Fastest & Best WordPress Themes

These are the fastest & best WordPress themes in 2014. I scanned all the best premium & responsive WordPress themes with GTmetrix and if they had a Page Speed Grade of B (80%) or higher they made the cut for fastest. This indicates that they were built with care, ensuring that they were built efficiently. If you want a fast loading, responsive WordPress website, any of these themes will serve you well.

The best WordPress themes were hand-picked because they were deemed the most flexible, clean, elegant, efficient & professional of them all.

Fastest WordPress Themes in 2014

Skadi

Page Speed Grade: A (96%)

Skadi Fastest WordPress Theme

Thesis

Page Speed Grade: A (96%)

Thesis Fastest WordPress Theme

Haven

Page Speed Grade: A (95%)

Haven Fastest WordPress Theme

Renad

Page Speed Grade: A (93%)

Renad Fastest WordPress Theme

Codilight

Page Speed Grade: B (88%)

Codilight Fastest WordPress Theme

Meth

Page Speed Grade: B (88%)

Meth Fastest WordPress Theme

Sidious

Page Speed Grade: B (85%)

Sidious Fastest WordPress Theme

Divi

Page Speed Grade: B (83%)

Divi Fastest WordPress Theme

Zancudo

Page Speed Grade: B (82%)

Zancudo Fastest WordPress Theme

Carino

Page Speed Grade: B (80%)

Carino Fastest WordPress Theme

Sweet Sunday

Page Speed Grade: B (80%)

Sweet Sunday Fastest WordPress Theme

Best WordPress Themes in 2014

Divi

Divi WordPress Theme

Angle

Angle WordPress Theme

Buzz

Buzz WordPress Theme

Venus

Venus WordPress Theme

Carino

Carino WordPress Theme

Fastest WordPress Themes in 2013

Vertex

Page Speed Grade: A (97%)

Vertex Fast Loading WordPress Theme

GoodWork

Page Speed Grade: A (95%)

GoodWork Fast Loading WordPress Theme

3Clicks

Page Speed Grade: A (94%)

3Clicks Fast Loading WordPress Theme

Lucid

Page Speed Grade: A (94%)

Lucid Fast Loading WordPress Theme

Pravda

Page Speed Grade: A (94%)

Pravda Fast Loading WordPress Theme

Charitas

Page Speed Grade: A (93%)

Charitas Fast Loading WordPress Theme

Fable

Page Speed Grade: A (92%)

Fable Fast Loading WordPress Theme

Scroller

Page Speed Grade: A (91%)

Scroller Fast Loading WordPress Theme

Enfold

Page Speed Grade: A (90%)

Enfold Fast Loading WordPress Theme

Foxy

Page Speed Grade: B (89%)

Foxy Fast Loading WordPress Theme

Nimble

Page Speed Grade: B (89%)

Nimble Fast Loading WordPress Theme

YellowProject

Page Speed Grade: B (89%)

YellowProject Fast Loading WordPress Theme

STARDUST

Page Speed Grade: B (88%)

STARDUST Fast Loading WordPress Theme

CoWorker

Page Speed Grade: B (87%)

CoWorker Fast Loading WordPress Theme

Reversal

Page Speed Grade: B (87%)

Reversal Fast Loading WordPress Theme

Fusion

Page Speed Grade: B (86%)

Fusion Fast Loading WordPress Theme

Gravity

Page Speed Grade: B (83%)

Gravity Fast Loading WordPress Theme

HalfCreative

Page Speed Grade: B (82%)

HalfCreative Fast Loading WordPress Theme

SmartBox

Page Speed Grade: B (82%)

SmartBox Fast Loading WordPress Theme

Bretheon

Page Speed Grade: B (81%)

Bretheon Fast Loading WordPress Theme

FEARLESS

Page Speed Grade: B (81%)

FEARLESS Fast Loading WordPress Theme

Dixit

Page Speed Grade: B (80%)

Dixit Fast Loading WordPress Theme

FICTION

Page Speed Grade: B (80%)

