20 Of The Best Free Magazine WordPress Themes
If you are looking to pay for a WordPress Magazine Theme, Elegant Themes is the first places I would look:
April 2011 Update
This article was originally created in 2007, however, a lot of the themes that were cool in 2007, are now relics, and because this page still receives a lot of traffic, I wanted to update it to keep it current. There are more than 20 WordPress Magazine themes in this article, however, I have added a few premium themes into the mix. Why have I put premium themes into a post titled: “20 Of The Best Free Magazine WordPress Themes” – I am no longer a huge fan of free themes. Often the authors create free themes to build backlinks to their sites, and then take the theme offline, or turn it into a premium theme. With free themes you often have no support. With free themes you almost always have to leave a footer link on your site, which is bad for SEO. Of the 20 free themes that were in this original article that I wrote in 2007, only 2 of the theme links were still live, and freely available when I went to edit this article in April 2011…For me the $20-$40 you spend on a premium theme is the easiest decision you should have to make when creating a new site or upgrading your theme. Still, as the original article was about free themes, I have included 20 new free, and great themes in this article. All premium themes have been labelled as such, so don’t fill the comments form with complaints. Hope you find this a useful resource.
The Source (Premium WordPress Theme) | Demo or Buy
The Morning After (Free) | Demo and Download
Video Zone (Free) | Demo and Download
Global Press (Premium WordPress Theme) | Get It | Demo
Arthemia (Free and Premium Options) | Get it | Demo
Mimbo (Free) | Demo and Download
Afterburner (Free) | Get it | Demo
The Original Premium News (Free) | Demo and Download
Meta-Morphosis (Free) | Demo and Download
Caulk (Premium WordPress Theme) | Get It | Demo
MixxMag (Premium WordPress Theme) | Get it | Demo
Snips (Free) | Demo and Download
Quantitive (Premium WordPress Theme) | Get it | Demo
Kinetic (Premium WordPress Theme) | Get it | Demo
Deems (Free) | Demo and Download
Terran Tribune (Premium WordPress Theme) | Get it | Demo
The Clam Shell (Free) | Demo | Download
Dimes (Free) | Demo and Download
Magazeen (Free) | Demo and Download
Zephyr (Premium WordPress Theme) | Get it | Demo
The Professional (Premium WordPress Theme) | Demo or Buy
Pallas (Free) | Demo and Download
Minimal (Premium WordPress Theme) | Demo or Buy
eNews (Premium WordPress Theme) | Demo or Buy
eTech (Free) | Demo and Download
News Daily (Free) | Demo and Download
NewsSlide (Free) | Demo and Download
News Focus (Free) | Demo and Download
Press Week (Free) | Demo and Download
Sparks (Free) | Demo and Download
Tags: Lists, Magaine Themes, Wordoress
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Comments (102)
Saturday In searching for sites with content on Squeeze Pages or Affiliate sites and specifically for how to make money online for free, I found your site to be useful and full of content.
Mimbo and Branford are two of the top choices in my opinion. Several of these are new to me, but they look good.
My choice was Branford and The morning after. It is great. thank you.
I found your site on faves.com too….I totally love the Mimbo theme…Keep up the good work
I fell in love with the f8 lite theme but its NOT FREE!!!!
(( what a kick in the kintama.
But thanks for the post. Very nice indeed.
Hi Akira – Yes f8 lite is free – there are premium versions of the f8 theme that cost, but the lite version is free – follow the text link above rather than using the preview and trying to find the download link…the text link goes right to the download page.
Polaroid is supposed to be the best theme in all themes and I have downloaded that for my oracle blog. Thanks for sharing all the themes though.
Excellent List! It’s been tough for me, finding a good magazine theme that actually functions properly, this list is going to be very useful!
A few months ago I really wanted a “Magazine” Style Theme…but after winning a free license of one from a blog contest (and the theme I won was beautiful!) I’ve decided I like the traditional blog format better. The ones you have listed here are all very beautiful – but I’m sticking to the more traditional themes these days
I may check out that deadwood one – it is similar enough to regular blog style 
Otimo thema Massivepress… Thanks
looks very nice designs !!
I introduce this post at my blog
and I subscribed to this blog.
I like the branford free wordpress theme best. All of the wordpress themes are good for being free.
I love Mag On Wood by Chiq Montes, it’s perfectly done!
This article is very helpful and informative. Continue posting this type of blogs! Thanks
All these themes have great design and appear to be very functional to the user. These are important things to include in the design of your wordpress blog.
Thanks i book marked this post. I never seen so many free magizine themes in one post. I liked chared best not sure why i just like the look of it.
excelents themes!!! thanks for sharing!
great list, thanks.
we have just release wp theme with magazine style for free, loved to hear your comments on our design.
I like the structure theme. Simple and clean so people can find what they wnat fast. Page should load faster also.
I’m really looking for a good looking magazine theme, much prefer the free ones. I’m a bit confuse because of these… omg
I like very much Mimbo theme. I’ll use it in a music portal.
Thank you very much
Greetings from Spain
Great collection of themes. I use a theme from Elegant Themes for one of my blogs, and I’ve recommended to them to everyone. Their themes are really clean and simple, and they can make your blog look a lot more professional. Highly recommend them!
You listed some of the best magazine themes for wordpress i have seen. Everyone is good and has alot of features. Some are great for products others for ads thanks i saved this post.
