Despite its beginnings as a reaction against trendy, busy design practices, minimalism has become a popular web design style over the past few years – and it’s not hard to understand its appeal. After previously pushing the envelope by making websites as flashy as possible, designers have finally cottoned onto what many users really want: functional design centered around quality content.
When searching for themes in other niches, you’ll likely start by creating a list of desired features. However, for a suitable minimalist theme, you’ll want as little pomp included as possible. This means busy elements such as social media widgets, complex slider plugins, and domineering animations are out. Instead, you’ll want gorgeous typography, plenty of color options, and functionality tailored towards displaying your content front and center. Ultimately, minimalist themes require you to get your hands dirty by testing out the demo sites. That way, you’ll recognize the right solution when you find it.
If you’re still feeling overwhelmed, don’t worry! In this collection, we’ll introduce 25+ of the best minimalist WordPress themes to be found. By the end, you’ll have a much clearer idea of what’s right for your content.
1. Sydney
Minimalist sites don’t need to be bland or boring. With a theme like Sydney, you can create an interesting site while still keeping it simple.
Sydney offers a variety of minimalist designs. For example, the Agency starter site has a clean layout with neatly defined sections and muted colors. You can tweak the typography and color palette to match your branding. When you can upgrade to Sydney Pro, you’ll even be able to build your own templates, including custom headers and footers.
While Sydney can help you design clean layouts, it also offers a wealth of elements that add more functionality to your site. These include Elementor widgets such as pricing tables, employee carousels, and more. You’ll also get additional WooCommerce features like product gallery layouts, product tab styles, and advanced reviews.
Sydney is the ideal theme if you want a minimalist site with full e-commerce functionality.
2. Botiga
Botiga is a minimalist yet powerful WordPress theme for creating WooCommerce-powered online stores.
Botiga boasts of a clean modern look, with lots of white space. While the design is minimalist, the feature list certainly can’t. Among its key features are multiple product listing styles, support for adding image galleries to your product pages, the ability to add badges to your product images to highlight their key characteristics, and product filters to help your visitors find what they’re looking for.
With the pro version of Botiga, you can further extend the functionality of your store with advanced features such as a product wish list tool, a sticky add-to-cart button, and flexible product tab functionality. You also get even more customization options which included header styles, sidebar positions, and product gallery styles.
If you want your products to take center stage in your eCommerce store, Botiga is the way to go.
3. Kalium
Just because a theme is minimalist, doesn’t mean it has to lack functionality or flexibility. Kalium has all the grace and subtlety of a swan – beautiful and stark above the surface, but powerful underneath.
Kalium is loaded with options. There are 11 demo templates to choose from (with more on the way) and an absolute wealth of portfolio and blog layouts at your disposal. What’s more, Kalium comes bundled with the popular, albeit complex, Slider Revolution plugin. While the plugin’s busier effects are a minimalism no-no, it can still be tastefully utilized to provide functional design enhancements.
In addition, you can accentuate your content by choosing from a myriad of customizations, including over 800 Google Fonts, and a full color palette. What’s more, by employing the bundled WPBakery Page Builder plugin, you can build layouts tailored to your unique design requirements.
Kalium certainly has the power and flexibility to offer a busy design aesthetic, but tastefully applied, it’s well-suited to a minimalist design – especially for those who want to show off a portfolio.
4. Schematic
Schematic has clean and simple designs for blogs and magazine sites.
The selection of blog and online magazine demos that comes with Schematic use muted colors and lots of white space to help you build a site with a minimal design. As you publish new content on your site, you can either use the default post and page templates or create your own designs and layouts using the premade sections that can be combined to build something unique.
Schematic also has a number of gallery templates for displaying photos and other images in a range of stylish ways. Other features include a widget for displaying how many times a post has been viewed, auto-loading posts, and a live search tool for returning instant results.
For a truly minimal theme, Schematic is hard to beat.
5. Typology
One way to take minimalist web design to the extreme is to eliminate images and other media altogether and rely solely on text. That’s what Typology does – it strips away all unnecessary clutter and ensures that your readers will focus only on your content.
