5 Fastest WordPress Themes in 2022

5 Fastest WordPress Themes in 2022

Are you looking for the fastest WordPress themes in 2022? If so, then you are welcome to this article to know about the top 5 fastest WordPress themes.

Studies reveal that in 2022, WordPress serves over 43% of the websites globally. With a huge number of WordPress theme options, it becomes difficult to select an appropriate theme for your website. To solve this issue and ensure your convenience, we present to you the 5 fastest WordPress themes suitable for your website.

During the website development, its speed and performance are the major concerns. It is certain if you consider page speed as one of the most essential ranking factors.

There exist enormous approaches to fasten your WordPress website. Among them, one of the effective approaches can be selecting the fastest, most lightweight, and high-performance WordPress theme.

Some of the famous testing tools for analyzing the website’s performance and page speed include:

Why make the website fast?

A website with great speed and fast loading time certainly grab more traffic.

According to the Google’s research, the impact of load time on the bounce rate is stated as:

  • 1 – 3 seconds of page load time results in a 32% of bounce rate
  • 1 – 5 seconds of page load time results in a 90% of bounce rate
  • 1 – 6 seconds of page load time results in a 32% of bounce rate
  • 1 – 10 seconds of page load time results in a 90% of bounce rate

The visitor only views the fast-loading website. In case your website is slow, the visitor is more likely to click the back button and never visit your site. Visitors have a lot of options; they tend to ignore such slow sites and seek the content from the next one.

A website with a slow theme is directly proportional to fewer visitors/traffic.

That’s why you need to create a website with a fast load time and a great performance theme.

This article presents you with the 5 fastest WordPress themes that will help increase your website speed and improve your website’s load time.

  1. Rishi Theme
  2. Astra
  3. GeneratePress
  4. Neve
  5. OceanWP

Now, let’s explain the above-mentioned WordPress themes individually.

1. Rishi Theme


Rishi Theme is a Core Web Vitals Optimized WordPress theme. The theme is very lightweight with great performance.

The minimum LCP, zero CLS, 100% performance scorer, and quick load time result in it being the fastest WordPress theme.

The theme is super-fast and open source so that everyone can download and access its features.

The pro version of the theme costs $49 yearly and $99 for a lifetime for personal use, $99 yearly and $199 for a lifetime for professional use, and $149 yearly and $299 for a lifetime for an agency.

Compared to the other themes, it is new but has stood out because of its high speed, great performance, quality features, and many more.

Responsive, and user-friendly theme.

It ensures an optimal browsing experience on both mobile and web.

Rishi theme uses the latest technology like; Webpack framework, Vanilla JavaScript, and React JavaScript library, to boost website speed, enhance performance, and make the website up to date with the modern trends.

You are allowed to integrate this theme on your previous (old) website.

It supports RTL and is translation ready. Thus, you can simply translate it into several languages.

Theme Features

With less than half a second of load time, it is certainly fair to consider the Rishi theme as a lightning-fast theme.

The performance of the theme is also quite impressive with zero CLS.

Rishi Theme is designed in such a way that any WordPress plugins can be easily integrated.

Availability of numerous premade starter site templates suitable for several websites that leads the making of the website effortlessly.

It can be highly customized. Amazing customizable header and footer builder options. Fully compatible with Gutenberg Block Editor. WordPress plugins like; Elementor, RankMath, Yoast, etc. are also integrated.

Moreover, the drag and drop builder, live editing, global and local color palettes, layout, and typography are other options available in Rishi.

Instead of jQuery, the theme uses Vanilla JavaScript to enhance the website’s performance.

The theme is schema markup friendly.  Also, the theme is SEO optimized. It assists in the better ranking of your website in the search results of the search engines such as Google.

Encompasses the optimized code.

Compatible with the WooCommerce plugin. In addition, the WooCommerce boost feature in the Rishi theme loads only the WooCommerce style and js files on the WooCommerce page. Hence, this ensures speed and fast page loading.

