There are 15,388 free WordPress themes in the official WordPress.org theme directory, as of October 13, 2026. Only 8,785 of them (57%) still appear when you browse or search the directory — WordPress.org hides themes that have gone 2+ years without an update, though they stay installable by direct link.
- Themes in the directory
- 15,388 every theme in the repository
- Shown when browsing
- 8,785 updated within 2 years
- Block themes
- 2,256 built for full site editing
- Classic themes
- 13,132 Customizer-based
Counted directly from the WordPress.org API by this site’s own scan of the full theme directory — not an estimate, and not copied from another publication.
The complete Theme Ecosystem in numbers
Listed in directory
8,785
57% of 15,388 in the repository
Downloads
781.9M
tracked across all 15,388 themes
Active installs
11.8M
estimated across all 15,388 themes
Average rating
4.8★
calculated across 5,155 themes with 57,924 reviews
Total authors
3,164
who published 15,388 themes
Average installs
764
per theme
Diversity score
91%
across all authors (HHI)
Listed vs hidden in the directory
57% Listed & maintained (8,785 themes · updated < 2 yrs)43% Hidden from browse (6,603 themes · 2+ yrs stale)
Without default themes — the rest of the ecosystem
Downloads
612.4M -22%
tracked across 15,367 themes
Active installs
8.7M -26%
estimated across 15,367 themes
Average rating
4.8★ +0%
across 5,136 themes with 56,880 reviews
Total authors
3,163 +-0%
who published 15,367 themes
Average installs
564 -26%
per theme
Diversity score
96% +5%
across all authors
Block vs Classic themes
15% Block (2,256 themes)85% Classic (13,132 themes)
Where themes cluster by install count
0
1–9
4,607
10–49
3,326
50–99
4,034
100–299
1,671
300–999
439
1K–2.9K
133
3K–9.9K
37
10K–29K
27
30K–99K
9
100K–299K
10
300K+
Concentration: how few themes hold most of the installs
Top 10 themes hold
49.4%
of all installs · 19.1% of all downloads
Top 20 themes hold
61.2%
of all installs · 30.5% of all downloads
Top 50 themes hold
72.7%
of all installs · 42.1% of all downloads
Top 100 themes hold
77%
of all installs · 47.9% of all downloads
Theme ages
Top authors by themes published
Top authors by active installs
Best and worst rated themes
★ Best rated
New themes added per month
11
12
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
Abandoned themes
1+ year stale
7,897
51.3% of themes · 1.4M installs trapped
2+ years stale
6,603
42.9% of themes · 889.5K installs trapped
5+ years stale
4,425
28.8% of themes · 547.8K installs trapped
10+ years stale
1,987
12.9% of themes · 191K installs trapped
