10 Most Popular WordPress Themes of 2015

As the year comes to an end it’s time to reflect on all the awesome developments in the world of WordPress. Two major version of WordPress were released, now called Billie in honor of jazz goddess Billie Holiday.  In 2015 the web became even more responsive, accessible and we saw security updates galore. The platform also continued to dominate the web and evolve alongside it.

A fresh new batch of themes also came out. Despite all the great new products, many of us still use the same themes from 2012 and 2013. Avada is still the number one selling theme on the Envato market, with X Land Enfold rounding out second and third place.

There’s nothing against using older themes – especially when they are regularly updated, but there have been some strong up and coming themes added to the Envato market this year. We are going to take a look at the Envato’s best-selling themes from the year 2015. These themes all perform great and incorporate some of the latest design trends of today.

Oshine — Creative Multi-Purpose WordPress Theme

OSHINE — Creative Multi-Purpose WordPress ThemeOshine is at the top of the best sellers this year. It’s packed with tons of features you can use to build a modern website. It comes with its own drag and drop page builder so you can really focus on designing without having to code. The options panel is intuitive and the layout is simple.

Oshine is so popular because it provides a nice balance between high quality design and functionality. You can create custom layouts or even modify the demos to give your website a number of different looks. As of now there are 18 unique demo layouts to choose from.

Oshine is ideal for websites with an artistic spin, but this powerful theme offers a wide variety of design possibilities. You can create online stores, business sites, portfolios and more. Developers and beginners have both taken to this theme. Oshine was designed to help you build classy, retina ready sites with ease. This modern and minimalistic theme has shown itself to be a real force on Envato. Oshine is here to stay.

Get Oshine

Ronneby — High-Performance WordPress Theme

Ronneby|High-Performance WordPress ThemeThis is another powerful theme that gives you a full range of options for building high quality websites. There are over 40 unique layouts and counting. Ronneby also has a diverse collection of demo content for you to get started with.

There are so many style options for users to choose from to help you get a unique look. Quickly create sites for business, freelancers, blogs, ecommerce and more. No matter what niche you are working with you will be able to find a suitable demo.

One thing people say about Ronneby is how elegant it is. There are many ways to create a slick site with a clean look. This theme has 8 header versions that can be changed with just a few clicks, offering versatility and ease of use. Get a full range of features to choose from including background images, widgets, hover options and more. Choose from 20 different demo layouts to get started or build a custom template. Ronneby had a strong year on the market and people are building some stunning sites with this theme.

Get Ronneby

Kalium — Creative Theme for Professionals

Kalium — Creative Theme for ProfessionalsKalium is perfect for creatives who are looking for minimal design and want to use high quality images. This theme makes excellent use of white space and is useful for portfolios and business websites. It’s loaded with layouts, templates, skins, Google Fonts, styles and shortcodes. It comes with Visual Composer so you can quickly build pages. To quickly setup a site, use the one click demo import.

Kalium also features many different hover styles and animation effects as well. Showcasing your work is made easy by integrating social media and WPML. It comes out of the box with LayerSlider and Revolution Slider as well. This is a solid theme that is a great choice for anyone looking to show off their work.

Get Kalium

Rosemary — A Responsive WordPress Blog Theme

Rosemary — A Responsive WordPress Blog ThemeRosemary is a premium theme perfect for doing what WordPress does best – blogging. It performs well and is very user friendly. If you are looking for a theme to brighten up your day, check out Rosemary. There are some nice features including sliders and full width photo sections. There are a variety of options for the layout as well as posts.

Footers come with full width Instagram feeds and the theme integrates personalized widgets. Rosemary uses Customizer to power the theme options – giving you options to modify colors and add your own styles.

Get Rosemary

Construction — WP Construction, Building Business

Construction — WP Construction, Building BusinessConstruction is a WordPress theme for building and construction companies. It comes stocked with Visual ComposerLINKLINNK so anyone can build without any coding. Drag and drop your way into a custom layout or add features with ease.

Import the demo content with a single click and customize it to make your own unique look. Essential Grid is also incorporated into Construction, allowing for a variety of content to be displayed in a grid format. There are many more premium plugins baked into this theme, with no extra cost.

Construction is user friendly which makes it easy to customize. You can change any element on a page in the theme options panel. Quickly modify the body, header, menus and more.

Get Construction

TheFox | Responsive Multi-Purpose WordPress Theme

Fox — Multi-Purpose WordPress ThemeTheFox is a premium multi-purpose WordPress themeLINKLINK with a clean design. Once again, the developers of the fox chose to use Visual ComposerLINKLINK. This makes TheFox even more flexible and easy to use. You’ll be able to build any type of website you want with this theme, it’s truly versatile.

