We have come to the end of 2012, and a new year is knocking or has already arrived in some areas of the world. High time for this article. Each year, hundreds of amazing free WordPress themes are released: the good, the bad and the ugly. Naturally, 2012 wasn't an exception. WordPress lovers received numerous free themes for their blogs and websites.
In this round-up, we enlist 50 awesome free themes for self-hosted WordPress sites.
The Best 50 Free WordPress Themes From 2012
Note: In order to view the Demo and Download URLs for any given theme, click on that particular theme’s screenshot in this gallery.
[gallery columns="2" orderby="title"]
Description of Theme Features
Salient features of each theme:
| Theme Name |
Genre |
Responsive |
Localization |
Custom Elements |
USP |
| Ascetica |
Portfolio |
Yes |
Yes |
Custom page templates |
Hybrid Core framework |
| AzSimple |
Blog |
No |
No |
Nil |
BxSlider |
| Bello |
Blog |
No |
No |
Post types |
NA |
| Clean Retina |
Blog, Corporate |
Yes |
Yes |
9 homepage layouts, 5 post layouts, Gallery post type |
Retina-ready |
| Best |
Magazine |
Yes |
Yes |
Shortcodes, page templates |
NA |
| Buttercream |
Blog |
Yes |
Yes |
Nil |
NA |
| Delicacy |
Blog |
No |
No |
Meta boxes, widgets |
NA |
| Codium Extend |
Blog |
Yes |
Yes (French and Russian included) |
Nil |
NA |
| Digifoto |
Portfolio |
No |
No |
Custom sliders, widgets, contact forms, portfolio template |
Part of WP Business Bundle Free edition |
| Elegant Photography |
Portfolio, Photoblog |
Yes |
Yes |
Page templates, photo galleries |
NA |
| Glider |
Blog |
Yes |
No |
Nil |
Uses jQuery's .load() function, no images |
| Grid |
Portfolio |
Yes |
Yes |
Nil |
Infinite scroll |
| Gridly |
Portfolio |
Yes |
No |
Nil |
jQuery masonry |
| Hatch |
Portfolio |
Yes |
Yes |
Nil |
Hybrid Core framework |
| Launch |
Tumblog |
No |
Yes |
Widgets, post formats, page templates |
NA |
| Leatherly |
Single-page |
Yes |
Yes |
Custom Shortcodes |
NA |
| Lugada |
Blog |
Yes |
No |
Nil |
NA |
| Launcher |
Placeholder |
Yes |
No |
Twitter box |
NA |
| Meeta |
Blog |
Yes |
Yes |
Page templates, widgets |
NA |
| Origami |
Blog, Portfolio |
Yes |
No |
Nil |
NA |
| Nomad |
Portfolio |
No |
No |
Nil |
NA |
| Origin |
Blog |
Yes |
Yes |
Nil |
Hybrid Core framework |
| Oxygen |
Magazine |
Yes |
Yes |
Custom homepage template |
Hybrid Core framework |
| Orion |
Portfolio, Magazine |
Yes |
No |
Custom widgets |
Skeleton framework |
| Panoramica |
Portfolio |
Yes |
No |
Custom page templates |
NA |
| Photolistic |
Photoblog |
No |
No |
Nil |
NA |
| Pilot Fish |
Portfolio |
Yes |
Yes (Japanese and Spanish included) |
Portfolio post type |
NA |
| Photo |
Photoblog |
Yes |
Yes |
Nil |
Homepage slider using Soliloquy |
| Responsive |
Corporate, Multipurpose |
Yes (obviously) |
Yes |
9 custom templates |
Retina-ready |
| Respo |
Blog, Magazine |
Yes |
Yes |
41 custom fonts, 3 widgets, shortcode generator, page templates |
NA |
| Prospect |
Corporate |
No |
No |
Custom slider, contact forms |
Part of WP Business Bundle Free edition |
| silverOrchid |
Magazine |
No |
No |
Custom page templates, widgets |
NA |
| Shutterloop |
Photoblog |
Yes |
Yes |
Customizable homepage |
NA |
| Shortnotes |
Tumblog |
Yes |
Yes |
Custom post formats |
NA |
| Solio |
Single-page |
No |
No |
Portfolio items |
NA |
| Simple Grid |
Portfolio |
Yes |
No |
Nil |
NA |
| SimpleCorp |
Portfolio, Corporate |
Yes |
Yes |
Custom post types, page templates |
NA |
| Thoughts |
Blog |
Yes |
No |
Custom post formats |
No sidebar, no footer |
| Tetris |
Tumblog |
Yes |
No |
Custom post formats |
Homepage slider using Soliloquy |
| Stumblr |
Tumblog |
No |
No |
Post formats |
NA |
| Unique |
Portfolio |
Yes |
No |
Nil |
NA |
| Truly Minimal |
Blog |
Yes |
Yes |
Custom widgets, page templates, shortcodes |
NA |
| Tiara |
Portfolio |
No |
No |
Nil |
NA |
| VeeCard |
vCard |
Yes |
Yes |
Post types, resume uploader, vCard settings |
NA |
| Western |
Magazine (tutorial sites) |
