With usage of WordPress websites increasing more and more there has been an ever increasing rise in the development of both Free and Premium WordPress themes.
In the following content we are going to consider free WordPress themes before trying our Premium versions and there features and advantages.
Why Free when we have Premium?
This is the biggest question one asks Why consider Free WordPress themes before thinking of purchasing a Premium WordPress theme. Here are some of the reasons we could think of:
In Free WordPress theme one doesn’t tend to worry too much because stake is less. That means we are free to try and use and if it doesn't work move to the next free WordPress theme. In Pro or premium version one cannot opt out and even if they do it comes with a price. Since most of the theme developers do not offer Refunds.
Free themes are simple and easy to use. Hence if it is the first website that you are building this becomes a great starting point to understand how the whole WordPress theme ecosystem works and if this will work for you since CMS means Do It Yourself.
WordPress themes that come free also are very easy in terms of functionality and not over cluttered. Most common problems with todays’ premium themes is that they come with everything that you might never need as well. In case you are building a simple website a premium theme is a waste of time and money and themes that come free may become handy.
Frameworks
Free WP Themes come with various options and theme developers use different frameworks to build these theme options. The most common one in usage are:
Customizer: WordPress free themes are mostly built on top of the default WordPress customizer and it is quite easy to use as well and gives a real preview feature while you keep on doing changes into the theme.
Options Framework: This framework is very simple and has a plugin version as well. Need a simple theme options tab under Appearance this framework can work best for you.
Redux Framework: People who like some more options and more to give to their customers when it comes to free use the above. It consists of most of the features one might consider having in theme options to provide to a customer.
Source
WordPress themes for free come from various sources. There are many websites which offer free themes but the most standard ones and best ones are:
WordPress.org: This is a very common and most used source of finding Free themes. Themes available here go through extensive code check and standards and are generally very good in terms of ease of use and functionality.
Many other sites provide free WordPress themes and one may find them via search engines. But we recommend the above source for its reliability over any other provider.
Features
WordPress themes available for free are mostly simple both in terms of look and feel and functionality hence you won’t get too many features. But with time there are many developers who have gone to the extent of providing many premium features within their WordPress free themes. Some of the features we have listed:
Typography: Many themes allow you to change fonts for free nowadays. So one can easily change some of the fonts and their sizes available for the theme easily.
Color change: Many provide you with the option to change the single color scheme i.e. The style of the whole website. With a single click of a button blue color of the themechanges color to a pink or red.
Background and header image change: Background and header image is a very common option and quite popular among free themes whereby one may change background of the whole website or each page separately.
Footer copyright change: Although restricted but still many theme developers are providing this option for free. What this could mean is no one would know you use a free theme unless they check the source.
Social icons: This is a very common feature and with increase in social sites theme developers include the most common social icons.
Responsive: This is one of the recent most common feature Google has also introduced mobilegeddon whereby mobile friendly sites get more benefit.
Slider: Slider is essential but not a very essential feature. Some of the free themes consist it. Most of them don’t.