Developers benefit from using neatly designed, beautiful WordPress themes—they can be a portfolio, after all. Although it may be best for those that became WordPress developers to create a theme from scratch, sometimes don’t have the luxury of time or money for assets. Until they do, they can get a theme designed to show their work in the best light, adjust it for their needs, and establish a remarkably enticing online presence. Additionally, not everyone specializes in web development, so building from ground zero may be irrelevant or impossible for them. Now, let’s show you the best WordPress themes for developers.
1. Astra
We frequently praise Astra for being the overall leader among top WordPress themes, and for a good reason. The theme and website builder comes in free and premium versions and sports over 240 one-click import templates in all kinds of niches. It’s also the fastest-growing theme of all time. Plus, it’s one of the fastest overall with a 0.5 sec loading time and astounding page speed and load time ratings. Moreover, Astra uses JavaScript rather than jQuery and only has 50 KB of resources. In short, you’re getting a theme with feather-light speed, modern coding, responsive design, near-unlimited template possibilities, and effortless customization support.
2. Underscores
Underscores or _s is a free bare-bones starter WordPress theme designed by tens of developers on GitHub. It’s maintained by Automattic, the company that owns WordPress.com. It’s not pretty and lacks templates, but is written in HTML5 and CSS and is effective. The lack of front-end resources makes it lightweight and efficient while giving developers all they need to create a new WordPress theme without truly starting from scratch. Therefore, Underscores is ideal for web developers who want to design something unique and have the code be a showcase of their work on top of the front-end content.
3. Bridge
Bridge is an incredible example among multipurpose WordPress themes that even beats Astra by having over 600 templates you can import. It’s also compatible with both WPBakery and Elementor and comes with professional support, video tutorials, and detailed documentation. Its templates focus on a wide array of niches, and you’ll find tens of portfolio demos in one-page or multipage layouts. A WordPress or web developer may decide to focus on Underscores, WP Bootstrap Starter, or Understrap. However, others will benefit from the design, speed, and functionality of Bridge.
4. WP Bootstrap Starter
WP Bootstrap Starter is another free example among popular WordPress themes for developers, coders, and programmers who want to start designing from scratch without wasting time on minute details. It’s based on Underscores, JavaScript framework, Font Awesome, and Twitter bootstrap. Furthermore, it’s licensed under GPL, meaning you can do whatever you want with it. The basic page templates for full width, sidebar, and blank with/without container are already there. Plus, the theme is compatible with Contact Form 7, Visual Composer, Elementor, and WooCommerce, and is responsive. You may need to add RTL (right-to-left) reading support, though.
5. Sage
Sage is an advanced open-source WordPress starter theme powered by the Laravel Blade templating engine and the Tailwind CSS user interface framework. It also uses bud.js and has extensive GitHub documentation and a lot of contributors. Their website also shows you a wide array of websites built with Sage to give you an idea of what’s possible. WordPress.com also sponsored the project, giving it extra credibility. Moreover, it received work and documentation from skilled WordPress front-end developers. That will help any programmer, coder, or developer wanting to make a custom product.
6. Nimbus
Nimbus is a leading representative of WordPress themes for coders and programmers rather than web developers and designers. It’s a CV, portfolio, and resume theme that comes with a beautiful user interface and user eXperience, as well as two home pages, 10 inner pages, over 15 blog layouts, and more than 10 portfolio/about me pages. The theme focuses on a one-page design based on the WGL framework and is compatible with Elementor, WooCommerce, and Revolution Slider. It comes with exhaustive documentation, so you can edit for your needs without starting from the ground up.
7. Somo
Somo is a dark mode multipurpose theme for WordPress with a focus on portfolios and business showcases. It was also built with photographers, freelancers, cinematographers, and agencies in mind. Thus, it contains UI and UX elements that look great, function well, draw attention, and have spaces for necessary information and work examples. Somo also comes with WPBakery, Redux, and Mailchimp from the get-go, has great page speed, and offers 10+ starter templates.
8. Understrap
You may have guessed that Understrap comes from a combination of Underscores and Bootstrap. It’s another free theme framework that lets skilled developers make a handcrafted WordPress theme. It’s an open-source project led by Howard Development & Consulting with over two decades of experience and many GitHub contributors. If you ever need help with development, the creators offer Instant Understrap by MasterWP, an official series of workshops and guides.
9. Uncode
Uncode is a multipurpose theme for WordPress that offers a strong framework and over 70 demos you can import with one click. It’s also SEO-friendly, responsive, and supports a Bootstrap codebase. Moreover, it supports premium plugins such as WPBakery page builder, Isotope Masonry Grid, WooCommerce, and Slider Revolution. You also get access to over 500+ Wireframe website section elements you can import into your website. We also think you’ll like the product gallery as a way to show off your previous work or ongoing projects.
10. Most
Most is an underrated creative portfolio, resume, CV, and digital agency theme with many layouts and several types of grids. It also comes with various blog, pricing, testimonials, about us, contact, and shop templates you can use to offer your services, opinion, experiences, and expertise. It comes with Contact Form 7, Elementor, Google Fonts, WooCommerce, Mailchimp, and many other plugins. Plus, it offers many header types, e.g., minimal, fixed, and centered. Plus, you can enable a lot of optional features such as widgets, parallax backgrounds, mega menus, custom post formats, and social media integration.