WordPress can run almost any kind of website, yet it is still the name most people think of first for blogging, and that reputation is earned. Its editor and post management tools are stronger than what rival platforms offer, and you can add almost any feature you need through themes and plugins.
Since WordPress started as a blogging tool, blog-ready themes are easy to come by. Writing and organizing posts works well with any of them, so the real differences lie elsewhere: how much you can customize, and whether the plugins that come with a theme improve how your site looks and how readers move around it.
The list below covers personal and creative blog themes worth a look.
| Product | Best for | Price | Rating | Active installs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Soledad | Paid | |||
| Storyteller | Paid | |||
| CheerUp | Paid | |||
| Lets Blog | Paid | |||
| Bjorn | Paid | |||
| The Marmalade | Paid | |||
| Typology | Paid | |||
| Beverly | Paid | |||
| TheBlogger | Paid | |||
| Brixton | Paid | |||
| Sidewalk | Paid | |||
| SugarBlog | Paid | |||
| Untold Stories | Paid | |||
| Redwood | Paid | |||
| Josephine | Paid | |||
| Olsen | ||||
| Journey | Paid | |||
| NovaBlog | Paid | |||
| Ink | Paid | |||
| Hemlock | Paid | |||
| Cassia | Paid | |||
| Bloggy | Paid | |||
| Blank | Paid | |||
| Grateful | Paid | |||
| Hooray | Paid |
Soledad
Social networks changed what a blog is for. Posting your thoughts and answering readers below each article matters less today than reaching people wherever they are, and that is the job of Soledad, a theme meant to turn visitors into an audience that keeps returning.
Getting a design in place is simple, since more than 250 downloadable demos cover a wide range of niches and industries. You also get six header styles, five article layouts and two mega menu styles for richer navigation. On top of that, the WordPress Customizer holds another 250 settings you can adjust.
Social media support is where Soledad stands out most. It ships with many widgets, a Facebook widget among them, plus three sliders that display your Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest accounts. Visitors can follow every part of your brand from one place, which may bring more traffic your way.
If you want a central home for your brand with plenty of room to customize, Soledad is a strong fit.
Storyteller
Most writers are not designers. If you would rather spend your time writing, a theme that works the moment you install it makes sense, and one option is Storyteller.
Restraint is the idea behind it. Storyteller strips away nearly every extra feature and keeps just what you need to tell a story. Apart from three layouts to pick from, it offers very little. Still, what it does keep looks lovely. Bold headings, clear and readable body text, and generous white space between sections all work well together.
You get an attractive design without headline plugins or extra features, so Storyteller suits anyone who wants to write rather than fiddle with design.
CheerUp
CheerUp promises more than a hundred layout combinations through what it calls “luxury design options”, and says it fits many kinds of blogs. Do those claims hold up?
CheerUp packs in a lot, but it is only worth exploring if its overall style appeals to you. It aims for a bold, minimal look built around large images. No single design feature defines it; instead, refined color palettes and quiet typography add up to a polished whole.
Its flexibility shows most in the many demo layouts. You can preview a finished design and choose one that suits you instead of experimenting with settings to see how things turn out. The theme is clearly aimed at personal bloggers in fashion and beauty, though, so writers in other niches may find it a poor match for their style.
Fashion and beauty writers get a flexible, complete package here, with every standard setting in place. For them, it is well worth choosing.
Lets Blog
Lets Blog targets creative people who want a tidy, refined blog or magazine site that is retina-ready and fully responsive. Plenty of adjustable elements let you shape a minimal design that displays well on any screen.
Making a site feel personal and polished is the aim. Colors, backgrounds and fonts can all be adjusted in the built-in live customizer, and each edit shows up as you work. Design choices are plentiful: ten blog layouts, two sliders and more than 500 Google Fonts.
SEO was part of the plan too, as the code is written so search engines can crawl and index it easily. Let’s Blog also passes Google’s mobile-friendly test, which helps both your visibility and how the site runs on phones.
Bjorn
Bjorn offers seven layouts for a personal blog.
