17 Best Minimalist WordPress Themes Compared - 2024

Last modified: May 28, 2023

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Minimalist WordPress themes are one of the latest trends that businesses, developers and other website professionals are using. There are numerous advantages to incorporating a minimalist design into your WordPress website.

Minimalist WordPress Themes – What Are The Advantages?

There are several reasons why you might want to use one of the many minimalist WordPress themes available. To begin with, they’re easy and quick to maintain as there’s less code for you or your website management team to update. Therefore, if there’s an error on your site, its often quick to find.

Because of the lightweight code, there’s less chance of errors being made. So repairs to your website will be fewer and less frequent. This all leads to more of your time being spent on doing what earns you money and what you do best: servicing your customers.

In addition, a minimalist design helps to focus your content. White space is good for directing the attention of your audience to the content you really want them to look at. This can help improve conversions on your website which lead to considerable improvements in revenues and profits.

In addition, a minimalist website is great for visitors. Not only are they easier to make responsive and quick to load; they can be great for navigation. A great user experience will increase conversions and increase the average spend per customer. This can be really important as costs per acquisition can be really high in some industries and you need to increase order value to maximize profits.

Interestingly, in addition to the ease of using your website, minimalist websites also improve the perception of your website. Some research has shown that a lot of white space makes people think of your business as bigger and more trustworthy.

In contrast, a cluttered website looks more like you’re unprofessional or small.

What To Look For When Buying One Of The Many Minimalist WordPress Themes?

There are several things you need to look for when buying a minimalist WordPress theme. In the first place, you want to ensure you have a theme that can be used to deliver you a design that matches your brand’s personality. An alignment between website and brand personality reduces confusion and cart abandonment.

You’re also looking for a theme that will display well on any device. The chance of this will be high as minimalist websites are by nature very easy to convert into responsive websites. However, there might be a few which aren’t, so always check with the developer if you aren’t sure.

Ultimately, you’re going to look at what you need from your website. WordPress is a fantastic system for your website, but this is partly because the software is lightweight. You add functions to your website through plugins.

So the first thing you need to do is decide what functions are important for the website. From this list, choose a selection of WordPress plugins that will perform those functions. Then check your theme shortlist and whether they are compatible with the list of plugins collected earlier.

Don’t Ruin Any Minimalist WordPress Themes With Too Many Plugins

A word of warning is necessary here. While plugins help to improve the functionality of your website, they also make it more complex, slow it down and make it harder to load. Too many plugins can therefore be more harmful to your website than beneficial.

So if you can improve your business’ website with just a few plugins and a theme that has some functions, you’ll be better off.

Some of the themes listed below have some excellent features. For instance, Divi has great split testing functionality and can host videos with ease. Others may have great SEO elements or page builders built into the code.

These can save you time and money and give a better end result.

So what are the best minimalist WordPress themes for you to choose from? Here’s our list. Some are free, others are not. You can filter out premium ones easily if you’re just looking at the free themes.

# Name Image
1
MinimalistBlogger - Minimalist Wordpress Blog
MinimalistBlogger
More Info
2
Minimalisticky - Clean & Minimalistic Design
Minimalisticky
More Info
3
Minimalist Portfolio - Simple and Clean
Minimalist Portfolio
More Info
4
Altar - A Minimalist Blogging Wordpress Theme
Altar
More Info
5
Divi - Multipurpose Wordpress Theme
The Ultimate WordPress Theme and Visual Page Builder
More Info
6
Kalium - Creative, Clean and Minimalistic
Kalium
More Info
7
Aurum - Minimalist Shopping Wordpress Theme
Aurum - Minimalist Shopping Wordpress Theme
More Info
8
Jevelin - Creative and Multipurpose
Jevelin
More Info
9
Soledad
Soledad
More Info
10
Gillion - Minimalist Blog WP Theme
Gillion
More Info
11
Oshine - Best Selling Minimalism
Oshine - Best Selling Minimalism
More Info
12
Mavra
Mavra
Not Available
13
Arnold - Creative and Minimalist WP Theme
Arnold
More Info
14
Best Minimalist
Best Minimalist
More Info
15
Massive Dynamic
Massive Dynamic
More Info
16
Spaces
Spaces - Creative Multi-Purpose Portfolio and WooCommerce Shop WordPress Theme | Creative
Not Available
17
Better - Classic and Minimalist
Better - Classic and Minimalist
Not Available
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MinimalistBlogger - Minimalist Wordpress Blog

MinimalistBlogger

This responsive WordPress theme is free on WordPress.org and has a lot to offer those looking to create a great blog or news site. The elegant and minimalist look is highly attractive and allows you to focus your site’s visitors to specific content.

