10 of the Best Free Mobile Responsive WordPress Themes

WordPress is the most popular blog and website platform in the world. Because it's open-source, developers and users have total freedom to make their self-hosted sites look and function any way that they want — meaning that there are countless amazing themes available.

All of the most recently developed and updated WordPress themes are optimized to be viewed on a mobile device using mobile responsive design. This means that their layouts are built to be flexible so that they expand and retract to look great on any screen from almost any device. Whether you're looking at a responsive WordPress website from a smartphone, a laptop, a desktop monitor or a tablet computer, its design is guaranteed to always look good.

If you think that only the best mobile responsive WordPress themes have to be bought for a premium price, the following list will prove you wrong. While you may decide to invest a bit of money to get something more powerful and specific to your needs, there are lots of incredible themes that you can download and set up on your own site for free.

Here are just 10 of the best to consider checking out. Please note that these themes are for self-hosted WordPress.org websites, not free ones hosted on WordPress.com.

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Neve

What We Like

Simple, one-page design.
Parallax support.

What We Don't Like

No longer supported.

Neve is used by over 200,000 WordPress users, but that doesn't mean you can't make it your own. It's the perfect one-page theme for a business website and includes beautifully smooth, eye-catching animations as you scroll down.

When viewed from a mobile device, the menu at the top is replaced by a menu bottom where the items are compressed into a collapsible menu.

Download Neve

of 10

Sydney: Create a Professional Website in Minutes

What We Like

Great for first-time users.
Unique features.
Effective support team.

What We Don't Like

Adding CSS can be confusing.

Didn't think you could get such amazing parallax scrolling effects with a free theme, did you? Well, think again! The Sydney theme is perfect for businesses and freelancers looking to create a professional website, blog or portfolio of work.

You can upload your logo, customize the layout colors, take advantage of Google Fonts, use a full-screen slider, use sticky navigation and so much more. Use this theme's convenient constructive blocks to build and customize your home page just the way you want.

Download Sydney

of 10

Sparkling: Clean and Minimal

What We Like

Supports many languages.
Minimal design.
E-commerce ready.
Easy to customize.

What We Don't Like

Some poor design elements.
Might be too basic.

If you're looking for something with less of a web agency look and more of a traditional blog look with a sidebar and everything, then Sparkling might be a good choice.

Sparkling is a much more minimal theme that comes with a wide range of customizable features including a full-screen slider, social icons, colors, fonts, a popular post widget, an author bio box and more. It can also be integrated with WooCommerce and several other popular plugins.

Download Sparkling

The 10 Best Free Website Builders of 2021

By Elise Moreau

of 10

ColorMag: Great for Magazine or News Sites

What We Like

Visually appealing.
User-friendly customization options.
Responsive support team.

What We Don't Like

Could support more graphical customizations.

It's not always easy to pick a theme for a news site or blog that doesn't look overly cluttered and messy, but ColorMag is one of those rare, free themes with a magazine-style layout that's actually very pleasant to look at. There's a lot of emphasis on images, and you still have spots to put advertising banners without totally overwhelming visitors.

You have a lot of customization options with this theme, including dedicated sections for ads that actually don't make your site look ugly or cluttered.

Download ColorMag

of 10

Spacious: A Powerful Multipurpose Theme

What We Like

Multiple layout options.
Several widget areas.
Simple to customize.

What We Don't Like

Updating has been known to cause issues.

For those who are looking for a powerful theme that they can really make their own, Spacious may just be the multipurpose theme worth trying out.

This incredible theme has four different page type layouts, two-page templates, four blog display types, 13 different areas to put widgets, 5 custom business widgets, a beautiful slider feature, dark and light skin choices, color customization and so much more. It's hard to believe that this one is free.

Download Spacious

of 10

Customizr: Have Fun Customizing Your Site

What We Like

Great for e-commerce.
Lots of customization options.
Clean design.
Updates often.

What We Don't Like

Many features are available only in the pro version.

Do you want customizable features? You got it! Customizr has been built to be as easy to use as possible without taking anything away from versatility.

As one of the most used free WordPress themes with almost a perfect five-star rating from hundreds of users, this theme won't let you down — especially when you look at it from a mobile device. It's also ideal to use alongside WooCommerce (an extremely popular e-commerce solution), making it a perfect theme choice for business owners selling their own products and services.

Download Customizr

of 10

Virtue: Visual and Versatile

What We Like

Powerful options.
Great for photos.
Excellent customer service.
E-commerce ready.

What We Don't Like

Some basic features work only with the premium version.

A lot of the themes mentioned in this list really emphasize visuals, but none of them do it like the Virtue theme. It's another highly versatile theme that can be used along with WooCommerce to sell products, show off portfolio work such as photography, write blog posts, and so much more.

The theme comes with its own features panel you can access the WordPress dashboard where you can customize and tweak the look of your layout and all the available features to make it look exactly how you want.

Download Virtue

of 10

GeneratePress: Fast and Lightweight

What We Like

Built for speed.
Works in many languages.
Several sidebar layouts.
Helpful support.

What We Don't Like

Less frequently updated than some themes.
Very simple design by default.

So you want your WordPress website to look amazing, but you also want it to be lightning-fast and easy to use from a visitor's perspective. The GeneratePress theme delivers in all these areas and more.

It's a complete business theme that works great with powerful plugins like WooCommerce, BuddyPress, and others — plus it's also designed to be search engine friendly so you rank well in Google. And just like every other free theme on this list, it looks amazing on mobile.

Download GeneratePress

of 10

Responsive: Flexible and Fluid for Any Personal or Business Site

What We Like

Fluid design.
More widget areas than most templates.
Versatile use cases.
Easy to learn how to use.

What We Don't Like

Little to no support.
Infrequently updated.
Very simple layout.

How about a theme name like Responsive to consider for your mobile responsive WordPress theme? Don't be fooled by its simple layout — this theme packs nine-page templates, 11 widgetized areas, six template layouts, and four menu positions into its customization options.

It's versatile enough to be used for a business site and simple enough for a personal site. Also compatible with WooCommerce, the entire layout is fluid and instantly adapts to the screen from which it's being viewed.

Download Responsive

of 10

Evolve: Create Limitless Layouts for Any Site Style

What We Like

Attractive design.
Plethora of customization options.
Easy drag-and-drop builder.
Active support team.

What We Don't Like

Lacks some basic features normally found in a free template.

Lastly, Evolve is another extremely versatile, multipurpose free WordPress theme with a clean and modern layout that comes with over a hundred customizable theme options. It even comes with a built-in contact form and three different blog layouts.

If you really want to impress your visitors, be sure to take advantage of the amazing parallax slider and other animated effects that move captions and images around the page in a slick and engaging way. You'll have to download and install this one just to get a glimpse at all the ways you can customize it. And of course, it's always ready to view and be used from any device.

Download Evolve

When you have your new theme picked out, WordPress makes it very simple to install a new WordPress theme for your website.

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Moreau, Elise. "10 of the Best Free Mobile Responsive WordPress Themes." ThoughtCo, Dec. 6, 2021, thoughtco.com/best-free-mobile-responsive-wordpress-themes-3486331. Moreau, Elise. (2021, December 6). 10 of the Best Free Mobile Responsive WordPress Themes. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/best-free-mobile-responsive-wordpress-themes-3486331 Moreau, Elise. "10 of the Best Free Mobile Responsive WordPress Themes." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/best-free-mobile-responsive-wordpress-themes-3486331 (accessed April 24, 2024).