Most are nice themes, except deadwood…that one just looks dead boring. =P I wonder how it made it to the list.
The f8 lite is a great theme. I like most of the themes everyone is well done and looks great.
These wordpress themes looks very attractive. I’d definitely use them in my page. Thanks for posting.
Wow, some of these are very impressive. I was just starting a new blog about a month ago and I was looking around for a theme.
Really wish I had seen some of these beforehand.
Those are some great themes. like some of the simplier designs with less on each page. they are eaiser to navigate and look good. massive press is one i like alot.
Some very nice magazine themes! I like a little more graphic appeal, but they are simplistic. Simplistic is the new thing now xD
Thanks i will have to look over some more of the themes. The site has so many it is tough to pick one i like best. I did see some are free and some you pay for but the cost is pretty good for how good they are.
Those themes are beautiful. Are you allowed to customize theme and do you have to give credit back to the designer in order to use them?
I’m looking for a professional slick looking theme that has Suckerfish type drop down menus enabled. Most of the ones I have looked at are pretty lousy – Do you have any?
Dude, my search for quality and professional wordpress themes ends here. I am so fortunate and glad that I got your blog post through google search when I was desperately searching for innovative wordpress themes. They are impressive and obviously elegant
Thanks a ton. I am gonna use their services.
Polaroid is supposed to be the best theme in all themes and I have downloaded that for my oracle blog. Thanks for sharing all the themes though.
Wow! Their business templates are highly professional and slick. I have been searching on and on for a long time to identify the best resources which offers nice wordpress themes. I am glad that I found your blog post which put an end to my search.
I love Elegant Themes. I have been using them on many of my blogs for about six months now and have had the best luck with them.
Super Cool Themes. Thank you so much.
I’ve been looking for some good magazine themes.
I find it interesting that wordpress is getting used more and more for normal “non-blog” type sites too lately. WordPress is gaining traction as more of a content management system instead of just a pure blogging platform.
The more great themes people make, the merrier!
Hey, A couple of questions: I was just wondering if you know if the header images are included in the themes shown above? Secondly, are you using “Elegant Themes” for this website?
On a different note – I started using WP about 1 year ago and am so happy with it. It makes launching websites easier than ever!
they are very beautiful. I recently took and updated my blog with a theme but after some time i will change it to a new one and definitely take from here. Thanks for the wonderful post.
Arras for me seems to be be one of the best.
Thanks a lot for the list
What do you think of my theme? I’m thinking of switching to a more magazine style..
Elegant themes are nice, they have a hug collection of themes, very powerful and just $20, it’s like $0.5 a theme, an amazing deal i would say.
Yeah, I’m going to have to agree with a lot of the comments here that Elegant themes is a good option. I absolutely love WordPress and all the themes that are available. WordPress has definitely changed the game in terms of who can create a website. No longer do you have to be a programmer.
These are all some very beautiful themes that could easily be tailored to suit just about any site. My favorite that’s become outdated since is the Brightness theme. Has some very cool features although its become somewhat buggy. If you have some CSS and PHP skills, I don’t see why any of these themes wouldn’t be a good fit for your site.
My god MixxMag seems lovely! Thanks a lot for sharing this. Added to my WordPress Bookmarks!
I like the structure theme. Simple and clean so people can find what they wnat fast. Page should load faster also.
One thing I like is the comments area. The space for the name, email address and URL are much longer than on other blogs which makes it so much easier. I also like how the comments are shown in a box which almost resembles a “speech bubble”. Cool theme
Best Theme list simple yet elegant, I like the Magadine contents are separated into boxes. Great post!
All the themes are really cool. I’m having a hard time choosing the right one for my site. Mixxmag is on the top of my list, it’s cool!
I like the GlobalPress theme myself a lot! Very refreshing to look at. Great choices by the way. Keep those themes coming for more inspiration!
Beautiful free themes… or are the beautiful because they are free? I didn’t realize there were so many good-looking free themes out there. Most of the ones within the WordPress data base aren’t that great other than Arras but I didn’t want to overuse it.
Simon, this is a great list of themes you’ve compiled here but you should think about updating it. Alot of the themes including the one i wanted (Yamidoo) is not free anymore.
Elegant themes have so many wordpress themes wherein the user will have a wide variety of selection and excellent benefits.
I’m amazed at the number of new styish magazine themes available these days – and many of them for free. WordPress clearly is leading the way for others to follow where blog templates are concerned. I’ve been using Thesis for a while but I’m always on the lookout for something new.
Its nice to hear that WordPress release a free themes. I like “Minimag” coz it has black background its cool to my eyes.
DesignMagz is the best theme for my next project. I develop a website especially thought for Kindle users. Do you think it will offer the feeling of a “realish” newspaper if you’d read the news on a Kindle (or iPad ) ?
i’m ever using arthemia theme. But little bit difficult to manage the theme. somethime, the thumbnail didn’t wanna shown.
hi, many thanks for the templates. i have worked extensively with joomla! However i have just began a project that requires wordpress.
Snips is such a fantastic theme; it’s perfect for the small website we want to put up for our ministry.
I like Video Zone (Free) it very nice wordpress theme.
I like very much Arthemia theme. I’ll use it in a news portal.Thank you very much..I m from turkey
Some very nice themes, may have to move from blogger in the near future.