FICTION Fast Loading WordPress Theme

Best WordPress Themes in 2013

Enfold

Enfold Responsive WordPress Theme

System

System Premium WordPress Theme

3Clicks

3Clicks Responsive WordPress Theme

4ALL

4ALL Premium WordPress Theme

ThemeTastic

ThemeTastic Premium WordPress Theme

Sistina

Sistina Premium WordPress Theme

The7

The7 Premium WordPress Theme

GridStack

GridStack Premium WordPress Theme

Bliss

Bliss Premium WordPress Theme

Thunder

Thunder Premium WordPress Theme

Flat

Flat Premium WordPress Theme

Newspaper

Newspaper Premium WordPress Theme

Limitless

Limitless Premium WordPress Theme

Doctype

Doctype Premium WordPress Theme

Visia

Visia Premium WordPress Theme

FEARLESS

FEARLESS Responsive WordPress Theme

FICTION

FICTION Responsive WordPress Theme

Kickstart

Kickstart Responsive WordPress Theme

Vertex

Vertex Responsive WordPress Theme

Lucid

Lucid Responsive WordPress Theme

Fable

Fable Responsive WordPress Theme

Foxy

Foxy Responsive WordPress Theme

Nimble

Nimble Responsive WordPress Theme

Fusion

Fusion Responsive WordPress Theme

Avada

Avada Responsive WordPress Theme

Reversal

Reversal Responsive WordPress Theme

Goodnex

Goodnex Responsive WordPress Theme

SimpleMag

SimpleMag Responsive WordPress Theme

World Wide

World Wide Responsive WordPress Theme

Coffee & Cream

Coffee & Cream Responsive WordPress Theme

Glider

Glider Responsive WordPress Theme

Webpaint

Webpaint Responsive WordPress Theme

Tisson

Tisson Responsive WordPress Theme

Scroller

Scroller Responsive WordPress Theme

Flavor

Flavor Responsive WordPress Theme

BookCard

BookCard Responsive WordPress Theme

Dixit

Dixit Responsive WordPress Theme

EWA

EWA Responsive WordPress Theme

Maxima

Maxima Responsive WordPress Theme

Hot Topix

Hot Topix Responsive WordPress Theme

CoWorker

CoWorker Responsive WordPress Theme

GoodWork

GoodWork Responsive WordPress Theme

Pravda

Pravda Responsive WordPress Theme

HalfCreative

HalfCreative Responsive WordPress Theme

Charitas

Charitas Responsive WordPress Theme

Cluster

Cluster Responsive WordPress Theme

SmartBox

SmartBox Responsive WordPress Theme

Gravity

Gravity Responsive WordPress Theme

Avamys

Avamys Responsive WordPress Theme

Evermore

Evermore Responsive WordPress Theme

Sirens

Sirens Responsive WordPress Theme

Nevia

Nevia Responsive WordPress Theme

KALLYAS

KALLYAS Responsive WordPress Theme

YellowProject

YellowProject Responsive WordPress Theme

Lotus

Lotus Responsive WordPress Theme

Bretheon

Bretheon Responsive WordPress Theme

Super Spark

Super Spark Responsive WordPress Theme

Inovado

Inovado Responsive WordPress Theme

Nollie

Nollie Responsive WordPress Theme

Pinpoint

Pinpoint Responsive WordPress Theme

Did I miss any of the fastest or best WordPress themes?

If so, feel free to share any of the fastest or best WordPress themes I missed in the comments down below!

Also, keep in mind that even if you have the fastest WordPress theme there is, your load time can still be terrible if you don’t use one of the best WordPress hosting options.

72 COMMENTS

  1. I would like to add another responsive theme that was born in 2013 (it was born a couple of minutes ago, actually); the Nexus Twenty Eleven v3. Its based on the GPL Nexus Framework, and thus features front-end editing (including page builder, multi header, sidebar and footer), its responsive and has an advanced (LESS-like) color theme based on CSS variables and its free forever free for everyone! http://nexusthemes.com/twenty-eleven-wordpress-theme/

  2. None of the links work – can’t see templates. Error says: Image cannot be loaded. Make sure the path is correct and image exist.

  3. Perhaps you have not seen my pagespeed wordpress theme, its page speed score is 96 along with all the ads and plugins. 🙂 Waiting for your kind attention

  4. Hi; this is interesting but i don’t understand how do you get those statistics. Charitas got 95% ! I doubt because i test it in Google PageSpeed Insights, and i get : 57% for mobile and 81% for desktop. So it is so far from 98%. So how or where do you get 98% ?

    • A ton of things can impact it, but what is the most important for a theme would be primarily: optimized images w/ specified dimensions (that match the actual dimensions of the image), utilizing CSS sprites (several commonly used images stored as a single image, chopped up and displayed as individual images using CSS), efficient stylesheets, efficient javascript (that’s loaded in the footer) and avoiding external file requests.

  5. You do not state the circumstances of your testing. For example, was it by using the theme’s on your own servers, or merely putting the theme demo URLs into GTMetrix? I suspect the latter, due to the very high scores.
    Looking around the web for people already using these themes on their own sites, and then placing those URLs into GTMetrix I received MUCH lower page loading spped scores.