Bjorn is made for bloggers and online magazines, and its demo shows the many ways you can set it up. Six main site demos offer ideas for your own project, and once one matches what you have in mind, a few clicks bring that layout into your site.
The demo content gives you a smart homepage design plus several post layouts, so you can pick a different look whenever you publish. A range of headers can be mixed with the other ready-made layouts and templates, which opens up an almost endless number of combinations. You can also place your logo in one of several positions.
The featured posts slider is another strong point. More than 10 slider designs are available for putting your key or latest articles in front of readers. They run on the premium Slider Revolution plugin, which comes bundled with Bjorn for free. The demo page shows them working, and like everything else in the theme, they adapt to mobile screens and respond to touch.
Stylish templates and handy tools make Bjorn a current choice for magazines and blogs alike.
The Marmalade
The Marmalade works best for food, fashion and art writers. Behind a simple, attractive look sit advanced premium features, plus a retina-ready layout that adapts to every screen, all to help your blog get noticed.
Through the WordPress Live Customizer you can change every part of your blog and preview the result immediately, which makes the theme easy for anyone, and for WordPress newcomers in particular. You have several post formats, broad typography settings, more than 650 Google Fonts, a premium master slider and custom plugins to work with. The eye-catching interactive grid layout can be tailored as well.
Good looks and rich features never push your posts aside here; style and substance are kept in proportion.
Typology
Typology keeps things minimal, and posts without pictures still look polished.
Typology suits you if you prefer writing to hunting for the right picture for every post. Its type settings turn the text of your posts and pages into the main design element. Touches such as creative drop caps mean you need far fewer images to make your content look good.
You can also pick between the popular material design look and a classic flat UI style. During setup, you decide which sections appear on your blog’s homepage. A simple control panel lets you switch the intro sections of the post archive on or off, select which posts to show (most popular or most commented, for example) and adjust a few more layout settings. Every new article can also get its own layout from the designs on offer.
Because type matters so much here, Typology gives you close control over your site’s fonts. Its settings offer more than 600 Google Fonts, adjustable text sizes and many other type options. Color controls let you build unlimited color variations, so your blog can match your brand or your own taste.
Want a minimal blog theme that loads quickly? Typology deserves a closer look.
Beverly
Beverly aims to hold readers’ attention. Full-width images, elegant type and clear calls to action across the page make it a good match for creative blogs and authors.
Four layouts are included. The home page slider can be filled with featured content in several ways, and every page adapts to the screen size.
Ten custom widgets let you pull in content from social networks or style your own content with little effort. Discreet social buttons placed around the site invite readers to share. For comments, you can also switch to Facebook or Disqus.
Beverly pairs a bold look with good speed: pages load fast, and its design makes your images shine. Storytellers who want strong visuals behind their words, and readers who get involved, will find it a good choice.
TheBlogger
TheBlogger suits writers after a WordPress blog that feels their own.
Frequent updates since launch have built up a large set of blog demos that you can import from your dashboard in a few clicks. They cover food, travel, lifestyle and general blogs, among others. One polished demo is meant for people who want to showcase their services and skills, and perhaps win clients or other work through their blog.
Whatever demo you start from, a complete set of ready-made homepage and post layouts comes with it. A collection of page templates makes it simple to display a portfolio. Social media support helps too, especially if you post on image-led networks such as Instagram or Pinterest, and the Instagram feed is an eye-catching addition to your site.
Beyond the ready-made content, the theme includes a set of shortcodes. With a click or two you can drop tabs, toggles, accordions, alerts, buttons and other elements into your posts. The demo shows these shortcodes at work if you want to see how they could fit your site.
Food, travel, lifestyle or something else: chances are one of TheBlogger’s demos already fits.
Brixton
Good content deserves a modern design that draws people in. If you want your posts to look as strong as they read, try Brixton.
Its makers describe Brixton as “for storytelling”. The look is current and direct, using two columns with large, strong fonts and colors. It also includes an Instagram feed widget, a gallery post template with a slider for several images, and an Audio post type that pulls tracks in from SoundCloud.
If the Brixton logo catches your eye, you can download it for free and use it however you like.