Rishi Theme Performance Analysis

According to the testing done on April 27, 2022, Rishi theme performance analysis using different testing tools are mentioned below;

GTmetrix Performance Analysis


Performance Score: 100%
Structure Score: 100%
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): 308ms
Total Blocking Time (TBT): 0ms
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): 0
Fully Loaded Time: 424ms

Pingdom Performance Analysis

Performance Grade: 92
Page Size: 94.5KB
Load Time: 1.46s
Requests: 8

PageSpeed Insight (Desktop) Performance Analysis

Performance Score: 100
First Contentful Paint (FCP): 0.3s
Speed Index: 1.0s
Large Contentful Paint (LCP): 0.4s
Time to Interactive (TTI): 0.3s
Total Blocking Time (TBT): 0ms
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): 0

PageSpeed Insight (Mobile) Performance Analysis

Performance Score: 99
First Contentful Paint (FCP): 1.5s
Speed Index: 2.8s
Large Contentful Paint (LCP): 1.5s
Time to Interactive (TTI): 1.5s
Total Blocking Time (TBT): 0ms
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): 0

Note: You can visit https://rishitheme.com/ to know more in detail.

2. Astra

Astra is one of the most popular and fastest WordPress themes built by Brainstorm Force.

Astra Team believes that designing attractive websites should not be costly, so they offer Astra themes free of cost to everyone. The premium version is also prevalent and costs $47 per year and $249 for a lifetime license.

Like GeneratePress, Astra is also lightweight and the fastest theme.

Astra theme is set as a fine competitor of GeneratePress.

The theme aims for high page speed and great performance, so the theme takes around half a second to load which is so quick.

Fully responsive, highly customizable, WordPress plugin friendly, and mobile-friendly theme.

There are more than 1.65 million active installations of Astra theme. It is trusted by a huge community. It holds a praiseworthy 5 out of 5 stars review rating.

Theme Features

Offers layout settings, different color options, typography, blog archives, header options, widgets, menus, etc.

Very simple and easy to use. No need for expertise to use it. Even though an individual not from a technical or programming background can also use it with ease.

Astra theme is fully Gutenberg compatible.

Compatibility with WordPress Plugins and Page Builders like WooCommerce, Elementor, Beaver Builder, Yoast, Divi, etc.

Instead of jQuery, Astra utilizes Vanilla JavaScript for fast load times and effective performance.

According to Pingdom, a website speed testing tool, the Astra theme has 98.3KB of page size.

It delivers numerous starter templates for all types of websites like; eCommerce, blogs, etc.

Also, the theme can be translated into several languages.

Similarly, it follows SEO-friendly practices along with Schema.org markups making it SEO-friendly.

Astra Theme Performance Analysis

According to the testing done on April 27, 2022, Astra theme performance analysis using different testing tools are mentioned below;

GTmetrix Performance Analysis


Performance Score: 100%
Structure Score: 100%
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): 176ms
Total Blocking Time (TBT): 0ms
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): 0
Fully Load Time: 535ms

Pingdom Performance Analysis


Performance Grade: 95
Page Size: 98.3KB
Load Time: 1.99s
Requests: 13

PageSpeed Insight (Desktop) Performance Analysis


Performance Score: 99
First Contentful Paint (FCP): 0.6s
Speed Index: 1.0s
Large Contentful Paint (LCP): 0.6s
Time to Interactive (TTI): 0.6s
Total Blocking Time (TBT): 0ms
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): 0

PageSpeed Insight (Mobile) Performance Analysis


Performance Score: 96
First Contentful Paint (FCP): 2.1s
Speed Index: 3.6s
Large Contentful Paint (LCP): 2.1s
Time to Interactive (TTI): 2.2s
Total Blocking Time (TBT): 10ms
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): 0

Note: You can visit https://wpastra.com/ to know more in detail.

3. GeneratePress

GeneratePress is a free, open-source, and lightweight WordPress theme designed and developed by Tom Usborne. The premium version of the theme costs $59 annually and $129 for a lifetime license.

Web and mobile-friendly themes with attractive designs.

The theme focuses on speed, accessibility, usability, stability, and security.

It targets achieving the prerequisites for your site to make it fast and high performance.

In terms of the theme’s full load time, it takes around 0.76s.