    • Your hypothesis is correct, it was merely putting the theme demo URLs into GTMetrix. I did not purchase and install them all on my server for testing. So the scores are influenced by the quality of the server the demos are running on, but I feel that any theme developer who does quality work would ensure that they host their theme demos on a quality server. It is likely that many of the users of their themes are not ensuring their web servers are optimized for performance, so this discovery you’ve made makes sense to me. I’d be very curious to see how they scored all running on the same server, but it isn’t financially viable for me to perform such a test.

      • So it was an exercise in getting 24 affiliate links onto one page? LOL Never mind, I can’t blame you for that. We all have to earn a living. More power to you.

    • I think it’s because the theme demo pages are actually iframed (in most cases) and tools like GTMetrix are basing theri results on the container page.
      Bottom line is that most themes don’t defer javascript/css, use sprites, add etags etc which are all dcontributing factors for both page speed and site ranking relating to that speed. Pose that question to the theme developers and they all run for cover right now. Hopefuly, things will change (soon) for the better.

      • Hi
        I saw many TF demos using layersliders with tons of pics/animations and yet score good on pagespeed. However, when I tried them on my sites, the result was not even half as good. One theme “Senna” scores marvellously well, and averages above 75. Surprised you omitted it.

  6. I was going to recommend Frank, but it looks like Iconic and Frank and essentially one in the same: http://wp.smashingmagazine.com/2013/01/16/frank-a-wordpress-theme-designed-for-speed/ – I’m not aware of any other super fast loading, mobile-friendly WordPress themes that are free. At least, not that come close to the speed of Frank or Iconic. Sorry I can’t be of more help here. I plan to make a post on the best free WordPress themes, but there aren’t that many great ones so I’ve attempted and then gave up a couple of times already on such a post. One day I’ll get around to it though, cheers and good luck with your search. If you do find such a theme, please share the name of it with me.

  7. Nice list Andy
    I notice lots of Elegant Themes and StudioPress Genesis themes in there.
    Fortunately those are the two frameworks that I use.

    Also impresses with the number of A ratings that Elegant Themes have.

  8. Great post! Question for you…
    I am attempting to optimize the speed and SEO of my blog. The current theme on my wordpress blog is quailfire, which is suppose to be awesome for SEO optimization but isn’t very fast in loading. Would it behoove me to switch to a faster loading theme and loose quailfire?

    Thanks for any insight!

  9. Andy,

    Thanks! Such a huge premium on theme speed these days. You are quick or dead in the eyes of Google….and the average web visitor.

  10. While PageSpeed grades are important, simply having a good PageSpeed number does not mean your theme is fast to render. It means the code that finally made it to the person browser is, in theory, ‘efficient’. PageSpeed does not factor in how long the server took to compile said code, which is where a theme’s speed is truly measured.

  11. How fast is fast? I have researched and I cannot find any data that will be clear for me. My sites are so slow right now. I need to move out from SEOhosting. Pinging gives me 2.6, 3.5 and even 23.ms :O
    I am testing different hosting companies. How many ms for load per wp site are ACCEPTaBLE?

    So what is fast? I use Udesign.
    Thanks

  12. Thanks for that list! So a B (88%) would have made it to your list. Correct? I am using the free ‘Responsive’ by Cyberchimp and got that score.

  13. Haven is quite frankly more like HEAVEN – it’s by far my most favorable one pager! I think everybody who use WP should take a deeper look on their speed score as most built-in themes are not that supportive when you have a bit more content or gadgets and in the end your site will fall far behind in Google search ranks. Well, I got some tips on what exactly to do from colorlib: https://colorlib.com/wp/how-to-speed-up-wordpress-site/ – as actually there are quite many things you can improve, besides theme. Of course, changing the theme is the easiest one and I did that as the first thing. After trying multiple ones, I stayed true to Newsmag that I sourced from here: https://ttfbtest.com/ – they have literally thousands of fast WP themes! I suggest to take a look as I doubt you can’t find your favorite there.

  14. I don’t think you can just run GTMetrix tests on a bunch themes and then run a blog about it. Case in point is Avada – I notice it made the page. What GTMetrix won’t show you is the optimizations that Avada is doing to make the demo run fast that aren’t going to be affordable for most websites. 10.6 megs loading in 1.8ms? Really? Do you think the average hosting account is going to perform like this? They leave this part out. They also use CDN services on the demo for the massive amount of scripts that need to load even for the simplest pages. We’re looking at getting off Avada for these reasons. Not a fan. My $0.02

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