced version also focuses on adding functions, not just Astra And GeneratePress.
For example, the Advanced Edition includes the following features:
Cookie notification pop-up login Instagram feed modal window social sharing
You can get all the advanced extensions for just $39.
6.Page Builder Framework
Newly installed file size: 206.8 KB Newly installed HTTP requests: 12
As the name implies, the Page Builder Framework is specifically designed to pair with your favorite page builder.
Therefore, it focuses on providing you with the basic controls you need, and then allowing you to use the page builder for everything else.
With the WordPress customizer, you can set:
Your title (advanced version adds more flexibility here) blog layout, including file and single article layout
You can also obtain these page level controls, allowing you to:
Hide page titles Disable full header and/or footer width Change sidebar configuration
If you need more functionality, you can use advanced add ons to provide more detailed title/menu options, such as:
Sticky Title Transparent Header Canvas Outer Menu Super Menu
And many other customization options, including more detailed customization of program controls.
The premium version costs $59.
7. Neve
Newly installed file size: 206.0 KB Newly installed HTTP request: 11
Neve is almost the same as Page Builder Framework in terms of file size and request.
Like many others, Neve is designed to pair with the page builder of your choice and/or the new Gutenberg block editor that becomes the default editor in WordPress 5.0.
Therefore, it provides detailed WordPress customizer controls for the basic look of your website, including many different blog archive page layouts (you can use lists or grids, each with several permutations).
You can also get page level controls. You can:
Change the number of sidebars Change the width, including a unique option to specify a custom width percentage Disable headers, headers, or footers
In addition, Neve also has its own site library, which allows you to import any of the seven pre built sites (these sites use Elementor Built).
At present, Neve is 100% free.
In general, I will try to conclude my review by suggesting which specific topic you should choose. However, this is difficult because many of them are trying to do the same type of things.
On the contrary, I will give you some suggestions for your consideration:
Title/menu options – do you want a sticky title? Transparent title? Label menu? These are all things that need to be considered, because each topic is handled in a different way. Pre built websites – some topics, such as Airi, Astra, Neve and Zakra, include free version demo websites, while other websites only include paid versions. This may be important if you don't want to start from scratch. Customizer controls – Many of them limit the customized controls that you can access for free. Therefore, please carefully check whether you can customize the content required in the free version.
In addition, all these topics should build a good lightweight foundation for you to build your website!
I hope this article will help you choose a free lightweight WordPress Theme , you may also want to read our 12 case studies of blogs from childhood to super success To learn the stories of successful bloggers.