Brixton keeps things simple and direct, a good pick when you want a site whose style matches the quality of your writing.
Sidewalk
Sidewalk cares most about two things: text that reads easily and posts that look professional.
The cover image feature is a key way Sidewalk sets your blog apart. It shows a large, full-width featured image or cover photo that grabs visitors’ attention. Like most Sidewalk features, it is optional, so you can turn it off if it does not suit your site.
You can also add featured content areas that scroll. With them switched on, readers scroll or swipe through your top posts until something catches their interest. Several layouts are available both for the blog as a whole and for each new article you publish, all designed to make posts attractive and easy to take in.
A handy set of custom widgets helps you point readers to more of your posts and pages. Place them in the sidebar or footer to show a post slider, social media content, ads or links to popular articles. You can create as many sidebars as you like, decide where and when each appears, and make sidebars sticky.
Committed writers who want every article to look polished should put Sidewalk near the top of their list.
SugarBlog
SugarBlog fits blogs of every kind. Social sharing and accessibility sit at the heart of a capable feature set, wrapped in a tidy, modern and attractive design that adapts to every screen.
The theme adapts to every screen and offers several layouts so your site looks consistent on any device. Pick from 11 blog layouts to match your topic or personality, then add one of four built-in headers, including one with a parallax effect.
Ten custom widgets handle social features, among them widgets for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Flickr, plus neat social icons to grow your following. SugarBlog is also translation ready, so you can publish in any language and reach more readers.
Untold Stories
Give your posts more impact with Untold Stories. This very modern, retina-ready theme is made for bloggers who share visual content, though others can use it too. Its many blog layouts, colors and typography settings make it flexible enough to reflect your brand.
For customization you get more than 100 Customizer settings, ten page layouts, eight post styles, several color schemes, custom widgets and typography controls. Combine them to build a lively blog or website.
Social engagement is a big focus. Custom widgets cover every social network, so readers can follow your brand smoothly on every channel. The responsive design means they can read your blog or site on any device too.
Redwood
Redwood skips fancy effects and extras; bloggers are its only audience. Why pick it, then?
The theme is responsive, minimal, tidy and carefully arranged, and you are not stuck with one layout. Five blog layouts are included, each with a full-width version. You also get an attractive featured slider, custom widgets, unlimited colors and three promo boxes under the slider to lift your click-through rate.
Redwood seems to drop the extras in favor of performance. Is a clean, fast site worth losing the bells and whistles? For many bloggers, yes, since Redwood keeps the basics that count and lets you concentrate on writing and connecting with readers.
Josephine
Possibly the top pick for lifestyle blogs, Josephine lets you change almost anything. On design and ease of use, rivals trail well behind it.
WordPress newcomers will find Josephine easy. The one-click demo importer loads the sample content in a single step, so you can start shaping your blog right away. Every feature can be changed or reworked without code, and there are plenty of settings to work with.
With the live customizer you can create your own style variations on the spot, giving the site extra polish and character for readers to enjoy. A fully responsive design keeps visitors engaged on any device.
Olsen
As WordPress has grown, you might assume simple blog themes have had their day. They have not, and Olsen shows why.
Olsen is aimed at fashion bloggers and leans on white space to keep content apart. With sidebars on both the left and right, though, the demo looks crowded, and its default fonts are small. Sidebars and fonts are easy to change, and so is the layout, with 11 designs to pick from.
Affiliate marketers get a handy extra: each post can end with a list of the products it mentions. An Instagram feed is built in too.
Dependable, easy to adjust and not overloaded, Olsen can work for most kinds of bloggers.
Journey
WordPress has become a full CMS in recent years, but blogging still matters, and bloggers still need a simple theme that readers can find their way around. If that is what you need, look at Journey.
At first glance, Journey looks much like the other themes here, and in places it lags behind them. Its default colors and fonts look a bit dated. On the plus side, the layout is tidy and the default line spacing keeps text readable. With 11 blog layouts and the bundled Visual Composer plugin, you can shape the layout into nearly any design you want.