Due to its simplicity, Typology features a quick setup and customization process that nonetheless affords a decent amount of control over how your site looks. There are multiple post layouts to choose from, as well as several options for personalizing your design and homepage. Naturally, there is a wide range of ways to style your text by setting its size, formatting, colors, and so on. If you want to apply your own branding, you can upload and incorporate a logo and icons.
Typology also covers the basics when it comes to technology and performance. It’s fully responsive, and as you would imagine from an ultra-minimalist theme, its load times are enviable. There’s a dedicated theme options panel that makes initial setup easy, and you’ll have access to a dozen shortcodes that can simplify the design process. In addition, Typology has built-in translation capabilities, including a setting that will switch your blog into right-to-left reading mode. This theme won’t overload you with options but does provide the essentials you’ll need for a text-focused site.
Built with minimalist bloggers in mind, Typology is a no-nonsense theme that will get you up and running very quickly. If it matches your requirements, it’s well worth a look.
6. Aventa
Aventa has a number of minimal WooCommerce store demos for your website.
Anyone looking to launch a store with a minimal design should probably check out the demos available from Aventa. These demos cover a range of store types; however, they’ve all been built around the powerful WooCommerce plugin to ensure that you have access to all of the eCommerce functionality you’re likely to need. In addition to the minimal homepage layouts of the demos, they also have lots of different designs for the inner pages of your store, including the shop pages, individual product pages, and product category pages.
To make it easy for your visitors to get a better look at your products, Aventa has a few different hover effects that are activated when the mouse cursor moves over a product image. Visitors can also zoom in on product images and use the quick view mode to see more details about a product without having to load a new page.
Another useful feature of Aventa is its mega menu tool.
7. Uniq
It’s understandably hard to create a minimalist product that stands out from the pack. Uniq is a theme that promises to simplify the process. However, does it live up to its name?
The first step towards answering that question lies with Uniq’s six default layouts. They’re all minimal in design, with a heavy reliance on monochrome color schemes. For creatives, this theme does a good job of giving you some easy-on-the-eye designs to get you up and running quickly.
However, to create a truly unique layout, you’ll want to press the built-in GoodLayers page builder into service. This tool lets you drag and drop pre-built elements into place, which means that a lack of coding skills isn’t a barrier to a great-looking website.
Overall, we’d say that Uniq is actually a fairly standard minimalist theme. However, that doesn’t stop it from being a solid option from a good developer, and we encourage you to check out its features further if you’re building a minimalist portfolio site.
8. Brisk
It can be difficult to find themes that are both minimalist and multipurpose — Brisk is a notable exception.
This theme comes with a drag-and-drop builder, over 30 ready-to-use templates, and more than 120 widget elements. It also includes mega menus, hamburger menus, and a visual form builder. Brisk is a powerful theme that can be used for a wide range of site types, which is perhaps why it has earned an impressive five-star average rating on ThemeForest.
Some other standout features of this theme include its customization options and user interface. Everything is well-organized and clearly laid out, making customizing each element quick and easy. Brisk also lets you seamlessly import demos and install three plugins to customize the theme in full, which makes it more streamlined than many alternatives.
Like many multipurpose themes, Brisk can be a bit overwhelming for some users, especially when you’re taking a minimalist approach to site design. However, it is easy to navigate and edit, with plenty of configuration options to choose from.
9. Maktub
Maktub is another minimalist theme designed for bloggers.
There’s a good range of layout options to choose from when setting up your site with Maktub. The layouts all have a minimal style, but they’re different enough to give you real choice. Some examples for your homepage include a template with a posts carousel as its main feature, another with a grid layout and traditional sidebar placement, and one with a design that includes space for displaying ads.
One benefit of choosing a minimal theme like Maktub is that you should experience fast load times. If you look on the Maktub theme homepage, you’ll see that the developers have published the results from their speed tests showing fast load times. Your results will vary depending on many factors, but the load times and speed scores are impressive.
Maktub many premade templates for displaying your content creatively.
10. Zoli
The golden rule of fashion is that clothes don’t define who you are. In other words, style and substance work together, but aren’t one and the same. Your fashion website also needs to hit both of those notes, and Zoli could be just the ticket to making that happen.