Because of its convenient accessibility and quality features, it is trusted by more than 90,000 customers globally.

The theme download number is over 4 million.

The most important thing is that their users are happy, so their rating is also notable i.e., 5 stars. The users are fully satisfied with their quality services and features.

Theme Features

According to the performance analysis, the GeneratePress WordPress theme is fast with tiny file size.

GeneratePress is Gutenberg-ready. It is the first-ever theme to exhibit theme builder functionality built right in using the block editor.

Compatible with most of the WordPress Plugins such as WooCommerce, Elementor, page builders, and so on.

According to the GTmetrix testing tool, the performance score of the theme is to the fullest i.e., 100% with just a 19.9KB page size as tested by the Pingdom tool.

Similarly, the premium version exhibits a wide range of colors, sidebars, demos, headers, fonts, footers, typography, etc.

Moreover, it encompasses 20+ languages so that everyone around the globe can access it easily. They believe that language should not be set as a barrier to accessing the theme.

The theme is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) friendly.

Fully customizable and user-friendly.

No dependencies, including jQuery.

GeneratePress Theme Performance Analysis

According to the testing done on April 27, 2022, GeneratePress theme performance analysis using different testing tools are mentioned below;

GTmetrix Performance Analysis


Performance Score: 100%
Structure Score: 100%
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): 532ms
Total Blocking Time (TBT): 0ms
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): 0
Fully Load Time: 765ms

Pingdom Performance Analysis


Performance Grade: 96
Page Size: 19.9KB
Load Time: 1.01s
Requests: 4

PageSpeed Insight (Desktop) Performance Analysis


Performance Score: 99
First Contentful Paint (FCP): 0.2s
Speed Index: 1.1s
Large Contentful Paint (LCP): 0.2s
Time to Interactive (TTI): 0.2s
Total Blocking Time (TBT): 0ms
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): 0

PageSpeed Insight (Mobile) Performance Analysis


Performance Score: 99
First Contentful Paint (FCP): 1.0s
Speed Index: 3.5s
Large Contentful Paint (LCP): 1.0s
Time to Interactive (TTI): 1.0s
Total Blocking Time (TBT): 0ms
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): 0

Note: You can visit https://generatepress.com/ to know more in detail.

4. Neve

Neve by Themeisle is an open-source, free, super-fast, easily customizable, and multipurpose WordPress theme. It is compatible with all types of websites.

The theme is free with the premium plans that cost $69 annually for a personal plan, $149 annually for a business plan, and $259 annually for an agency plan.

With 300,000+ active installations and 5-star ratings, it turns out to be one of the most preferable themes globally.

In general, the theme is super flexible, versatile, simple, and convenient to use.

In the context of performance, the theme performance score is 98%, tested by the popular GTmetrix testing tool.

Moreover, they offer various custom layout options to easily control the website.

Theme Features

According to the Pingdom testing tool, the page size of the theme is 1.5MB.

Speed, to ensure that your website runs quickly is their foremost priority that is justified by their full load time (i.e., 1.4s).

Neve is a fully Gutenberg editor compatible theme.

For easy customization, they succeed to integrate several page builders such as Beaver Builder, Elementor, Divi, Brizy, and more.

Highly SEO optimized code, Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) optimized, and mobile-friendly theme with Right to Left (RTL) and translation.

Encompasses multiple color palettes, custom header and footer designs, readymade starter sites (demos), and popular WordPress plugins.

Compatible and working perfectly with the WooCommerce plugin is an added dose of the feature.

No dependency on jQuery.