Look past the dated defaults and the glitches, and Journey still gives you room enough to shape it into the theme you rely on.
NovaBlog
NovaBlog ships with 18 demos spanning many concepts, for magazines as well as blogs.
Whatever personal blog you are planning, one of the NovaBlog demos is likely to come close to it, or match it exactly. They span travel, food, fitness, fashion and many other topics. An ecommerce demo is included as well, which helps if you want to earn from your blog by selling physical or digital products next to your posts. Full WooCommerce support gives you all you need to list items and take payments.
Even with mega menus, lazy-loaded images, infinite scroll and multilingual support on board, NovaBlog remains a sensible option if you just want an uncomplicated personal blog. Its settings let you switch individual elements on or off as you see fit, and the admin panel and style manager give you broad control over how your blog looks.
It earns its place on this list for more reasons too: a premium drag-and-drop page builder plugin, live search powered by AJAX, a sticky sidebar and six ready-made header layouts. The full feature list is far too long to cover here.
To see more of what this theme can do, browse its 18 site demos.
Ink
Ink helps writers tell stories with maximum impact. Its maker, Codestag, holds Elite author status on ThemeForest.
It is fully responsive and looks sharp on any screen size, Retina displays included. If your blog doubles as a business, Ink’s Restrict Content plugin lets you charge readers for full access to your posts.
Articles can open with a video cover, which sets your blog apart. Current SEO plugins work with it, and simple design tweaks happen in the WordPress Theme Customizer, which it fully supports.
Getting started takes little effort; questions go to a dedicated help desk.
Hemlock
Hemlock puts “content first” as well, wrapped in an easygoing and pretty style.
Mixed typography, an airy background with lots of white space and a centered post area keep readers focused on your words rather than on decoration. The refined, modern design gives visitors good reason to return often.
Several widgets, including a custom author bio widget, plus social icons, nearly unlimited color choices and four post formats (standard, video, gallery and music) round out a well-equipped blog theme. There are also several post feed layouts and built-in styling for Contact Form 7.
Cassia
Cassia keeps its look simple, so nearly any topic fits.
Its full post and list layouts display articles, photos and videos neatly. For the featured area, use either a slider or four fixed posts. You get a large choice of skins and over 650 Google Fonts. Custom widgets cover an “About Us” section, popular posts, recent posts and your Facebook likes.
Cassia is also fully responsive and translation ready.
Bloggy
Bloggy keeps its design minimal so the attention stays on your writing.
Whatever browser or device your readers use, posts should display well, as the layout is responsive and retina-ready.
You can pick from three blog layouts and over 600 Google Fonts, and every post format is supported for heavy bloggers. More than twenty social icons are available, the theme is translation ready, and detailed documentation plus a support forum are there when you need help.
Blank
Blank strips design back to almost nothing, so your posts take center stage. For a blog, that refined minimalism works well.
Sharp on retina screens, adaptive on phones and tablets, and ready for translation into other languages.
Wide or boxed? Either works. Add one of two headers, four portfolio layouts and a big palette, and you can make it yours.
Grateful
The sales blurb for Grateful is hardly memorable:
Grateful is a a simple and clean WordPress theme dedicated for bloggers who like to write blog posts in their personal blog.
Sales copy is not the point, though. Many theme makers handle everything from code to marketing on their own, so a weak description is easy to forgive. What counts is the theme.
Happily, the developers’ design talent more than covers for their marketing. Grateful mixes understated elegance with appealing visual touches, and a light use of CSS3 effects keeps it from looking like every other blog theme.
Under the hood you get Google Fonts, child theme support, an options panel, several WordPress Post Formats and more. Few rival personal blog themes match it.
Hooray
Hooray brings bright colors and a playful mood that make readers want to stick around.
It has a built-in rating system, eight post formats and more than 600 Google Fonts. A social counter pulls current subscriber, fan and follower numbers from your social networks to help draw traffic, and the theme is SEO-optimized.
A related posts module, sorted by category, tag or author, keeps readers browsing. Hooray is retina-ready and fully responsive, so posts look great on any device. It installs quickly, and users rate its support highly.
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