Are you looking for the best Gutenberg-compatible WordPress themes that are free to use for your next website project?

Building websites from scratch can be challenging, especially for beginners. However, using pre-designed WordPress block themes or templates can make the process easier.

Choosing a free WordPress theme for your website or blog can be challenging due to the plethora of options available. Luckily, I have created a helpful guide to assist you.

If you’re new to creating a website or starting a blog for your business, it’s crucial to choose a top-notch free WordPress theme compatible with Gutenberg.

This article provides a comprehensive list of the best WordPress themes suitable for your website.

Table of contents

• Why start with a free WordPress theme
• Pros and Cons of Using Free WordPress Themes
• How to choose a free Gutenberg-compatible WordPress theme for your small business
• 5 best free Gutenberg-compatible WordPress themes
• Over to you to choose

Why Start a Blog With A Free WordPress Block Theme?

Most WordPress site owners of today started as inexperienced newcomers in the industry. And about 70% of them used one or two free WordPress themes.

This includes us too. We experimented with several themes before finally settling for one of the best premium Gutenberg-compatible WordPress themes called Publisher for our music magazine website.

However, the theme developers never offered a free WordPress theme to test, which made us carefully research it for quite some time before finally making a purchase. And since then, we’ve never had any regret purchasing it.

As a WordPress beginner, it is advisable to start with a free WordPress theme before investing in a premium one.

Pros of using free WordPress themes

• Helps you to know what type of theme will be suitable for your type of website in the long run.
• They are budget-friendly
• Usage of theme builders and other related plugins is allowed for customization purposes (at least to some extent).

Cons of using free WordPress themes

• They have limited customization features such as blog layouts, headers, white-label, etc.
• Most are Non-SEO friendly
• Limited updates and support
• They are not 100% professionally-looking

How do I Choose A Free Gutenberg Compatible WordPress Theme for my Site?

WordPress themes come in a great variety of designs, each more appropriate for a specific niche. There are eCommerce-targeted themes, entertainment blog-focused themes, and much more. So you should choose a theme that’s good for your niche.

This is not mandatory, however, since you can customize your theme any way you want it to fit your needs with today’s popular websites or theme builders such as Gutenberg, SeedProd, Elementor, and Beaver Builder.

These theme builders have additional features that expand your website’s capabilities.

Top Free Gutenberg WordPress Themes for Bloggers and Small Business Owners in 2024

Listed below are the best, simplest, and fastest free WordPress themes that are Gutenberg-compatible. They feature minimal elements upon which you can easily build your desired design and are free.

1. Astra WordPress Theme

Astra is the most popular WordPress theme of all time and is endorsed by several webmasters. It is currently the most downloaded theme (with 1M+ active users and 5k+ 5-star-rated reviews) in the WordPress repository due to its unparalleled performance offerings. From beginners to industry leaders, almost everyone loves Astra and that includes us too. We use Astra themes for the majority of our clients.

Key Features of Astra Theme

• Astra is a fast, lightweight, and customizable free WordPress theme for all kinds of websites
• It works seamlessly with other popular integrations and tools like WooCommerce, Beaver Builder, Elementor, LearnDash, and so on.
• Has the largest library of starter templates to choose from.
• SEO-friendly and optimized
• Translation and RTL ready
• Full Site Editing
• Regular updates
• Easy to use with available docs and elite support

Want to boost Astra’s free WordPress theme?

Astra Pro makes it easy to:

• Save website building time with advanced theme options and features.
• Design amazing headers with the visual drag-n-drop Header Footer builder.
• Manage site layouts, colours, and typography with additional options.
• Control your website colours using the Global Color Palettes.
• Work comfortably with popular page builders and WordPress tools like Elementor, WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, LifterLMS, LearnDash, and others.
• White label the theme and rebrand it as your own on client websites.
• Get premium support from the support team.

Pricing: The Astra theme is free to use with its basic features. To enjoy more of Astra, we recommend you check out the pro-version (sold for $47 at the time of publishing this listicle), which has more outstanding features for your website.

2. Hello WordPress Theme

Next is the Hello Theme which is unique in the sense that it’s proudly owned and supported by one of the best website builders – Elementor. It’s also regarded as one of the fastest WordPress themes by several publishers with 1M+ active users and 80+ 5-star-rated reviews. The Hello Theme developers are always making sure Hello is always updated and up to speed.

Key Features of Hello Theme

• Clean, fast, and lightweight WordPress theme
• Fully compatible with most WordPress and eCommerce plugins
• SEO-friendly and optimized
• Mobile and responsive design
• Supports multilingual and RTL sites
• Regularly updated alongside Elementor

Want to boost the Hello Elementor Theme?

