Very Best Free (GPL) WordPress Themes to Modify and Make Your Own
Although there are tons of great “free” WordPress themes to download, “free” isn’t always “totally free”. It can be difficult to find a free WordPress theme that doesn’t come with some kind of condition (usually a required link). I found what I consider to be the 5 BEST, totally free WordPress themes, that have NO conditions attached to their use.
I picked the following themes based on their looks and features, and chose the ones that would be most likely to appeal to anyone wanting to customize a theme to suit their needs. Those that made the list also didn’t have any obvious code issues that might make it difficult to modify as needed.
Dkret2 is a 2-column theme with easy administration, and is widgetized, ajax-itized, & scheme skinnable. Note: This theme requires WordPress 2.2).
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Drikatruu Jelly is a 2-column theme. This one has some great code that is nicely commented, including telling you what each of the elements’ colors are, so you can quickly swap them out for colors of your choice. You do need WordPress 2.1 with the widget plugin or WordPress 2.2 (comes with built-in widget support) to be able to use drag-and-drop type editing functionality for some page elements.
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GPS Fluid is a fluid width 3 column theme that very image-light. Both sidebars are widget-ready. This one makes for a very good basic theme that can be used as a starting template for more complex designs.
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WuCoco is a simple, theme for WordPress 2.x, available with one-column, two-column, or three-column layouts with widget support for 2 and 3 column formats. This flexibility in number of columns allows you to try different things with no hassle. Because of its simplistic design, it is easy to imagine modifications such as new colors and graphics.
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Pride is a three-column, fixed-width theme, compatible with WordPress 2.x. Although it seems graphic heavy, Pride is really graphic-light. The speech bubbles in the sidebars give this theme an interesting look.
Tags: best, free themes, GPL WordPress themes, GPS
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 | Although there are tons of great “free” WordPress themes to download, “free” isn’t always “totally free”. It can be difficult to find a free WordPress theme that doesn’t come with some kind of condition (usually a required link). I found what I consider to be the 5 BEST, totally free WordPress themes, that have NO [...] |
25 Responses to “Very Best Free (GPL) WordPress Themes to Modify and Make Your Own”
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[...] recently made note of what I believe are the best free GPL WordPress themes available. However, there are thousands of choices, so spend the day browsing through them over at [...]
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[...] GPL WordPress Themes If you’re looking for some good GPL WordPress themes, you’ll find five of them on this blog post. [...]
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Flagship Content Roundup says:
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Every single free wordpress theme ever! | Jealous Designs | Web Design and Development | Hosting | Graphic Design | General Nice Guys says:
[...] DazzlinDonna » Very Best Free (GPL) WordPress Themes to Modify and … [...]
I am an eBusiness Coach, Web Developer, Internet Marketer, SEO, Inbound Marketing Consultant, and General Web Geek, making my living from home.
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Thanks to this post I recently used Drikatruu Jelly. It is very clean and easy to adjust to your needs. Thanks for the tip!
You could add to this list MistyLook ( http://themes.wordpress.net/other/rounded-corners/ 831/mistylook-101/ ) which is also very good and some made by theme-time.com .
No, Vlad, that one doesn’t qualify. It isn’t totally “free” in that it has a sponsored link attached to it. There are tons of free themes that don’t qualify for this list because they have some sort of condition attached to their use.
Thanks for the great list Donna. I went with Drikatruu Jelly and just love it’s simplicity. Easy to change – a great time saver.
This is my first post
just saying HI
I would like to see a continuation of the topic
Hi, DD.
I’m considering switching to a GPL theme for my wordpress.com blog. Is there a way to test the Drikatruu Jelly or GPS Fluid themes. I have several widgets, and I want to see how they look before I make the switch. I also don’t know how to tell which version of WordPress I am using. Any advice on this? BTW what’s the downside to using a sponsored blog?
Thanks. Donna
Hi Robert. Yes, you can test themes with a nifty new plugin called Theme Test Drive which you can get at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/theme-test-drive/
You can tell which version of WP you are using by logging into your admin and looking at the very bottom of the screen once logged in. You’ll see the version there.
sponsored blog? do you mean sponsored theme? If you do, then the downside is that the link to the sponsor might be a link to a “bad neighborhood” – a site that Google doesn’t like – which would make you a part of that bad neighborhood, and Google may penalize you for it.
Thanks for the link to the Test Drive plugin! Really useful! Do you know where I can find a theme which allows me to easily personalise the header banner? Would like to insert some of my own photos to make it more personal!
Thanks!
Thanks Donna, really appreciate the time you put into this, I needed a fast free solution until I had more time to design something different.
I try to visit Drikatruu’s web but can’t find the theme.
Hey Donna =]
I wanted to let you know that we have two themes that are 100% GPL and free. While there is a link to our website http://www.themesheep.com in the footer, one’s not required to keep it.
The themes are called “SketchPad” and “The Daily Edition”. We would be honored if you could list or review them =]
Take care Donna
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I do like those themes, Josh. Nice work. I think I might take your suggestion and review them soon. Glad you stopped by.
Twitter: DonnaFontenot
Can I sell themes after modifying themes which have been released under GPL license?
Yes. But you MUST respect the attribution requirements of the license.
Twitter: DonnaFontenot
can you please look on to my website and suggest how i can get some first page inclusion in google,i would really appreciate that.
thanks in advance,
ajith nair
That’s like emailing Bill Gates and saying, “Hey, can you please tell me how I can become a billionaire?” First of all, there’s no 10-second answer, which is what you’re asking for. Second of all, if I’m going to help someone rank well in Google, don’t you think I should charge for that? Seriously, I love helping people, but you’re not asking for help. You’re asking for the miracle cure – that not only is going to be quick and easy – but also free. None of those things are possible. The sooner you understand that, the sooner you’re going to be able to start doing actual, real work on your site. There’s a lot to know about ranking well in competitive industries. You either need to invest time or money or both in order to make that happen. But if you insist on the free miracle cure, here it is. 1. Make your site better than any other site in your niche. 2. When you’ve done that, tell all the influential people who are interested in that niche about your site. That should be a good start. Don’t even think about doing the second without doing the first.
Twitter: DonnaFontenot
Wow… this is really great idea, modifying theme and selling that is for free on net, really awesome, Thanks for sharing.. iwill use 2nd theme for my money making blog. Thanks for sharing here.
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Hi Donna,
nice post – if I had read this before I got started I would probably have gone for the 2nd theme you mention, it looks really nice.
I’m still very new to this (WordPress & IM) world but learning fast – I have picked a theme called Weaver which is free and really customisable, in fact I was a little surprised not to see that on your list – doesn’t it pass your criteria somehow (just out of interest).
by the way sorry if this is a naiive question but what is GPL?
thanks!
Alan
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Weaver is a good one and would be worthy of being in the list, I agree. I’ll try to find time to add it in. GPL is a form of licensing. It is the same license that WordPress itself uses. You see read about it at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
Twitter: DonnaFontenot
Hi thanks for the post about WP theme.
I often find it hard to pick the right theme and waste lots of time on finding one. I going to change one of my blogs to the Drikatruu Jelly and see how it works.