Different types of themes

Themes control how your WordPress site looks and functions, with several distinct types available to choose from. Each type of theme offers different features, customization options, and editing experiences for building your website. In this guide, you will learn about the different types of themes you can use for your site.

Block themes (recommended) are the latest and greatest themes available on WordPress. These modern themes harness the full power of the Site Editor to create the exact layout you want — no coding experience required. Sometimes called Full Site Editing (or FSE) themes, they represent the future of WordPress site building.

Block themes offer more flexibility in site design. You can use their starting layouts off the rack or as the jumping-off point for your own vision. They provide precise control over every element on your site.

Block themes use styles to configure your site’s colors, typography, and layout, expanding these customization possibilities beyond those available to earlier kinds of themes. They give you the ability to edit the templates that control how your site presents its content, as well as create custom templates, template parts, and patterns to reuse across your site’s pages, posts, and other content. This frees your site from being locked into a single look, color palette, or navigation menu.

Universal themes were the first version of themes that were built for the block editor. While mostly similar to block themes, the primary difference is that they still use the Customizer to edit certain aspects, like Menus. We recommend choosing our latest block themes for full functionality.

Hybrid themes are basic themes built to use blocks but not the Site Editor. They have minimal customization options compared to block themes. We recommend choosing our latest block themes for full functionality.

Classic themes were developed before the WordPress block editor existed and have different capabilities than modern themes. Their design is edited primarily in Appearance → Customize, with structure and layouts that are generally predetermined by the theme. While these themes have served WordPress sites for many years, they don’t offer the same design flexibility and contemporary features (like full-width content) that newer theme types provide.

This section of the guide applies to sites with the WordPress.com Business and Commerce plan, and the legacy Pro plan. If you have a Business plan, make sure to activate it. For sites on the Free, Personal, and Premium plans, upgrade your plan to access this feature.

Third-party themes are themes developed by a range of third-party developers in the WordPress community for use on the WordPress platform. Our guide to uploading a theme provides step-by-step instructions on adding a third-party theme to your site.

No matter your vision for your site, you can find a theme for it. If you are considering a theme from WordPress.org or from marketplaces such as Themeforest, there are extra factors to keep in mind when choosing a theme:

• How often is the theme updated? Frequent updates are a good sign.
• Does the theme have good reviews?
• Is the theme lean and lightweight, or does it rely on a lot of custom functionality (like widgets, shortcodes, and special plugins)?
• Have a lot of people installed this theme? If the theme is popular, it can signify that it performs well.
• Does the theme developer provide a reliable support service to help you with bugs and questions?

While we don’t provide support for third-party themes, we do offer suggestions for how to get help with these themes in our Get Help with Plugins and Themes support guide.