No |
No |
Custom post types, taxonomy, meta boxes |
NA |
| Workality |
Portfolio |
Yes |
Yes |
Custom post types, page templates |
Paid version also available |
| WordPress Svbtle |
Blog |
No |
No |
Nil |
NA |
| Zenon Lite |
Blog, Magazine |
No |
No |
Custom page templates |
NA |
| Yasmin |
Portfolio |
Yes |
No |
Custom post types, taxonomies |
NA |
| Zenshop |
eCommerce |
No |
No |
Custom post types, taxonomies, metaboxes, page templates |
Requires Cart66 plugin |
Over to You...
With that, we come to the end of this round-up. What are your thoughts? Any favorite WP theme of 2012 that you think we missed? Have your say in the comments below!
(dpe) 
very great collection ; thanks :)
Ugh, I hate the new gallery setup for articles like these… I don’t want to click all over the place to get the info! Sorry guys :-(
TOTALLY agree. All the extra clicking is lame.
Seconded: thumbs down on the redesign for this type of article. This new style makes it difficult to quickly move through the collection and take a quick look at potential good finds. The tiny thumbnails aren’t that helpful, and separating the screenshots (all grouped up at the top now) from the details on each theme (jumbled into a not-that-friendly chart at the bottom) is really lacking from an information design perspective.
If we can’t convince you to switch back to the previous layout (which, while taking up more vertical space, was *much* more user-friendly), perhaps you’d consider offering both versions, and let readers swap between them?
Wow! The theme on this site is awesome. Wish my garden at home was this pretty!
Agree with Zhu, it looks like tiled wallpaper made up by the same two designs over and over, what this screams is that WordPress designs are painfully same-y and consist entirely of black, grey, grey-green and grey-brown colour options, at least lose the colour killing overlay!
Awesome Themes…. Really enjoyed the new layout :)
Really Nice Theme.But Where Is The Download Link ?
Just click on each of the themes Thumbnail and this will take you to a new page. where you will get the Demo and Download link.
thanks.
I, too, dislike the small thumbs. At least have them open in a new tab.
Wow, The Articles Gallery setup look is really cool. Great collection. Thanks.
amazing collection of themes thanks for sharing
I liked the way you used tables for the description of each theme. Pretty unique style! And, it definitely helps compare all the themes at once. Nice!
Nice Collection!!!
It will really help me out for making my
clients website.
Thanks a Lot!!
I love the theme of your site?
Great collection. I am going to try this.
teach me your ways. your website is awesome. I would love to know what theme you use and/or what themes you would suggest if im going for the exact same type of layout on my website. any info would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks for sharing the themes.
well I like this style, it is nice and easy to a theme instead of scrolling down. Good work :)
Great collection! thanks!
This is really cool collection.
Thanks for another awesome post! I love the tips and tutorial you gave and I’m sure
they are very helpful to your readers who aren’t already taking advantage of this really cool option.
Thank you!
WOW the Nomad one looks amazing. Nice list. Though I wish the pictures of those themes on this post were a bit larger.
Nice themes collection.
But have you seen Mantra theme?. I am using it and have 10 Plugins installed on hostgator’s shared hosting. My website loads very slowly :(. Does theme effects performance or plugins or hosting?. Please tell me the solution for it. As I have also have plugin W3 Total Cache. But now I deactivated all plugins due to speed problem.
Excellent collections of themes, all are very much colouful. Thanks a lot for sharing
You’re tha man Sufyan!!! I can use these themes for my clients here in Manila.. ciao!
I have used more than 20 from above……!!