I was having a conversation the other day with a friend about WordPress Themes and we got into a bit of a debate over whether premium or free WordPress themes are better. I of course believe that both premium and free themes are awesome my friend of course was very anti-premium themes.
Anyway, I decided to write this post to share with you some of the benefits of both of them and to help enlighten the anti-premium people as to why premium WordPress Themes are really worth the money.
Pro’s:
Con’s:
Pros
Cons
Get over 40+ beautiful Premium WordPress Themes for just $39 a year. That is less then $1 for each theme, plus it includes premium support and theme updates. Read More
About six months ago, I started learning about business blogging. I wanted to be hands on, so I set up my own wordpress blogs, and started to play around with plugins and free themes. It took me about 3 more months to realize that the theme that I was using (I can’t recall what it is at this point), was causing the massive slowdown. In the end, I forked over the cash for Thesis.
I’ll bet for experienced bloggers, using free themes is a great chance to get a feel for a blogger/programmer’s work. For the inexperienced guy, like me (!), it turned out to be the better move to pay for one.
Btw, thanks for your comment at my site. Please feel free to do so as you wish!
I think there is a place for both, Premium themes are ready to be customized from the back-end (mostly), but there are also Free themes with (basic of course) customization panels.
If you are getting in WordPress Theme Design, of course the best way to get started is playing with Free themes, since they actually have the basics
You can always make a “premium-like” theme from a free one, and with the plus that it will just have the things you really need
There’s a problem with the premium themes as i see, they are getting in the same thing (the featured posts slideshow for example) and the free themes even when they are simple, they use to give something new to the theme develop
Premium themes are cool, but if you aren’t going to take the best from them, i think you should watch for a free one
Thanks Tribak for the response. I agree completely. If you want to learn how to design themes and are just starting out, Free themes are awesome!
But I have also learned some pretty need CSS tricks looking through premium themes.
There are some great free ones out there, so do look out for them! I will write a post soon with some links to some great free themes…so stay tuned.
Free is the way to go for me. personally because I’m cheap. Also i don’t really mind the backlink at the bottom give a little credit were credit is due. does anyone even look down there anyways? my concern is the hidden code you mentioned how do i find it?
Anyone beginning a site should contemplate finding a wordpress theme that is free and upgrade to a premium theme once they have an idea of what they really need.
Also, in using a free theme, it’s important to check the footer for hidden links. The WP plugin Theme Authenticity Checker is VERY nice to use to see if your desired theme has malicious or unwanted code.
That plugin is really cool, thanks for providing us with the link Susan.
It is hard to find good free themes. Most of the free ones are crippled and cannot match the flexibility of premium themes. But there still are but few well-coded, good free themes out there that can be found… Once such free theme is being used by me on my blog…
There is a time and place for free and paid themes. When someone is just getting started with their blog, setting it up, they probably aren’t that critical about the look of the theme. The pride of ownership of their own blog will probably justify any choice that they make as far as themes are concerned. After they are more established and have spent time looking at many different types of websites and blogs, they may decide that they want to get a more sophisticated look with their theme. Then they may explore the many options available in paid themes. A result of time and exposure.
I use only free ones now but I have used purchased ones in the past. The downfall of the purchased ones were that they were so complicated to edit and would sometimes become incompatible after an upgrade and the person who sold them are long gone.
These premium themes must be bought in Developer Edition or else they will also have same back links .
And after me creating a huge round up of best free WordPress themes of Jan 2010 , i can tell you few links were the web hosting providers links which indeed cannot be deleted from the Footer
Have a look
tech18.com/100-best-free-premium-wordpress-themes-of-jan-2010-1892.html
I’m at the point in my online career now where I can code/customise my own themes. However for people just starting out the support you get with premium themes is absolutely priceless. I wouldn’t ever again recommend a free theme to a beginner.
If want your blog to be profesional you should buy a licence of premium wordpress theme
The Thesis is the best