10 Best WordPress Block Themes for Full Site Editing in 2022

Are you looking for the best WordPress Block Themes for your next project??

WordPress 5.9 “Josephine” introduces a new way of building websites called Full Site Editing (FSE).

Full Site Editing is a suite of handy features that let you edit & customize your entire WordPress website using blocks. And if you want to experience and take advantage of Full Site Editing features in WordPress, you need a block theme.

In this article, we’ll share our handpicked list of the best WordPress Block Themes.

So let’s get started! 

What Are WordPress Block Themes?

WordPress Block Themes are a set of templates made up of different content blocks, allowing you to use Full Site Editing in WordPress.

WordPress Block Editor (formerly known as Gutenberg Block Editor) has given WordPress users unprecedented control over site design, content layout, and more.

However, you can only access FSE features by using a block-based theme. With a block theme, you can customize every section of your website, including elements such as headers, footers, and menus.

Previously, you could only customize your website’s header/footer section by either adding code, using a WordPress Customizer, or installing third-party page builders such as Elementor and Beaver Builder.

Now, with FSE features and WordPress Block Editor, you get more control over your site design and can change the overall appearance of your WordPress website – without altering HTML code, adding CSS, or installing any WordPress page builder plugins.

Article Continues Below

The New Site Editor allows you to create layouts by dragging and dropping blocks and modifying them to suit your needs. In addition, you can use global styles to customize your theme and change the design of your website.


Full Site Editing WordPress Block Theme – Is It The Right Option For Your Website?

Before we deep dive into it, it’s important to understand that there are 4 types of themes available in the WordPress ecosystem:

  1. Classic Themes: Built using PHP, and currently dominating the WordPress ecosystem. If you’re exploring any WordPress website, it’s likely built using the classic theme. 
  2. Block Themes: Made up of block templates and theme.json. Designed to enable users to utilize the full-site editing features of WordPress.
  3. Hybrid Themes: These are classic themes that are compatible with FSE. The feature set of hybrid themes is a combination of traditional themes with the ability to style blocks using the theme.json file.
  4. Universal Themes: Can work with both the new WordPress Customizer and the Classic Site Editor. 

With Full site editing features and a block-based theme, you get complete control over the styling properties & major configurations of your WordPress websites. 

But block themes are relatively new and currently in a “fledgling” phase in terms of offering seamless and advanced theme functionalities—that WordPress users already have experienced in classic themes.

Speaking of the Full Site Editing feature, it is the biggest change that was made to the WordPress core and received both positive responses and negative feedback.

One of the major reasons many users’ liked and disliked the “FSE” feature is because “Full Site Editing has changed their way of building WordPress websites.” 

Many find FSE a better option as it provides more flexible options and enhances their experience of creating sites using WordPress. 

Contrary to this, many existing WordPress website developers and users don’t like the way FSE works because it changes their traditional way of building and editing a site. And for those who already have stable & functional websites with many themes and plugins installed, following a different approach can be a time-consuming and cumbersome task.  

As I mentioned, Block Themes are relatively new, and FSE features are still evolving, so for certain types of websites, block themes can be a great solution but not necessarily best for every website type.

Having said that, let’s now see which types of websites can benefit from full-site editing block based WordPress themes. 

When You Should Use WordPress Block Themes

In my opinion, block themes would be an ideal option for

  • Dedicated blog websites, where your main focus is on drafting, writing, and publishing blog posts.
  • If you’re planning to create a portfolio website, then you can also use a block-based theme.
  • In addition, a block theme would be a good option for building online forums, information websites, personal websites, event websites, and even restaurant websites.

Simply put, with the current features & stability of FSE, block themes are an excellent solution for creating “small” static websites, where you don’t need to make big dynamic changes or add animations & advanced features. 

When You Should Not Use WordPress Block Themes

If you’re planning to create more complex websites such as eCommerce or membership sites, then I’d recommend you to either use a classic or hybrid theme and pair it with a page builder plugin.