This theme defines itself as “minimalist and modern”, and the result is that the visual elements are most prominent on all of the nine demo page layouts. In that way, Zoli is well-suited to e-commerce out of the box, as it enables you to showcase your products effectively. It’s also fully compatible with WooCommerce, and the layouts are built using Elementor.
What’s more, there are plenty of dedicated shop and product pages to choose from. Since they all look great with little tweaking needed, you can get your fashion store up and running quickly. In fact, you could probably create a fully-functional and professional-looking website within a couple of hours, just by using the default layouts.
Overall, Zoli is minimal but not sparse – which is perfect for setting up a fashion-related e-commerce store. We encourage you to check out the demo out and see for yourself!
11. TheFutur
TheFutur is a stylish minimal agency and portfolio WordPress theme.
The demos of this theme work really well for individuals that want to create a professional-looking portfolio website and agencies that need a creative design for their site. As the demos cover both of these scenarios and more, you get a good range of options for how your website will look.
TheFutur also has good WooCommerce support for anyone who wants to sell items from their portfolio or agency website. Other useful features include built-in slider functionality for displaying your creative work, sharing testimonials with your audience, and creating presentations for connecting with your visitors.
TheFutur has lots of blog templates to help you publish your thoughts in many different ways.
12. Aurum
There’s often a similar format to minimalist themes: monochromatic color schemes, simple typography, and bare functionality. However, the majority of the themes we’ve seen are designed for blogs and portfolios. Aurum bucks the trend, and looks to give WooCommerce store owners the chance to provide function over style as well.
Minimalism and e-commerce make a perfect match by placing the focus on the products themselves. Aurum offers seven demo layouts, encompassing all manner of online store types. There’s also a wealth of pre-built page layouts to choose from, along with a selection of essential pages to get you up and running. The bundled WPBakery Page Builder plugin can also be pressed into service for any unique layout requirements you may have.
As for the layouts, the majority feature a header that incorporates image or video backgrounds. However, that’s about as fancy as the design gets, and it means your products can take center stage. As you’d expect, typography is pleasing to read, and there are also some neat additions to each product page such as a wishlist button, and a related products section.
While many minimalist themes are centered around blogging, e-commerce themes can also embrace and benefit from the design trend. Aurum is a solid option for creating a clean online store, and should definitely be added to your wishlist.
13. Ottar
Minimalism remains incredibly popular when it comes to web design. As such, there are a wealth of minimalist themes available, so it takes something special to stand out. Ottar is hoping to position itself as your new favourite option
It’s clear from the demo layouts that Ottar is designed for making your creative portfolio look good. Classic minimalist elements, such as monochromatic color schemes and chunky text, help focus the eye on any visuals, and text content is kept to a minimum. While the default version of Ottar isn’t ideal for more content-heavy applications, the bundled WPBakery Page Builder plugin could help you create layouts more suited to that need.
In addition, the developers have clearly worked hard to provide templates that ‘just work’ right out of the box. There are even plenty of compelling rollover effects dotted throughout, which are tastefully implemented and do just enough to provide a more dynamic feel to the pages.
Ottar is a likeable theme, if not exactly innovative. While it may not do much that’s out of the ordinary, it’s a solid minimalist theme with plenty of perks. If that sounds like what you’re looking for, we’d definitely suggest giving it a look.
14. Remake
It’s easy to assume that minimalist themes translate into bland, boring layouts. Remake challenges this notion, offering a design that is both flexible and elegant.
This theme offers over 10 premade layouts that are built for portfolio websites. It also includes a bundle of useful premium plugins, including Revolution Slider, WPBakery Page Builder, Cowidgets for Elementor, and Layer Slider. In addition, Remake is packed with customization features to help you seamlessly tailor the theme to suit your style and preferences. That includes smooth animations, flexible grid layouts, and a drag-and-drop live editor.
The impressive collection of skins and custom-made sliders make this theme an excellent choice for agencies looking to showcase their work. Another area where this theme excels is support. In addition to online documentation, the developer offers video tutorials and demos, as well as a dedicated support center.
Remake is an attractive theme for portfolio websites and can be particularly useful if you need some help getting your website off the ground. It comes with plenty of demos and templates you can use as a starting point and enough customization features to make it your own.
