The 11 Best Free & Minimalist WordPress Blog Themes

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Ben Sibley

“These themes are hand-picked for their outstanding design quality, features, and customer reviews.”

Ready for a new theme? Look no further!

This collection includes 11 of the best free WordPress themes available. Each theme is designed for blogs in particular and uses a minimalist style.

Any of these templates will be excellent for a simple blog where you’d like to highlight your writing.

We have a list of premium blog themes and a collection of travel blog themes you may want to check out too.

Free Minimalist Blog Themes

Each theme included here has been approved by the WordPress Theme Review Team. That means you can expect reliable functionality and clean-code running on your site.

Here are my top picks for best minimalist blog WordPress themes for 2024.


  • 1. Tribes by Compete Themes

    Tribes

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    Theme Description

    Tribes is a minimalist theme with a modular design. Every post has its own box that clearly stands out against the darkened background.

    With no sidebar, it puts visitors’ full attention on your content. The layout and menu on mobile devices are maintained on desktops giving it a very modern look. Tribes also has a premium upgrade called Tribes Pro that adds widgets, custom fonts, and custom colors.

    Learn more

  • 2. Apex by Compete Themes

    Apex

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    Theme Description

    The Apex theme has a classic blog design featuring a sidebar that can be moved to the left or right side of the page. As a responsive theme, it adapts to all screen sizes. Use it for a beauty blog, food blog, or any other kind of content site.

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  • 3. Cele by Compete Themes

    Cele

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    Theme Description

    Unlike most templates that display a vertical menu across the top of the site, Cele has a prominent sidebar on the left side where the logo, menu, and social media icons reside. Below the social icons is a widget area, so you can fill the sidebar area with helpful links and marketing content.

    The color palette in Cele is extremely simple, and the generous use of white space creates a serene look. It’s a great choice for professional bloggers and any writers that want a tranquil publishing space.

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  • 4. Lovecraft by Anders Norén

    Lovecraft

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    Theme Description

    Lovecraft is a gorgeous theme with a clean and spacious layout. The aesthetic also has a bookish style, which could make it great for writers and poets.

    Lovecraft includes a massive display of the Featured Images giving it a unique look. More traditionally, it keeps a sidebar available on all pages so you can add widgets for related posts, your categories, and email optin forms.

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  • 5. Omega by Themehall

    screenshot of the Omega theme

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    Theme Description

    Omega is a classic and simple theme for building a blog with WordPress. If you want a minimalist look and emphasis on your writing, you can’t really go wrong with the Omega theme.

    This theme doesn’t include a ton of customization features, but it is coded following WordPress best-practices and works with child themes and thousands of free plugins.

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  • 6. Challenger by Compete Themes

    Challenger

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    Theme Description

    Challenger may not look “minimalist” at first glance, but that’s because of the large header box at the top. The header section is totally customizable including the colors, text, and background image. You can give it a much simpler design and promote any offer you’d like using the call-to-action.

    Challenger features a single column design with more layouts and widget areas available in Challenger Pro. It adapts well to mobile devices, includes icons for more than 50+ social media websites, and has a variety of other simple customization options.

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  • 7. Graphy by Themagraphy

    screenshot of the Graphy theme

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    Theme Description

    Graphy is a clean template with a nice assortment of customization options included. You can change the logo, colors, and header image all from the Customizer. There’s also a Pro upgrade that includes custom fonts and other new settings.

    The Graphy theme also includes a variety of widget areas including three in the footer of the site. This makes it easy to construct a large footer area linking to your most important pages.

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  • 8. Readit by Modern Themes

    screenshot of the Readit theme

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    Theme Description

    The first thing you’ll notice about Readit is its massive tagline text at the top. It makes for a cool look and is great for anyone with a strong message to share. Below you’ll find a clean, modular layout for your posts and sidebar.

    The free version of Readit includes color options and custom fonts, and there are even more features included in the affordable premium upgrade.

    Learn more

  • 9. Davis by Anders Norén

    screenshot of the Davis theme

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    Theme Description

    Here’s another by Anders Norén, Davis.

    This theme is for the writer who wants to write and publish on their site without distraction. Absolute no-nonsense minimalism puts the focus entirely on your content. The aesthetic is similar to that of a book printed on the web.

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  • 10. Scripted by Styled Themes

    screenshot of the Scripted theme

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    Theme Description

    Scripted is a beautiful theme. It’s got some more visual elements than the other themes but still maintains an overall minimalist aesthetic.

    There’s a callout box at the top I like, a simple slider below that, and a few other content boxes before the most recent posts. It would probably look good without any of that stuff, so you could include only the parts you need.

    Learn more

  • 11. Origami by SiteOrigin

    screenshot of the Origami theme

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    Theme Description

    Origami is a blogging theme with a simple layout and large images. On the demo, the theme showcases how effective it can be for video as well, and adapts easily to tablets and mobile devices.

    Learn more

Want to save a few bucks?

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Find your new blog theme

I hope you liked the collection sourced here. I tried to find some great themes that aren’t so popular across other the theme collections. Hopefully, you’re installing your new theme now 🙂

Thanks for checking out this collection of the best free minimalist blog themes.

Ben Sibley
Ben Sibley
Ben Sibley is a WordPress theme designer & developer, and founder of Compete Themes.