Classic and hybrid themes are more stable and offer you additional designing flexibility as compared to block themes.

On the other hand, if you’re a beginner, looking for a budget-friendly theme option, or just started with web designing, then you can go with a block theme. 

WordPress Block Themes – Top 10 Picks

Now that you know, WordPress Block Theme helps you create beautiful websites quickly and easily without requiring any custom HTML or CSS code.

So let’s see our top picks for WordPress Block Themes for 2022.

Twenty Twenty-Two

Twenty Twenty-Two is one of the first default block-based themes developed by the WordPress.org team and released along with version 5.9.

Twenty Twenty-Two’s color palette is pictured from nature, embracing the idea of unique website designs for every user. The subtle styles of the theme are influenced by the diversity and versatility of birds.

Since the theme launched with FSE, it’s fully optimized to work in a block editor. In addition, it provides users with plenty of customization options, allowing them to create beautiful & unique site layouts in a record time!

Twenty Twenty-Two offers a wide range of customization options, making it a good choice for creating different types of WordPress websites. Whether you want to create an e-commerce site, run a blog, or want to build a portfolio website, this block theme helps you create a website according to your preferences. 

Twenty Twenty-Two is a free WordPress theme, so you can install it directly from your WordPress dashboard with just a few clicks!

Active Installs 1+ million
Pricing Free

Key features of Twenty Twenty-Two

  • Flexibility to customize the color palette, page template, typography, and more.
  • Offers dozens of block patterns.
  • Gives you complete control over a page layout.
  • Lightweight and fast-loading.

Tove

Tove is a flexible, responsive, and free WordPress block theme. It’s easy to use and promotes the idea of colorful web designs.

Originally, Tove was designed for cafés and restaurants, but you can customize it to create any WordPress site. 

Tove comes with pre-designed block patterns that allow you to customize every area of your site and help you kick-start your website design process effortlessly.

Active Installs 1,000+
Pricing Free

Key Features of Tove

  • Includes 40+ block patterns.
  • Offers 6 different header designs & 7 different footer designs.
  • Lightweight and easy to use.
  • Fully customizable to fit your site needs.

Divi Theme

Divi is one of the most popular multipurpose WordPress themes created by Elegant Themes. 

With Divi Theme, you can customize every aspect of your site, including the individual pages and posts. Divi is ideal for you if you don’t know how to code and want complete control over your website.

And if you don’t want to start your site designing process from a blank canvas, you can choose from the wide range of Divi’s pre-built layouts and child theme options. 

Additionally, you can use Divi’s built-in drag-and-drop builder to create any layout for your site.

Divi Theme launched as a classic theme for WordPress and later introduced the Divi Layout Block to work smoothly with the new editor, aka block editor.  

Price Divi offers only premium packages, and pricing starts at $89 per year.

Key Features of Divi Theme

  • 2,000+ Pre-made Designs
  • Drag-and-drop visual builder
  • Responsive and customizable.

GeneratePress

GeneratePress is another popular name in the WordPress theme market. 

GeneratePress is a multipurpose WordPress theme allowing users to create different types of websites. It’s fully compatible with popular WordPress page builders and Gutenberg blocks. 

However, in order to take full advantage of the GeneratePress theme in the new site editor, you need to combine the GeneratePress Premium and the free GenerateBlocks plugin (by the same team).

You can start with the free version of GeneratePress. To access its Block Elements, you need the Pro plan, which costs $59/per year.

Active Installs 500,000+
Pricing Freemium

Key Features of GeneratePress

  • Compatible with WooCommerce
  • 60+ color controls
  • 5 sidebar layouts
  • Typography customization flexibility

Ona

Ona is a beautiful & fast-loading full-site editing WordPress theme. It is based on a minimal design style and offers multiple predefined block patterns. 

The best part of the theme is its header design, grabbing users’ attention on the first interaction.

