10 Best WordPress Starter Themes for Developers (2024)

WordPress themes are used by experienced web developers and newcomers alike, giving website creators a way to customize their websites efficiently and quickly. While themes can seem great for people who want their websites to go live as soon as possible without a hassle, other people may need more control over their styling.

That’s where the fantastic WordPress theme frameworks come into play.

What are WordPress Theme Frameworks?

WordPress theme frameworks are generally considered to be the foundation of WordPress themes. Usually, a framework contains the core code, some basic features, and design elements. A starter theme such as this is built with no styling, suitable for developers who want to add their touch to a theme.

Since there is no actual limit, advanced users can customize and design the layouts of their themes and websites as much as they want until they feel the product is finished.

Advantages of Using WordPress Theme Frameworks

Standardized code: Theme frameworks provide developers with standardized coding practices that are compatible with WordPress. This feature is suitable for installing new plugins or add-ons for your WordPress theme, as they’re surely going to be consistent with a well-coded theme.

Faster development: When using a framework, you can easily mold your website into whatever it needs to be without needing to install a number of plugins. You’re going to spend less time researching and installing additional plugins to cover the needs of your website, focusing more on developing it.

Safe updates: With WordPress theme frameworks, you’ll have more regular and reliable updates to keep your sites running smoothly and safely.

Easy migration: A significant benefit of using a theme framework is you can switch to any other theme of the same framework without having any problems. That too without losing your website data, configuration, or breaking your UI.

Increased functionality: WordPress theme frameworks are much easier to customize and extend. They provide more functionality with widgets, elements, and so much more.

Community: Popular WordPress theme frameworks have large communities of people that are into that particular framework. Having a community to rely on as you develop your themes and websites is always a great plus.

SEO boost: SEO is crucial in online marketing. Many theme frameworks have built-in options for search engine optimization, and your business will benefit a lot if you utilize them.

Best WordPress Starter Themes for Developers

We’ve listed below 10 WordPress starter themes with all of the advantages, features, and specifics to help you get your website underway.

Understrap

Understrap is a tremendous open-source theme framework for developers. It combines Underscores’ simple and powerful codes with the versatile and countless styles of Bootstrap. This great mash-up speeds up the process of setting up a theme, letting developers start building sooner.

It has Jetpack integration along with WooCommerce support, and is available in 16 languages.

Underscores

Underscores, otherwise known also as “_s,” is one of developers’ favorite WordPress starter themes. Made by the creators of WordPress itself, it’s safe to say that Underscores will constantly be up to date.

It has a selection of HTML 5 and CSS templates that contain all the styles and layouts a competent website needs. It’s straightforward to start with, and everything you do will be unique and good-looking.

Genesis

Genesis is a very well-known WordPress theme framework with stable and highly optimized code, which helps developers make excellent themes.

This framework is secure and reliable, with continuous patches to take care of any bugs. It’s very responsive and quick due to the HML5 specifications while enabling developers to edit and customize any element they want.

Sage

Sage is a powerful and versatile WordPress theme framework. It’s known for its great workflow and balance of elements, having enough for any type of developer.

Sage has a simple setup process with help through all the steps and plenty of tips. It also provides developers a comprehensive set of all the latest build tools to make more efficient themes with a faster development time.

Beans

Beans is a lightweight and super-fast WordPress starter theme, putting together responsiveness and flexibility.

Beans uses Ulkit, one of the best front-end libraries with all your needed tools. Featuring LESS, CSS3, HTML5, and jQuery, Beans offers well-coded plugins that run smoothly, get stable updates, and have all the customization necessary for some fantastic themes.

WP Rig 

WP Rig is a very intuitive WordPress theme framework containing the starter theme and the build process. The starter theme assists developers in beginning their designs and layouts, while the build process optimizes and minifies your code for the best performances.

With WP Rig, you can write PHP, CSS, and Javascript and have some of the most performant websites.

WP Bootstrap Starter

WP Bootstrap Starter is also based on Underscores and Bootstrap, some of the most powerful frameworks to exist. It’s responsive, SEO friendly, and has free ongoing updates.

Bootstrap Starter has clean and lightweight code, creating very fast-loading websites. It lets developers tweak the CSS without losing anything and gives you all the control you need for a nice-looking website. WP Bootstrap Starter supports WooCommerce, Contact Form 7, Visual Composer, and Elementor.

Tonik

The Tonik WordPress starter theme is made with workflow in mind; it seeks to make the development of themes flow more smoothly.

Tonik is tailored for building with Actions and Filters, making coding less complicated. Tonik contains a Template Enhancing function for more straightforward rendering of templates and a Webpack for controlling, assembling, and optimizing asset files.

Other Tonik features include PHP namespaces utilization, Simple Theme Service Container, Child Theme friendly Autoloader, Centralized Theme’s configurations.

Extendify

Extendify is a responsive WordPress theme framework with countless templates and patterns to help developers make the most stunning and elegant themes.

With Extendify, you get a library of web components that include headers, footers, sliders, and any other element your website needs to become a finished product. This framework also offers hundreds of page layouts that work rapidly and smoothly with your own theme.

JointsWP

Joints WP is a blank WordPress theme, so developers don’t have to start from scratch. It’s made with Foundation 6, giving developers enough versatility and power to make some great website themes.

This theme has a great workflow without many shortcodes and unnecessary options. You can choose Sass coding and take advantage of its power, or choose the CSS version, which is fully integrated into Joints.

Final Thoughts

Choosing the suitable framework/starter theme is quite the job, with the ones in this list all being great in their ways. As you begin to analyze your options, it’s always good to know that they’re all decent and get the job done. Knowing what you seek is a great start, as you’ll also focus on which framework will help you make the website you need and want