There’s no limit to the topics you can share on this theme and there are excellent ways you can enhance it to fulfill your needs. For instance, you can create a sidebar that allows for AdSense and affiliate links, so you can quickly monetize your website.

The installation of the theme is simple and the user interface very intuitive.

Finally, MinimalistBlogger has great SEO potential. The code is fairly clean, and the theme is quick to load. This helps with your ranking, but the theme also has other ways to get your website found on Google and other search engines.

Benefits of using MinimalistBlogger:

  • A great free theme available from WordPress.org.
  • Great for SEO, so your website won’t be lost on a random search engine page.
  • Responsive so your website will look great on any device.

Minimalisticky - Clean & Minimalistic Design

Minimalisticky

This is a very basic theme, but one that could be right for your business. Its simple design and lack of options make it easy to install and set up. It looks great on any device thanks to its responsive features.

Benefits of using Minimalisticky:

  • Lightweight so take little to no time to load.
  • Elegant design.
  • Lots of recent downloads, so is popular with some web designers.
  • Looks great on any device.

Minimalist Portfolio - Simple and Clean

Minimalist Portfolio

Minimalist Portfolio is one the best minimalist WordPress themes for those with a creative business that want to show off their work. The simple design hides a great theme that will project your skill across the internet.

The theme itself works perfectly with the Easy Photography Portfolio plugin, enabling you to create a portfolio section on your website. In addition, you have two skin choices for the classic design of your website. You can use either the light or dark skins.

If you’re worried about how your website will look on mobile devices, then you don’t have to. Minimalist Portfolio is fully responsive so will look great on desktops, laptops and mobiles.

One of the advantages of this theme is that there is a step-by-step setup tutorial available for this plugin. Most free themes don’t have these.

Advantages of using Minimalist Portfolio:

  • Fully responsive so it looks great on any device.
  • Lightweight which is great for user experience.
  • A set up tutorial to help you design your website without issues.
  • A free theme to help you keep costs down.

Altar - A Minimalist Blogging Wordpress Theme

Altar

A minimalist blogging theme that will provide you with exactly what you want: a good looking website that will give attention to your prime content.

It achieves this by not having any distracting sidebars.

Advantages of using Altar:

  • A mobile responsive WordPress theme that looks great on any device.
  • A free theme that allows you to keep costs down.
  • Images can easily be displayed to showcase your thoughts.
... and Scan WP's recommended WordPress theme is... Astra (Click to try)

Best Minimalist

Best Minimalist

This is one of the most professional minimalist WordPress themes available for free on the current market. It comes with support for the powerful Jetpack, Breadcrumb navXT and Related Post With Thumbnail Plugins. There are also inbuilt widgets that can perform these actions which will be used as default if the theme can’t detect those plugins on your store.

The templates are powerful. They include an image that can be used as a default featured image for when you don’t set one. You can also change the default featured image if you wish.

Best Minimalist Highlights:

  • Its a free theme from WordPress.org but packed full of features.
  • An aesthetically pleasing design that can be used quickly.
  • Has a default featured image you can use.
  • Can integrate with numerous premium plugins to improve the functionality of your website.

Final Thoughts

Designing your website with the help of one of the minimalist WordPress themes showcased here is not a bad idea. It’s a trend that is very hot right now and there is little reason why it shouldn’t continue.

A minimalist theme offers your site focus on the main content, so you can direct your audience to exactly what you want them to read. At the same time, you can also offer your audience a good user experience through a fast loading site.

In addition, the lack of coding and with many of themes above offering good search engine optimization, you can really see your site ranking high.

How To Choose Between the Minimalist WordPress Themes

We’ve shown some of the best minimalist WordPress themes. These are great options and certainly the right one for you is included in the list. However, not all of the themes will be suitable for you. Some of them will include features or premium plugins that you don’t need.

You need to look carefully at your options and your goals. Match up the features you need from your website to what is on offer. This way you are paying for exactly what you need.

In fact, you don’t need to buy a premium theme. We’ve included a few free minimalist WordPress themes for you to choose from. These are great options, but there are limits to what you can do with a free theme.

In the end, the choice is yours. You need the best theme for your project. Good luck with your next project.

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