How do you navigate the dense, and often confusing, world of WordPress, themes and plugins, to choose the right match for your site? We’ve been working with WordPress for the last 10+ years, so know what to look for. We’ve done the hard work for you, picking 30+ of the best WordPress magazine themes for 2022.
Indeed, print is not dead, but we can’t ignore the continuously growing number of online magazines and newspapers. The advantages of “moving” news online are countless, not to mention that first of all it’s really cost efficient. Considering the speed of information nowadays, the variety of online magazines justifies itself within different niches: tech, sport, political news, beauty, health and so on.
So, at this point, creating your own online magazine or newspaper seems to be a legit and great idea. For this, you will need a good foundation for your website and WordPress is definitely the right platform. The next step would be to make your website look good and be functional, so choose from our list of WordPress magazine themes.
There are multiple WordPress magazine themes available on the market, but you need the best one. This is why we picked them very thoroughly, considering the following aspects:
- Stylish & Responsive: good and clean design is important, as it’s the first detail which convinces the readers to stay on the website from the first sight. Also, we live in the busiest times in history, so it’s important that you have the attention of your readers on the go. This is why a responsive magazine template is a priority on the list.
- Content Hierarchy: online platforms such as WordPress news websites and magazines tend to gather looots of articles, this is why it’s very important to consider a website layout that will provide a proper hierarchy of the content. This way, the reader doesn’t get confused and at the same time is eager to spend as much time as possible on the website.
- Highly Customizable: the more customization options, the bigger the opportunity to create a unique look of the website by combining various fonts, unlimited colors and post layouts. This way, you will know for sure that your website stands out from similar websites in your niche.
- Social Media Integration: it’s extremely important that an online magazine is integrated with all of the social media platforms as it is a primary advantage for the platform to get even more readers.
- Ads Support: most of the online magazines deliver their very best content in order to attract as many readers as possible. This is why, at some point, integrating ads might be a great advantage for the publishers or for simply covering the maintenance costs for the website. You can display ads from Google AdSense, other services, or your own banners.
Considering these features, below is a top list with some of the most popular premium WordPress magazine themes that are ready to bring your online platform to another level.
1. Indigo
Indigo is one of the most modern and easy-to-use WordPress magazine themes tailored especially for online magazines and blogs. The clean and practical layout enhances your content and turns your website into a daring, functional, and fast loading online platform. The theme includes multiple built-in widgets which are made to ease up the readers’ experience. That is, there’s a bunch of custom widgets available that will highlight popular posts with most views or comments or ones that will display the latest posts from a category in the most practical way.
As of customization options, Indigo comes with 6 pre-built color schemes already integrated with the Customizer. If you’re eager to dig deeper into details, the colors and fonts can be easily adjusted to match exactly what you are looking for.
Sharing posts has never been easier. Indigo includes a floating sharing buttons feature which is perfect for sharing the article at any point while reading it. Also, you can easily integrate ads within the widgetized areas of the theme, such as below the slider, above the footer, in the sidebar or even within the latest posts section.
Finally, Indigo is a responsive theme and has full cross browser support, which means it’s going to look great for every single visitor, no matter what configuration they’re browsing your site with.
2. Domino Magazine
Domino Magazine is the definition of a good, multifunctional and elegant WordPress magazine theme for an online magazine. It is ideal for a news portal, tech or sports themed website by offering a clear content structure, especially by highlighting the post categories. Both the full width or boxed layout options of the theme are super-responsive and will please the eye on any device.
Take advantage of each of the 6 color schemes to customize the look of the website or choose from many other options integrated with the Customizer.
Domino Magazine provides a fully widgetized homepage, which means that by using any of the theme’s widgets you can create a unique content structure. This means that if you want to enhance your video content, put an accent on the images of the articles or simply make the reader pay attention to headlines — there’s a widget available for each case.
Also, the ads integration of this theme starts from the header and ends with the footer — this meaning that there are lots of ad spots available. And it’s also SEO optimized right out of the box to help you rank in Google.
3. Insight
Insight is a minimalist, responsive WordPress theme that’s perfect for a modern online magazine. Having a flexible layout, the grid sections of the theme will perfectly adjust on any device. Plus, there are 3 color schemes available as well as many other customization options for colors, fonts, and content placement. Insight is made to adjust to all types of content, especially for showcasing featured categories of content.
4. Astra
The Astra theme is a highly adaptable and lightweight WordPress theme that excels in creating visually impressive magazine-style websites. With its top-notch performance and compatibility with popular page builders, Astra offers extensive customization options to match your publication’s unique brand. The theme is fully responsive, ensuring a consistent reading experience across all devices. Astra boasts a wide selection of pre-built templates tailored for magazine websites, enabling you to effortlessly launch a sophisticated online publication. Its SEO-friendly design and myriad customization possibilities make Astra the ultimate choice for anyone seeking a stylish, feature-rich magazine theme for their WordPress site.
