Sydney Classic Premium available
4.9★ (794 ratings) · Current rank #34
Highlights · computed from our daily tracking data
- Sydney currently ranks #34 and has stayed inside the top 50 in every daily snapshot since Sep 17, 2024 (687 snapshots).
- Its best position in our tracking is #30, first reached on Jan 29, 2026.
- It accounts for roughly 0.7% of all active installs across the themes we track.
- It is averaging 1,029 downloads/day over the last 30 days, up 18% versus the month before (875/day).
- The latest release, v2.70, shipped on Jul 20, 2026 (22 days ago) — release #156 since the theme joined the directory in 2015.
- Beyond WordPress.org, BuiltWith detects 91,485 live sites running Sydney across the web, including 429 of the one million most-visited sites.
Performance · Google Lighthouse, official wordpress.org demo
| Mobile | Desktop | |
| Largest Contentful Paint | 3.8 s | 1.3 s |
| First Contentful Paint | 2.6 s | 0.7 s |
| Total Blocking Time | 0 ms | 0 ms |
| Cumulative Layout Shift | 0.051 | 0.122 |
| Page weight | 1.3 MB | 1.3 MB |
Lab (Lighthouse) data measured on the official demo at wp-themes.com, where every theme serves identical content — so scores isolate the theme's own CSS/JS payload. Tested Aug 3, 2026. Scores vary ±5 between runs. Run a live test ↗
Real-world usage · live sites, via BuiltWith
Ranking history
Active installs
Downloads per day
Details
| Author | aThemes |
|---|---|
| Current version | 2.70 |
| Versions released | 156 |
| Last updated | 2026-07-20 |
| Added to directory | 2015-04-25 |
| Requires WordPress | — |
| Requires PHP | 7.2+ |
| Type | Classic theme |
| First tracked here | 2024-09-17 |
Description
Sydney is a powerful business theme that provides a fast way for companies or freelancers to create an awesome online presence. As well as being fully compatible with Elementor, Sydney brings plenty of customization possibilities like access to all Google Fonts, full color control, layout control, logo upload, full screen slider, header image, sticky navigation and much more. Also, Sydney provides all the construction blocks you need to rapidly create an engaging front page. Looking for a quick start with Sydney? With just a few clicks, you can import one of our existing demos (https://athemes.com/sydney-demos/)
Frequently asked questions
Is Sydney a free theme?
Yes — Sydney is a free, open-source (GPL) theme distributed through the official WordPress.org directory. The author also offers a paid upgrade with additional features.
Is Sydney a block theme or a classic theme?
Sydney is a classic theme: it uses the traditional Customizer/widgets workflow rather than WordPress Full Site Editing.
How many websites use Sydney?
WordPress.org reports 80K+ active installs. BuiltWith independently detects 91,485 live websites running Sydney.
How popular is Sydney?
As of August 11, 2026, Sydney ranks #34 in the WordPress.org popular themes list. Its best position in our tracking is #30.
When was Sydney last updated?
Sydney was last updated on July 20, 2026 (version 2.70). It has shipped 156 releases in total.
Who makes Sydney?
Sydney is developed by aThemes. It joined the WordPress.org theme directory in April 2015.
How fast is Sydney?
On the official WordPress.org demo, Sydney scores 84/100 for mobile performance in Google Lighthouse and 92/100 for desktop (tested August 2026).