• Access to pro templates of over 300+ and premium widgets.
• Unlimited premium support.
• More marketing widgets.
• Theme widgets customization and custom field integrations.
• 100+ ready-made designs
• WooCommerce store builder and premium widgets
• Integration apps like Zapier, and other email marketing software.

Pricing: If you need regular support plus other exceptional functionalities on the Hello WordPress theme, then we recommend you go for the pro plan, which is sold for $59 for a single license site. Here’s what you’ll get;

3. Blocksy WordPress Theme

Blocksy is one of the best Gutenberg-compatible WordPress themes that gives website starters more – amazing customization options, more plugin and add-on extensions, the latest starter sites and so many more features needed for website newbies to grow at a fast speed.

Blocksy’s free version is fantastic. Little wonder it’s got over 2k downloads per day, plus 600+ 5-star rated reviews in the WordPress repository. Check out some of Blocksy’s features below;

Blocksy key features:

• One-click ready to import multipurpose starter sites to choose from.
• Free extension plugins for the free Blocksy WordPress theme.
• Blocksy Child theme available.
• White label available for customization.
• Always up to date.
• Dark mode option ready.
• Fully responsive.
• WooCommerce Integrated plus other apps needed for your site to grow.
• Works great with other popular website page builders such as Elementor, Brizy, Beaver Builder, SiteOrigin, and Divi.

Want to boost the Free Blocksy WordPress Theme?

• 14-day money-back guarantee.
• Enhanced header. footer builders, custom sidebars, and more.
• Premium core extension bundles like Popup Login, White Label, Elementor widgets, Sticky headers, and much more.
• WooCommerce premium integrations
• Access to more premium templates.
• Regular updates and 24/7 premium support.

Pricing: Blocksy is a free WordPress theme packed with some pro features for ultra-performance. However, we recommend you also check out Blocksy’s premium features that are more budget-friendly at an affordable entry price of $49 per single site license, which to us is considered very decent for business owners who want a boost.

4. Neve

Neve is a super-fast Gutenberg WordPress theme that usually takes on a mobile-first approach from its first design down to its latest updates. Neve’s incredible features make it the 5th most used WordPress theme at the publishing of this post.

Neve has several ready-made themes suitable for all kinds of businesses you can think of. Little wonder it’s one of the most run-to themes because of its versatility. Neve scores top results on Google’s PageSpeed Insights and GTmetrix performance tests because of its reduced weight and in-built light speed.

Check out more Neve features:

• Flexible and very easy to customize
• Supports (Accelerated Mobile Pages) AMP features and mobile-ready
• Has a library of free ready-made themes to choose from
• Works with several top page builders like Elementor, Divi, Beaver Builder, etc
• Neve WordPress theme is regularly updated

Pricing: Neve WordPress Gutenberg theme has a free version for download.

But if you want to unlock more premium features such as White Label services, Elementor premium widgets, WooCommerce Booster, Blog Booster, Header, and more custom layouts, then you can choose a suitable price option available from $59 for a single site license.

5. GeneratePress

GeneratePress currently boasts 400k+ downloads with 1,300+ 5-star rated reviews in the WordPress repository. Why? Simply because of its simplicity and uniqueness that resonates with fast speed, customized font library, and total design freedom just to mention but a few.

One of the unique features of GeneratePress is that you can use it on over 500+ websites. This is quite good and profitable for agencies, who develop websites for new individuals and companies, as it saves them the cost of always having to buy another license.

All you need to do is renew the license yearly to keep getting new premium features of GeneratePress to maintain its optimal performance. Let’s look at its features below;

• Theme Builder: This helps you build dynamic pages and have 100% customization.
• Site Library: Where you can import unlimited pre-built websites for starter sites.
• WooCommerce premium add-ons for eCommerce business owners.
• Advanced layout systems, and sticky navigation for a better user experience.
• Compatible with top page builders like Elementor, SiteOrigin, SeedProd, etc.
• Regular updates and 24/7 customer support are available.

Pricing: GeneratePress theme is free to use on unlimited WordPress websites. But to have access to its premium features, you will need to upgrade to its yearly plan of $59. Or you might as well consider opting for a lifetime upgrade that costs only $249. Both plans have a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Start With These Free WordPress Themes for your Blog or a Website

These best free WordPress themes which are Gutenberg-compatible are super ready for your users to start building your websites and blogs in no time. We use them during setting up a free WordPress blog for our clients.

Then as time goes on, you can upgrade to any of the premium versions, which we will recommend you do to keep getting the best out of them, especially for speed optimization features.

They will in turn add to the constant growth of your online business ventures and also help your website rank higher in search engines. Get started with any of our recommended top 5 WordPress block themes today.

We hope this article helped you pick the best free and fastest (Gutenberg-compatible) WordPress themes with full site editing features for your websites.

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