Even if you have the most beautiful site in the world, no one is going to see it if it takes too long to load.

When you’re choosing a WordPress theme, there are a variety of elements that are going to be important to you.

One of the most crucial of these, of course, is the speed of your theme.

That said, there are other factors, and literally hundreds of WordPress themes for you to choose from. The search can get a little overwhelming, especially because you want a theme that has speed and performance plus all the other goodies.

So, you might be wondering, which themes are the fastest and the best?

Lucky for you, we’ve compiled 15 of the fastest, highest-quality and most flexible and customizable WordPress themes for you to choose from below.

With these themes, you can have it all: quality, style, speed and control.

They’ll skyrocket your loading speed and site performance, and no matter what type of site you have or want, you’re sure to find something that works for you.

But first, let’s take a quick look at why it’s so important to have a fast-loading theme.

Why You Need a Fast-loading Theme

Having a fast WordPress site matters for two big reasons:

• First, a fast-loading site creates a more positive user experience.

• Second, a fast-loading site will rank higher in Google.

The longer your site takes to load, the higher your chances of users hitting the back button.

People’s attention spans are now shorter than that of a goldfish. If your site doesn’t load during those crucial first seconds, your users will start scrambling for the back button.

Chances are, your competitors will have fast-loading sites. And if not, then your site will rank better and leave a better impression on your visitors. Either way, a fast-loading theme isn’t a bad investment to think about making!

How We Determined Theme Speed

In order to calculate the loading speed and performance of each theme profiled below, we ran each of the demo themes through a tool called Pingdom, and tested the speed from San Jose, CA. We then compared these results to see which themes performed the best.

If you’re thinking about switching themes, it’s always a good idea to get a benchmark for your own site’s performance. You can do this by running it through the tool above and comparing your site’s stats to the themes below.

Speed Up! 15 of the Fastest, Most Flexible WordPress Themes

Avada

Avada is one of the best-selling themes of all time and for good reason. It’s a very flexible theme and can be used for a wide variety of niches. Their drag-and-drop builder is also incredibly easy to use and lets you customize your site in the least amount of time possible.

If you’re looking for a powerful, elegant and fast-performing theme, then Avada could be a great choice for your WordPress site.

When it comes to the overall speed of the theme, they received a performance grade of 95 with a loading speed of 1.22 seconds.

X

X is a very good-looking and modern WordPress theme. This theme comes stocked with five different demos that all look completely different. This can really help you get the right look for your site. Plus, there’s a built-in theme editor that lets you customize almost every aspect of your site.

This theme is very feature-heavy and perfect for those who demand a lot of customization. Most feature-heavy, multi-purpose themes are bloated and perform quite slowly, but this isn’t the case with X.

This theme receives an overall performance grade of 72 and a loading speed of 3.66 seconds.

H-Code

H-Code is yet another multipurpose theme that can work for a large variety of niches. It comes equipped with more than 50 different homepage demos you can use to customize your site. The theme is very flexible and can work for e-commerce stores, portfolio websites, SaaS sites, large content sites and much more.

It also is bundled with plugins like W3 Total Cache and WooCommerce and is integrated with Visual Composer and Slider Revolution.

H-Code receives an overall performance grade of 99  and a loading speed of 1.32 seconds.

Newspaper

Newspaper is one of the most popular news-oriented themes on the market. If you’re looking for a fast-loading theme for your large-scale content site, then this theme is a great bet. This theme comes loaded with a ton of different niche-specific styles. No matter what kind of content you’re writing, there’s a demo that caters to your needs.

Plus, if you’re looking to monetize a high-traffic news site, magazine or large blog, then you’ll be able to take advantage of the built-in advertising blocks.

This theme receives a performance score of 94 and a loading time of 1.77 seconds.

Bridge

Bridge is a WordPress theme that’s built on variety. No matter the style of project you’re working on, Bridge has a design that’ll perfectly fit the project. If you’re looking to build an e-commerce site, a heavy content site, a portfolio, a single author blog or even a site for your marketing company, this theme has a design for you.

There’s also a built-in visual composer, which makes it easy to customize your theme and even build something from scratch, if the existing choices aren’t up to snuff.

Bridge receives a performance grade of 88 and has a loading time of 2.29 seconds.

Genesis

Genesis is more of a framework than an actual theme, but it’s still one of the most popular on the market. For this test, we looked at the basic Genesis theme that comes with the framework. If you’re looking to customize this even further, they have a host of child themes for you to choose from.