15. Oshine
One of the endearing elements of minimalism is its tasteful application of space and color – or lack thereof. The premise is that just because you can do something, that doesn’t mean that you should. Oshine is a case in point – it’s arguably one of the most powerful themes around, but you can also scale back its functionality to produce something more demure.
Appealing to designers and creators, Oshine is a modern theme with over 27 demo templates to choose from. However, because it’s a flexible and powerful beast, some of the demos are not going to appeal to minimalists. That being said, the theme includes a custom drag-and-drop page builder to help you create unique layouts, should you need to make your own customizations.
Given the focus on minimalism, it may seem a bit redundant to mention the power Oshine has, but it’s necessary to showcase just what it can do. There are over 600 Google Fonts to choose from, a number of header options, and a remarkable portfolio builder that offers almost any layout you can imagine.
Oshine isn’t billed as a minimalist theme, but it can tackle the trend just as well as other dedicated contenders. It’s more than suitable for creating a functional layout, but it’s also going to be there for you if you ever outgrow your minimalist leanings. All in all, Oshine is highly recommended!
16. Stockholm
A common misconception is that minimalist websites are by nature dull and unexciting. Stockholm serves as an excellent example to counteract that thinking.
This theme definitely adheres to a minimalist aesthetic. Its designs make generous use of white space, and keep the key elements on each page simple. At the same time, its layouts and smart use of accents make the many demos on offer look compelling. Of particular note are the wide variety of header options, both of the fixed and ‘sticky’ varieties.
Stockholm is a truly multipurpose theme – well-suited to a wide range of applications. It’s highly customizable, and has a lot of options for incorporating your logo, imagery, and other branding elements. Stockholm also offers an expandable search field, various custom shortcodes, and pre-built layouts for blogs and portfolios.
Stockholm gives you a basic but attractive template to work with, and lets you add as much or as little content as you’d like. It’s an excellent choice if you’re hoping to build something truly unique.
17. CheerUp
Minimalism isn’t just for designers – it’s suitable for all manner of creative niches including the humble blog. A theme such as CheerUp could be just the ticket for lifestyle bloggers.
While CheerUp bills itself as “exceptional on all kinds of blogs and minimal magazines”, the developers are clearly focusing on personal aesthetics. What’s more, the theme includes six demo layouts – but combined with the included elements, you can create up to 200 different layout variations. Also, with a number of header and footer styles, you’ll be set for design options. It’s nothing if not flexible.
The overall look of CheerUp is unfussy – as you’d expect from a minimal lifestyle theme – and other than the bundled WooCommerce plugin, all of the necessary functionality for getting up and running can be found within the WordPress back end. At your disposal are a myriad of design customizations, five built-in sliders, and a number of widgets displaying popular and related posts, social media feeds, and much more.
CheerUp is deceptively powerful. On the surface it looks like yet another blogging theme, but under the hood it can be put to work to create a solid-looking minimalist website. It’s definitely one for your shortlist.
18. Kleanity
Sometimes you want to ensure that visitors to your site will stay focused on its content, rather than its design or flashy features. If that’s what you’re looking for, Kleanity is a powerful minimalist theme that will showcase your work without being intrusive.
Like any good minimalist theme, Kleanity has an uncluttered and modern visual style. It works well for a website intended to show off your work, such as an online portfolio, product showcase, or photography site. Initial setup is easy thanks to a selection of pre-made homepages and 29 customizable layouts for blogs, portfolios, and galleries. There are also 19 header styles to choose from. The theme’s demo importer enables you to pick and choose the parts you want from these demo styles and layouts, so you don’t have to choose between a pre-built site and creating one from scratch.
Most of Kleanity’s additional features are aimed at keeping design and ongoing maintenance easy. There’s a custom admin panel that enables you to change almost anything on the site – such as layouts, headers, and colors – from one location. The drag-and-drop content builder makes the process of adding content smooth, and you can see your changes immediately thanks to the live site customizer.
Kleanity is a deceptively simple theme. Don’t let it fool you – it has all the tools you need to give your content, work, or products the spotlight they deserve.
