Recently, we've been getting a lot of messages on Linkedin asking for recommendations on what the best ultra-minimal WordPress themes were. Of course, we recommended GeneratePress, our all-time favourite WordPress theme.
Our team considers GeneratePress is a solid theme with great support and perfect integration with Gutenberg. However, we still wanted to give options to people who did not want to pay for GeneratePress premium.
Disclaimer: We are NOT being paid to promote any of these themes, these are just the ones we've tested and believe work well with the ultra-minimalist aesthetic.
GeneratePress (The Obvious Pick)
Arguably one of the greatest WordPress themes of all time, GeneratePress has stood against the rise of the page builders and shows no signs of backing down.
GeneratePress is a clean and ultra-minimalist WordPress theme that comes with the essential features for the modern website or blog. The theme boasts clean code, excellent support and guaranteed high-speed scores on Google Page Insights and GTMetrix. We've tested it for ourselves and the theme and support definitely lives up to the hype.
Some stand-out features of GeneratePress include:
- Completely free version
- Minimalist themes
- 100% page speed scores out the gate
- Best-in-class support
- Compatible with any plugin or page builder
- WCAG 2.0 standards
- Available in 20 languages with RTL support
Pair GeneratePress with Gutenberg and Generateblocks to extend its functionality according to your needs.
Download GeneratePress
Hello Theme (Elementor-Friendly)
Hello Theme was created by the Elementor developers to be as light and bare-bones as possible so Elementor users won’t have to fight with the theme when using the page builder. The theme comes with barely any styling and serves as an ultra-minimalist base for your custom design.
While the Elementor team was behind the creation of this theme, you are not limited to only using Eelementor. Hello Theme works with other popular page builders like Gutenberg and Beaver builder.
Some stand-out features of Hello include:
- Built to be compatible with Elementor
- Ultra-minimalist
- Fast load times
- Bloat free
- Full compatability with popular WordPress themes
- RTL support
Download Hello
TWENTY TWENTY-ONE (The New Kid)
The WordPress team is hard at work developing the default theme for 2021 that will come prepackaged in the WordPress core. The default themes are usually clean and lightweight, but the approach for twenty twenty-one appears to be ultra-minimalist and pastels.
Twenty Twenty-One theme is almost ready for production sites, but you can download it from the WordPress GitHub repository. Keep your eyes on this one, Gutenberg blocks are the future and twenty twenty-one will put the block editor front and centre.
Update: Twenty TWENTY-ONE is now ready for production sites.
Some stand-out features of TWENTY TWENTY-ONE include:
- Full compatability with Gutenberg
- Ultra-minimal aesthetic
- Fast load times
- Block patterns
