WordPress is a very popular CMS and blogging platform and there are thousands of different themes available to chose from. Some can be purchased for a fee while others are completely free.
WordPress might have begun as a blogging platform, but today with different plug ins and themes it is so much more. Almost regardless of what you want to do – from keeping a simple blog to starting a forum, a classifieds site or a real estate showroom – there will be suitable themes and associated plug ins that will let you do it.
It can be hard to know which theme to use. There are a lot of them out there and not all of them are good or suitable for your particular endeavor. Some of them are right out bad, others are practical but ugly and some are stunning from an esthetic point of view bud ridden with bugs and other problems.
Below you will find a list of some of our favorite WordPress themes. They have all made the list because they run well and usually allow a great deal of customization without too much hassle. Let’s start by looking on some good popular paid themes, before proceeding to the free WordPress themes.
Best Paid Themes
Thesis (diythemes.com)
Thesis is a theme that runs thousands upon thousands of websites. You might however not necessarily have noticed that the page you visted was Thesis or even WordPress as this simple but powerful theme allows a great deal of customization. It is also one of the most SEO friendly themes out there. Thesis is ideal if you want the convenience of WordPress but not necessarily a site that look like a typical WordPress site. A good example of a thesis website is http://www.mxpolice.com.
Genesis (http://www.studiopress.com/themes/genesis)
Genesis is not so much a theme as it is a framework for themes. Although a very good theme on its own, the thing that sets it apart most from other themes is that there are a lot of different sub-themes available for Genesis that completely changes how it looks. Gensis provides the functions etc for the theme and the overall framework, while the different sub-themes determine the look. It is easy to create your own looks for this theme and Genesis is well worth the 60 bucks it costs.
Free Themes
Not everyone has the money to buy a premium theme and if you are on a strict budget you should not feel sad because there are a lot of great free themes for WordPress available as well. If you want to find a free theme you can look in the WordPress.org theme section. All themes there has been checked to make sure they are free from errors and that they do not contain harmful code. You can also check out one of the themes recommended below.
Aparatus (http://fearlessflyer.com/2010/01/get-some-aparatus-free-theme-for-wordpress/)
Aparatus is a great theme that works well right tout of the box and gives you a stylish functional site. It is easy to modify adds, twitter functions etc directly from the WordPress admin panel. If I where to mention anything bad about this theme it is that support is a bit lacking (not that you need it and it is a free theme after all) and that the feature image function is a bit sensitive and only accepts images of the right size. Apparatus can be modified to blend nicely into any site. An example of that can be seen on http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/news/.
Quest (http://www.fabthemes.com/quest/)
Quest is another modern WordPress theme that looks great and have excellent functionality. It works perfectly for most blog and information type sites and really makes the most out of WordPress without using a lot of mods or plug-ins. The theme does unfortunately have some compatibility problems with Internet Explorer 9 but those are expected to be resolved soon (2011) and are most likely already solved when you read this.