With Ona, you get global options to customize the colors and fonts of the theme. Its interactive drag-and-drop builder interface enhances your website building experience using

Gutenberg blocks.

Active Installs 1,000+
Pricing Free

Key Features of Ona

  • Includes pre-made styles, pages, and block patterns.
  • User-friendly and fast loading.
  • Offers page templates for contact, about sections, 404, and more.

Kadence Theme

Kadence is a versatile freemium theme that includes plenty of built-in features such as customizable starter templates, an Amazon-style search bar, the flexibility to place social icons anywhere in the header, and more.

The best feature of the Kadence theme is that it is fully compatible with all popular page builders and native WordPress block editor (Gutenberg), making it an ideal choice for building any kind of website.  

Also, Kadence supports ​​Custom Post Type, letting you control the layouts for custom post types right in the WordPress customizer.

Active Installs 100,000+
Pricing Freemium

Key Features of Kadence Theme

  • Compatible with popular WordPress plugins such as WooCommerce, LifterLMS, GiveWP, and more.
  • Includes professionally designed starter templates.
  • Global color palette & typography.

Aeonium

If you’re looking for a dark and bold color scheme theme design, Aeonium could be the right choice for you. 

This free multipurpose WordPress block theme offers 6 style color palettes, including one light style in addition to the default design. 

Aeonium speaks of a modern look, making it suitable for creating any website. Further, you can customize its predefined block pattern to suit your design needs. 

Active Installs 700+
Pricing Free

Key Features of Aeonium

  • Simple, fast-loading, and user-friendly.
  • Includes pre-built pages and patterns.

Aino

Yet another WordPress block theme is Aino. It offers interactive pre-designed block patterns that can be used to create online shops, business websites, portfolios, or personal blogs.

You can customize Aino by changing the theme color scheme, selecting individual element colors, and picking border colors.

To use all the customization features of the Aino theme in Block Editor, you need to use the Aino theme with the Aino Blocks plugin. 

Active Installs 900+
Pricing Free

Key Features of Aino

  • Responsive and fast loading
  • Compatible with WooCommerce
  • Offers Grid blocks for advanced styling

Zeever

If you’re looking for a multipurpose WordPress Block Theme that you can use to build creative websites, Zeever is for you.

Zeever is a fully responsive, modern, and dark style WordPress theme that allows you to customize your entire site – without any coding. 

This theme offers a wide variety of post layouts and styles, sidebars, 3rd party widget support, numerous theme options, and powerful editing options.

With Zeever, you can create a beautiful landing page for digital agencies, creative firms, portfolios, designers, or freelancers.

Active Installs 3,000+
Pricing Freemium

Key Features of Zeever

  • Based on a dark-theme pattern
  • Includes pre-built templates
  • Responsive and fast loading

Wabi

Last on our list of WordPress Block Themes is Wabi. 

If you’re a writer, Wabi might be a good option for you. Wabi’s layout has a minimalist look, aesthetic typography, and dynamic accent color.

The prominent feature of this theme is its accent color feature. This feature enables writers to pick a different page title background color making it stand out from other pages or posts.

Active Installs 500+
Pricing Free

Key Features of Wabi

  • Simplistic yet attractive page designs
  • Dynamic accent color system
  • Multiple style variants

Which WordPress Block Theme Is Best for Full Site Editing?

I hope our list of WordPress block themes helps you choose the best one and lets you create stunning web designs. In order to determine which WordPress block theme is best for your site, you need to take into consideration your niche and the functionalities you require on your website. 

Though every theme offers a lot of customization options, each of them has its own special features that make it one-of-a-kind.  If you are new to WordPress, I’d suggest you first play with free theme options such as Twenty Twenty-Two, and invest in premium themes later. 

Please let us know in the comments what other block themes you use that are more multifunctional and offer more advanced features. 

Further, if you’re looking for more theme resources, you can check our guides on



Leave a Reply