19. Arnold
Many times, choosing a theme for your website hinges on finding the best way to display your products. Fortunately, themes such as Arnold offer a diverse variety of creative ways to display your offerings, while still letting you optimize the presentation.
This WooCommerce compatible theme is a crisp, streamlined, and image-focused theme for creative professionals. It’s ideal for showcasing products, building photo galleries, and even blogging. A major stand out feature of Arnold is its built-in drag-and-drop custom portfolio builder. This ultra-simple system lets you adjust the size of your portfolio’s graphics, while still retaining an even balance of the elements of your page.
Arnold’s portfolio builder is ideal for creating product catalogues where certain images benefit from different orientations. For example, a homeware store could create vertical images for taller items (such as lamps and fridges), and horizontal images for long images, such as tables. The overall effect is much easier on the eye than standard product pages.
Arnold is a strong contender among minimalist themes, and the glowing reviews are testament to this. If you are looking to set up a robust, image-centred e-commerce site, this theme should definitely make your shortlist.
20. Sixten
Just because a theme is simple, it doesn’t mean it can’t be stunning as well. Sixten is the perfect example of a solution you can use to achieve a sleek and sophisticated portfolio site.
This theme lets you choose from 21 homepages, 8 blog styles, and 7 navigation layouts. It also includes the Elementor page builder for easy editing and comes with WooCommerce and Mailchimp support. What’s more, Sixten provides you with a one-click demo importer, over 100 ready-to-use widgets, and a drag-and-drop editor to help you easily tailor your site without any coding.
Along with its design and customization features, Sixten also offers strong performance. The theme is optimized for SEO and speed, too. Sixten provides easily editable source code and detailed documentation.
If you’re looking for a modern and elegant minimalist theme, Sixten is worth checking out. However, if you want a fun, colorful site, this likely isn’t the best option for you. It’s largely designed for creators and agencies that are looking to make a bold statement.
21. Authentic
It’s a brave theme that looks to pack in the features while trying to remain true to its minimalist ideals. However, Authentic manages it – and all without becoming overly busy to boot.
This theme is suited to lifestyle blogs, but it has a very robust look that somehow suits the content. Thanks to the chunky Montserrat default font, Authentic has a very functional feel to it, although there are a wealth of Google Fonts to choose from to help match your design to your brand.
There are plenty of other features included that would normally be out of place within a minimalist theme. Prominent parallax backgrounds occupy not only the header (which can also include videos), but images too – inline, featured, and teaser. There are carousels, sliders, and a plethora of other widgets for displaying your content that should make for an overwhelming visual assault. However, it doesn’t. Authentic is a surprisingly easy view, and it proves that color and font choices go a long way in presenting a clear and clean looking website.
On paper, Authentic is slightly odd: It’s a minimalist lifestyle theme incorporating video and parallax backgrounds, sliders and carousels, and social media feeds. However, what could become a mess of ideals turns out to be a superb theme for creating your website. If you’re torn between minimalism and wanting to showcase a lot of content, Authentic might just have your back.
22. Proton
While minimalist design has its benefits, there are some definite drawbacks too. For example, a key aspect is to subtract elements from a design, meaning that many themes can come across as ‘samey’. Because of that, minimalist themes such as Proton has to rely on stellar functionality under the hood – something which it achieves with aplomb.
Many of Proton’s elements are a carbon copy of its competitors – a monochromatic color scheme, a lack of bundled plugins, and an options panel bereft of more jazzier design customizations. Even the portfolio has little choice available – there are three simple options: two, three, or four columns. However, to judge Proton on these elements alone is completely missing the point.
The default font choices are superlative, and the colors have been well-chosen. We particularly like the layout of the page headline and accompanying subheading. Furthermore, scrolling and animations are not overwhelming, and there’s an air of quality running throughout the whole theme. You could conceivably install the theme, upload your work, and be up and running with a high-quality website in a matter of minutes – which is exactly the point.
As you may have guessed, we love Proton. It’s in keeping with the fundamentals of minimalist design, and arguably does it better than its rivals. Normally we’d tell you to add it to your shortlist, but forget that. Simply try it out, and you’ll likely be convinced to buy it.
