I’ve always wondered how many people use the same Wordpress theme so I decided to trawl through the Wordpress Themes Website to see which themes were the most used over the last year or so. In order to make a decent attempt at estimating usage I decided to use the total number of downloads - not the list provided by Wordpress. Now not everyone who downloads a theme actually uses it, they might try it out then decide they don’t like it and go off and get another one - but even if the takeup rate is only 50% its still works out at a lot of people who like and are using the same theme.
To make it more interesting I have listed the 10 most used/downloaded themes below in reverse order so you can have a bit of fun working up to the most popular one. I was amazed at the numbers. Its also worth mentioning that the Wordpress Themes site does not list the most downloaded themes so producing these figures is unfortunately a manual job.
So lets get on with the show. in reverse order we have:
The10th Most Popular Wordpress Theme Is Publizier
This theme has been downloaded 11,616 times as of the date of this post.
Publicizer Wordpress Theme
Publicizer is a 3 Column WordPress Theme that uses Web 2.0 colors. This theme has been produced by the team of designers and coders at the Sitepronews website and cab be found here: Publicizer Theme.
The 9th Most Popular Wordpress Theme is Coffee Desk
This theme has been downloaded 12,401 times as of the date of this post.
Coffee Desk Wordpress Theme
Coffee Desk is “a desk-like” theme with lots of options. It is authored by Martha and you can get it here: Wordpress Coffee Desk Theme
The 8th Most Popular Wordpress Theme is Amazing Grace
This theme has been downloaded 13,058 times as of the date of this post.
Amazing Grace Wordpress Theme
Amazing Grace is describer as a lightweight, super-optimized WordPress theme packed with features. and it is created by the very knowledgeable Vladimir Prelovac who uses it on his excellent blog.
The 7th Most Popular Wordpress Theme is Mandigo
This theme has been downloaded 15,591 times as of the date of this post.
Mandigo Wordpress Theme
This is an elegant widget-ready one/two/three-column Wordpress theme with lots of options. It is authored by t0mmmmmmm and you can get it here: Mandigo Wordpress Theme
The 6th Most Popular Wordpress Theme is Aeros
This theme has been downloaded 16,014 times as of the date of this post.
Aeros Wordpress Theme
This is describer as a beautiful light and professionally designed WordPress theme and is produced by the TheBuckmaker.com.
The 5th Most Popular Wordpress Theme is Journalist
This theme has been downloaded 19,072 times as of the date of this post.
Journalist Wordpress Theme
This is a minimalist type theme designed for Journalists designed by Lucian and you can find it here:
The 4th Most Popular Wordpress Theme is deLight
This theme has been downloaded 22,621 times as of the date of this post.
deLight Wordpress Theme
This is a nice light theme by webdemar and you can get it here: deLight Wordpress Theme
The 3rd Most Popular Wordpress Theme is Dum-Dum
This theme has been downloaded 23,806 times as of the date of this post.
Dum-Dum Wordpress Theme
This is a bright, fresh candy colored theme by wpglamour and you can see it here: Dum-Dum Wordpress Theme
2nd Most Popular Wordpress Theme is WP-Andreas-01
This theme has been downloaded 25,000 times as of the date of this post.
Andreas 01 Wordpress Theme
It will come as no surprise that this classic theme is ranked so highly. Andreas is reknowned for producing great website templates and Wordpress themes. You can see it here: Andreas 01 Wordpress Theme
And at Number 1 The Most Popular Wordpress Theme is Tarski
Well its a long road, but just think that it has taken you a lot less time to scan (er, read) this post than it took me to check the download stats for every Wordpress theme! And here we have it, the most downloaded Wordpress theme which has been downloaded 25,732 times as of the date of this post.
Tarski Wordpress Theme
This is described as an elegant and , flexible theme. It was developed by Ben Eastaugh and Chris Sternal-Johnson and you can see it here: Tarski Wordpress Theme
I have to say that he quality of themes is excellent and the choice is also great. If you like to use a free theme then any of the above will give you good service.
I must make another point. There are many themes in widespread use that are not currently on the Wordpress Themes website so it may well be that some of those themes should be in this list. One that springs to mind is “Almost Spring.” I know that this is popular and that Matt Cutts the Google Engineeer uses it. I have also seen quiet a few of these on my blogosphere travels so it is popular. Nevertheless we can only deal with the stats available and according to those stast the list stands!
A Quick Look At The Numbers
So Tarski has been downloaded to date almost 26,000 times. So lets say 50% of those people actually use the theme. That means 13,000 people are using that theme. That is amazing really and whats probably more amazing is that in years of trawling the web I have never come acrosss anyone who uses this theme!
Maybe the next time I search the blogosphere I will see one? This is beginning to sound a bit like train-spotting. Perhaps we can introduce a new sport.
Let the games begin……
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October 8th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Tony, very interesting. Would you know the top 10 most popular paid for themes?
Lance
October 9th, 2008 at 8:12 am
Tony,
This is great posted. When I start Blog Mastermind coaching program, I was exactly as Yaro said; spent most of the time searching for the Theme that I love to work with.
I settled down with BlackNWhite Theme which seem that the publisher do not support anymore. I saw and test most of above Theme but not the number 1 - Tarski.
I’ll look into it.
Many Thanks
October 9th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
I’m really surprised that the theme I use, “Misty Look” by Sadish didn’t make the top ten, as I see variations of it around all the time.
October 9th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Hi Kate,
Yes there are quiet a few themes around that perhaps should be on the list including “Misty Look” but I could only get actual stats from the Wordpress codex for themes hosted there. If I could get reliable stats on other themes I would use them.
cheers
Tony
October 10th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Lance - if I could get accurate figures for premium theme usage you will be the first to know
I am guessing but Thesis and Revolution are probably the two most widely used premium themes.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:56 am
Tony,
What about K2 ? I thought it’s very popular.
October 10th, 2008 at 11:20 am
Iskandar - I did not include K2 as it is the default theme. I decided to count “chosen downloads” as opposed to standard downloads!
October 11th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
This was quite interesting, I didn’t expect WP-Andreas01 to rank that high in total downloads. Now, that will of course change quite soon, since the official theme viewer have very few themes so far. And as others have mentioned, there are many classic themes that are not featured in the theme directory yet. Not to forget, WP-Andreas01 is an oldie. But it is still a nice list, thanks for the mention!
October 12th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Tony,
I always like the thought of a win-win situation and maybe you’ve created one here by providing this useful information. Not only are you helping us, your readers, but also by extension, perhaps the creaters of the Themes as well?
I like your idea of Blog theme ‘trainspotting’. To paraphrase the late Carl Sagan, there are only billions and billions (almost!) of them out there to watch for! G.
October 12th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Andreas - good of you to drop by. You are of course right that there are many themes that are not yet available via the official theme viewer, but you must be pleased with the number of people who are interested in your work. I think it is a huge vote of confidence
Grace - I do hope the theme creators pop by like andreas has. I am planning to follow up with a post that looks at why these themes are popular. I am sure that (like you say) both users and xreators can benefit from that.
Nassorn - good to here you are happy working with your theme. I hope you are not too tempted to switch
January 5th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
This is great. I think you left out the most popular theme of all. The one that comes with standard with Wordpress.
Thanks,
Rick
January 17th, 2009 at 3:20 am
Tony,
It’s interesting that I’ve surfed many a hour and can’t recall coming across any one of those themes…probably will notice them now.
You are right about the fact that there must be tons of themes just drifting around and not on WP.
Thanks for the list.
regards,
simply stephen