TheFox comes stocked with plenty of options and demo content for you to play with. It’s very beginner friendly and intuitive. Anyone can quickly start building awesome websites using drag and drop functionality. Try it out for websites for corporations, businesses, portfolios, blogs, magazines, shops and more.

Get TheFox

Porto | Responsive WordPress + WooCommerce Theme

Porto | Responsive WordPress + WooCommerce ThemePorto is a business theme for WordPress that is jampacked with features to get your business rolling. You can customize any element on the site to your liking. The theme options panel lets you adjust the colors, layout options as well as style. If you like themes with a lot of options, Porto is a good choice.

With 22 unique homepages to choose from, clean layouts and lighting fast load times – Porto makes a great choice for a business or landing page. There are lots of variations to give your site a unique look including endless possibilities when it comes to layout options. Build a store, landing page or business site and integrate WooCommerce. Port also includes Visual Composer

Get Porto

Voice — Clean News/Magazine WordPress Theme

Voice — Clean News/Magazine WordPress Theme

Voice is a modern WordPress magazine theme that is designed for blogging. It’s geared toward personal blogs, online magazines and news websites. It’s fully responsive, with the option to toggle responsive mode on or off. Voice has very fluid layout options, typography that stands out and a focus on content.

The developers really honed in on user experience – so you can build a site that is readable and easy to browse. You have more options that you’ll ever need with Voice including unlimited fonts, colors and branding options. There are several layout templates that you can combine in any combination you wish. The possibilities are endless.

Voice is a professional publishing theme that functions as well as it looks. You have a lot of room for flexibility and all the features you could want out of a magazine theme.

Get Voice

15Zine — HD Magazine / Newspaper WordPress Theme

15Zine — HD Magazine / Newspaper WordPress Theme15Zine isn’t just a theme with a silly name. This magazine style theme gets down to business, without all the frills. It’s ideal for online newspapers, magazines, blogs and more. It’s versatile enough to use for a variety of niches.

One of 15Zines key features is built-in review system. It’s very easy to use and can be enabled for use on any post. Get options like type of rating system, page location, pros and cons, subtitle and more. Use 15Zine’s powerful native page builder to create pages. Customization is easy with drag and drop functionality and simple user interface. No need for coding or using shortcodes with this modern magazine theme.

Get 15Zine

Zephyr | Material Design Theme

Zephyr | Material Design Theme

Zephyr is a clean, simple theme for WordPress. This lightweight theme performs well and does what needs to do. It’s flexible and employs the use of minimalistic designs. It includes lots of options for customization including 5 demos, hover effects, filters for categories, 3 pre-built layouts, an image gallery, an image slider and icon boxes. As most newer themes, it comes with a child theme and is WPML ready.

It’s easy to use, fully responsive and comes stocked with Visual Composer, everybody’s favorite page builder. We be hard-pressed to list all the features Zephyr has to offer, so check it out yourself. There are endless possibilities and a number of different sites you can create with this premium theme.

Get Zephyr

Uncode — Creative Multiuse WordPress Theme

Uncode — Creative Multiuse WordPress Theme

This is a late addition to the list. I haven’t checked this theme out until recently but I am glad I did. It’s making big waves and it’s only been out for less than two months at the time I am writing this.

Uncode is a true multi-purpose theme that allows you to build a variety of sites. There are lots of options to configure the layout and style your site. It’s a great theme for creating sites with high quality pictures and video. One of the standout features is the enhanced video library. You can store media from Spotify, Youtube, HTML, SoundCloud, Flickr, Instagram, Vimeo and Twitter.

The drag and drop page builder is powered by Visual Composer and offers some unique features as well. Like all modern themes it’s bundled with some premium plugins. People looking to build trendy sites that look beautiful will enjoy creating with Uncode.

Get Uncode

Wrapping Up

One thing that is apparent is a lot of these themes make heavy use of drag and drop page builders. While 15Zine has its own native page builder, most of the themes on this list are integrated or come with Visual Composer. This group of themes all make good use of the best WordPress has to offer. Tools for creating websites quickly, without sacrificing in terms of design and functionality.

It’s no surprise features like rich typography, minimal design and increased focus on user experience are all present in these bestselling themes. Modern web trends like long scrolling pages, fully responsive sites, card style grids and flat sites are all incorporated into the themes in our list as well. This year has been a great year for WordPress users, and we will see which of these promising themes continues to gain momentum into 2016.

Disclosure: This page may contain external affiliate links that may result in us receiving a comission if you choose to purchase said product. The opinions on this page are our own. We do not receive payment for positive reviews.
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