23. Savoy
There are only a smattering of dedicated minimalist e-commerce themes available, and that’s a shame. Minimalism is well-suited to e-commerce, and a theme such as Savoy exemplifies high-quality design that focuses on your store’s products.
With Savoy, there’s only one layout (a grid showcasing your store’s products), although you can customize it further using the bundled WPBakery Page Builder plugin. There are also some advanced header features such as a touch-enabled slider, and further choice in this regard from the bundled Slider Revolution plugin.
Although there isn’t much in the way of functionality to write about, that’s not to say Savoy is lacking in any department. The default fonts and colors are well-chosen, and the layout design has clearly been pored over. In fact, after uploading your products, you could easily be up and running with the default layout within minutes.
On paper, you’d be forgiven for thinking that there’s little about Savoy worth exploring. However, you’d be wrong. It’s a stellar theme, and one that could offer a high-quality sheen to your online store. If you’re looking for a minimalist theme with classy attributes, Savoy should become part of your shortlist.
24. Supro
Supro’s clean interface is ideal for e-commerce sites. Without the clutter of various distracting design elements, you can put the spotlight on your products and work to boost your conversion rate.
However, with more than 18 unique demos and hundreds of pre-built features, your site won’t feel cookie-cutter or bland. Drag-and-drop editing powered by the bundled WPBakery Page Builder plugin puts design power in your hands, letting you personalize every minute detail of your online store.
Plus, Surpo doesn’t hold back when it comes to other features that can help you grow your e-commerce business. It integrates with Instagram to help you turn followers into paying customers, provides portfolio layouts to showcase original work, enables quick view displays so that customers can examine items they’re interested in, and provides product color swatches for variations.
Your style may be minimalistic, but with Supro, your feature set doesn’t have to be. As such, this is an ideal theme for anyone looking to take their online store to the next level.
25. Milano
Milano is an uber chic and elegant theme that presents an array of monochrome design concepts. Its demos make an impact with intense imagery surrounded by a solid white frame and black block text.
The developers have created a very distinct and edgy design that is echoed throughout the theme. With that in mind, Milano may not be for everyone, but it is definitely on trend and ready to impress. Ideal for portfolio sites and offering 18 layouts tailored specifically to showcase your work, this WooCoomerce compatible theme is also perfect for e-commerce websites and comes with nine stunning shop templates.
All of your pages can be easily edited with WPBakery Page Builder, which is included with the theme. You can also play with other features such as Slider Revolution, animated page transitions, and interactive elements. Milano’s customization features definitely won’t disappoint, so if you’re impressed with its aesthetic, we recommend you snap it up.
26. Zoa
You can use WooCommerce with just about any theme, but there’s no doubt that some bring more to the table than others when it comes to integration. Zoa is one such theme and also sports a stunning minimalist style.
In addition to WooCommerce, Zoa integrates with the bundled Elementor page builder plugin to enable users to completely customize their sites from top to bottom. Using drag-and-drop widgets, you can modify one of its 11 demos or create pages from scratch. You can also change the look of your product and shop pages with multiple layout options, quick view windows, and variation swatches.
What’s more, your imagination is the only limit when it comes to color choices, fonts, and header and footer layouts. You can also create mega menus and testimonial sliders to improve navigation and increase social proof, respectively.
Simply put, we like Zoa. If you’re looking for a theme that has everything you need to run a high-quality WooCommerce shop, it’s a theme worth considering.
27. Adios
Adios is a portfolio theme that can be mostly described as minimalist, if a little clunky at times. One immediate pitfall with this theme is that most of its demos seem to use wowing imagery to disguise the same headers and arguably lackluster pages.
Demo woes aside, Adios does come with WPBakery Page Builder, so you can easily drag and drop until you have the structure you’re looking for. You also have use of over 700 Google Fonts, customizable menus, and unlimited widget options.
While the initial impact is big, it soon becomes apparent that creativity wasn’t perhaps at the forefront during Adios’ design stage. However, on second glance, it’s clear that it has enough flexibility to give you the bones of a beautiful minimalist website. Whether you’re willing to choose it over the other themes available is another matter.