Neve Theme Performance Analysis

According to the testing done on April 27, 2022, Neve theme performance analysis using different testing tools are mentioned below;

GTmetrix Performance Analysis


Performance Score: 98%
Structure Score: 93%
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): 885ms
Total Blocking Time (TBT): 0ms
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): 0
Fully Load Time: 1.4s

Pingdom Performance Analysis


Performance Grade: 98
Page Size: 1.5MB
Load Time: 390ms
Requests: 22

PageSpeed Insight (Desktop) Performance Analysis


Performance Score: 99
First Contentful Paint (FCP): 0.7s
Speed Index: 1.2s
Large Contentful Paint (LCP): 0.7s
Time to Interactive (TTI): 0.7s
Total Blocking Time (TBT): 0ms
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): 0.003

PageSpeed Insight (Mobile) Performance Analysis


Performance Score: 92
First Contentful Paint (FCP): 2.5s
Speed Index: 3.8s
Large Contentful Paint (LCP): 2.5s
Time to Interactive (TTI): 2.5s
Total Blocking Time (TBT): 0ms
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): 0.008

Note: You can visit https://themeisle.com/themes/neve/ to know more in detail.

5. OceanWP

OceanWP is another fast open-source WordPress theme with over 5 million downloads and excellent 5 out of 5-star ratings. Nicolas Lecocq is the founder of OceanWP.

Free, lightweight, versatile, multipurpose, and flexible theme.

The premium version costs $43 annually for a personal plan and $71 annually for a business plan.

More than 700,000 awesome websites use OceanWP.

It consists of amazing customization and user-friendly options.

Beginner and developer-friendly WordPress theme.

Trusted by credible sources such as WordPress Multilingual Plugin, Cloudways, HubSpot, and more.

Even though at present it’s not the fastest WordPress theme but it has managed to stand out with its quality features and functionalities.

Theme Features

According to the GTmetrix, the load time of the OceanWP theme is 0.7s which is fast enough.

According to the Pingdom tool, the page size of this theme is 982.6KB.

It is Elementor ready with customizable sections, page layouts, widgets, site layouts, fonts and typography, header styles, menus, etc.

The theme supports WooCommerce plugin integration.

Similarly, it contains more than 220 demo sites.

Fully responsive and customizable theme.

Also follows best SEO practices making it rank in search results easily.

RTL and translation ready.

OceanWP Theme Performance Analysis

According to the testing done in April 2022, OceanWP theme performance analysis using different testing tools are mentioned below;

GTmetrix Performance Analysis


Performance Score: 100%
Structure Score: 85%
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): 554ms
Total Blocking Time (TBT): 34ms
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): 0
Fully Load Time: 786ms

Pingdom Performance Analysis


Performance Grade: 71
Page Size: 982.6KB
Load Time: 1.36s
Requests: 41

PageSpeed Insight (Desktop) Performance Analysis


Performance Score: 90
First Contentful Paint (FCP): 0.8s
Speed Index: 1.3s
Large Contentful Paint (LCP): 1.1s
Time to Interactive (TTI): 1.9s
Total Blocking Time (TBT): 190ms
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): 0.003

PageSpeed Insight (Mobile) Performance Analysis


Performance Score: 53
First Contentful Paint (FCP): 2.9s
Speed Index: 4.9s
Large Contentful Paint (LCP): 4.4s
Time to Interactive (TTI): 8.3s
Total Blocking Time (TBT): 740ms
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): 0.002

Note: You can visit https://oceanwp.org/ to know more in detail.

Conclusion

I believe this article delivered you a better understanding of how a theme you pick affects the speed and performance of your WordPress website. The aforementioned themes are the top class and the fastest WordPress themes available in 2022. The features and functionalities offered are also quite similar. Choosing any one of them would lead your site’s load fast and perform better.

Apart from this, if you were to question me, “Which WordPress theme would you consider the fastest?” I would certainly prefer to say Rishi Theme. Testing and analyzing the performance and speed, I would regard Rishi Theme as the quickest WordPress theme. Moreover, they are free, super-fast, extremely lightweight with highly customizable options, exhibit great performance, and offer quality features and functionalities.

Also from the test results, it is crystal clear that the Rishi theme is the top-notch fastest WordPress theme with less than half a second load time, zero CLS, minimum LCP, 100% performance, and tiny page size. There are other different factors to determine this theme as the fastest.

Essentially, this theme provides everything that the fastest WordPress theme must provide and consists of all the qualities that the fastest WordPress theme must. Besides this, it’s not that picking other mentioned themes degrades the site’s speed and performance, other mentioned themes are also equally fast.

Post a Comment

0 Comments