One of the reasons Genesis thrives is due to its incredible clean codebase and ease of setup. Their themes are built for speed and optimized for modern web users. If you’re looking for a clean and high-performing theme, then Genesis is a great choice for you.

The Genesis framework gets a performance grade of 94 and a loading time of 1.98 seconds.

Schema

Schema is another great news-oriented and blogging theme. The theme is developed by MyThemeShop, which prides itself on its fast and high-performing themes. You’ll notice that the theme is very minimal, which places the focus on your content and reading experience, over other distracting features.

Plus, this theme has built-in monetization options that support both paid advertising and built-in reviews for products.

Beyond its main use for content-oriented sites, it can also be used for e-commerce stores.

This theme gets a performance grade of 81 and had a loading time of 1.07 seconds.

SEO WP

SEO WP is a no-brainer if you’re in the search engine optimization space. With this agency-oriented theme, you’ll be able to easily create a fast-loading theme that showcases all of your services.

There are a ton of pre-built layouts and templates that will allow you to set up your site in no time at all, while still giving it a custom look. Plus, this theme comes equipped with dozens of premium plugins to further extend the functionality of your site.

SEO WP gets a performance grade of 89 and has a loading speed of 1.49 seconds.

Newsmag

Newsmag is a feature-heavy theme for both online magazines and news-style websites. It comes equipped with 10 different demos to easily fit your niche. It has a very clean and minimal design that doesn’t distract from your content. Plus, there’s a lazy loading effect so your users can scroll through all of your content without waiting.

This theme also integrates with Google analytics and WooCommerce, and supports product reviews, so it won’t take much effort to monetize your site.

Newsmag gets a performance grade of 93 and has a loading speed of 1.74 seconds.

Divi

Divi is a very versatile theme and truly puts the design of your website in your control. It’s designed by Elegant Themes and offers an impressive array of features while maintaining high performance.

This theme is equipped with a large variety of templates, layouts and a highly configurable page builder tool. Divi can be used to create almost any kind of website. The only limit is your own imagination.

This theme gets a performance grade of 79 and boasts a loading time of 1.17 seconds.

Pillar

Pillar is a very versatile theme for modern startups. This theme comes equipped with over 110 demo pages and 160 sections you can customize. This theme is well-suited for websites that need to showcase their products and services in a stylish and engaging manner.

Pillar is well-suited for agency sites, portfolios, e-commerce stores, SaaS sites, app sites and much more. Their customizable content blocks offer you near unlimited customization options. Plus, there’s a built-in Visual Composer that’ll allow you to build pages from scratch.

This theme gets a performance grade of 92 and has a loading time of 1.13 seconds.

SociallyViral

SociallyViral is one of the fastest news-style websites on the market. If you’re looking to build a site that focuses on viral content, then this theme might be your best choice. It comes equipped with two different layouts that’ll have your site up and running in a matter of minutes.

This theme has what it takes to get users to engage with and share your content. It comes equipped with social sharing buttons, trending content widgets and popular post sidebars. Plus, the theme is AdSense ready, so you can profit from your site right away.

SociallyViral gets a performance grade of 81 and has a loading time of 1.09 seconds.

MH Magazine

MH Magazine is a very flexible and fast theme that’s perfect for news websites and online magazines. It’s also fully optimized for search engines, so this theme can help you reach your ranking goals right out of the box.

This theme is equipped with 15 different demo sites to cater to your respective niche. Plus, it comes equipped with an array of customization options, like switching your overall layout, changing the colors, adjusting the background images and much more.

This theme gets a performance grade of 88 and a loading time of 2.90 seconds.

Publisher

Publisher is a very flexible theme that can help you build out large content sites, online magazines and news websites. This theme comes equipped with over 8 different demos to cater to your niche of choice.

This theme also has 13 different post templates, so you’ll easily be able to choose a template that will make your content look the best. There are also built-in monetization options like Google AdSense and WooCommerce integration.

This theme gets a performance grade of 92 and has a loading time of 1.90 seconds.

GoodLife

GoodLife is a clean and modern magazine-style theme. If you want to run a news-oriented or online magazine website, but want to do away with all the clutter, then this theme is for you. It comes with various demo selections to fit your niche.

This theme also includes features like a built-in review system, Google AdSense integration, video integration and even bundles a lot of premium plugins into the theme.

GoodLife gets a performance grade of 91 and has a loading time of 2.51 seconds.

 

Choosing the right speedy WordPress theme for your needs can be time-consuming, but it doesn’t have to be.

We hope the theme choices above point you in the right direction.

You’ll have a fast-loading, high-performing site in no time!