5. Prime News
Prime News is a WordPress magazine theme that’s perfect for news websites or online magazines. It gives you multiple unique sections that you can use to display news from different sources or categories, along with responsive design and a great flexible magazine style.
You’ll get multiple color schemes, a variety of slider styles and custom widgets, a breaking news ticker, infinite scroll, plus a unique off-canvas sidebar panel that lets you add more navigation to your site. You can also display ads from Google AdSense or other banners using multiple dedicated ad zones.
If you want to display the latest news, Prime News is the theme for you.
6. MH Magazine
MH Magazine WordPress Theme is a clean, modern, fully responsive, and SEO friendly premium magazine WordPress theme for news websites, online magazines, blogs, and other editorial related projects. It’s also translation ready (via WPML) and supports RTL text.
7. GutenType
Focusing on easy ways to deliver trending news to your visitors, the GutenType theme includes multiple demos and full support for the new Gutenberg editor.
8. OriginMag
OriginMag is a flexible responsive WordPress magazine that you can use to display content or products with its full eCommerce compatibility (via WooCommerce). It’s also easy to customize, thanks to customizable homepage layouts that you can make meet your needs.
It offers multiple color options, a live customizer, and comes with other theme features like:
- Responsive design
- Translation ready design
- Full-width slideshow with images or video
- Typography options
9. Zox News
Zox News helps bloggers go from blogger to boss by giving you a wide range of tools and options to give you the most professional-looking and functioning news site on the net. The theme comes with a mobile-first design, 8 article layouts, 4 Featured Posts layouts, parallax leaderboard ad, mega menu, RTL text support, and much more.
10. Uku
Uku is a responsive premium magazine WordPress theme with a modern design and easy-to-use customization options. It makes a great option for minimal news sites.
11. Compass
Compass is a highly sophisticated and customizable magazine theme. The modern responsive design lets you show off your content and the easily configurable homepage gets the look you want.
The draggable homepage slideshow will let your readers scroll rapidly through your most important headlines and posts. Moreover, the slider of the theme is capable of highlighting up to three posts on the same screen, which is a nice attention-grabbing feature.
12. SmartMag
SmartMag is a modern, clean, responsive and Retina ready WordPress magazine theme suitable for magazines, newspapers, review sites, or blogs. The theme is integrated with a page builder which makes it very easy to manage your magazine website from the back-end.
13. Extra
Extra is a basic and minimalist WordPress theme that provides great content hierarchy by using different colors for various categories. This way, it is easy to guide your reader within your content and to showcase your best articles on your magazine website. You’ll also get mega menu functionality to help, as well.
It comes with the Divi drag and drop page builder and its own shortcodes.
14. The Voux
The Voux is a stylish and lightweight magazine theme been designed with absolute attention to detail. If you are a perfectionist, this theme will definitely conquer your heart and fit all your expectations regarding an online magazine. It also comes with its own shortcodes via the companion plugin.
15. Romero
Romero is designed for magazine sites or other blogging ventures, highlighting full-width featured images that help your main blog posts really stand out. It’s an ideal theme for video game sites, car magazines, and other topics well suited to large, vibrant imagery.
16. Tribune
Tribune is a powerful newspaper theme, offering an elegant design that displays your articles and featured categories on the homepage. The featured area on the homepage is a great spot for displaying your latest or individual posts that can be displayed within the slider of the theme, which also supports videos. Next to the slider, the theme includes a widget area where you can add any widgets you want, or use it as a space for ads. Moreover, you can add advertisements between featured categories on the homepage.
Also, the theme is integrated with a breaking news ticker allowing you to quickly highlight breaking news across the top of your site.
If you’re a news publisher in search for a serious and classic magazine template, Tribune will definitely fit all your expectations with its modern attitude towards your content.
17. News Pro
When you have readers and customers who are always hungry for more, deliver it in style with the publishing powerhouse News theme. The News theme supports all of the great articles, audio and video of your content-heavy site, with eye-popping design and simple navigation. The News theme keeps you on the front lines.
18. FlexMag
This theme hasn’t been updated for more than 1 year. It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when used with more recent versions of WordPress. Continue at your own risk.
FlexMag is the perfect combination of power and simplicity in a WordPress news and magazine theme, with helpful features like an integrated mega menu on the front end.
19. VideoBox
VideoBox is a WordPress magazine theme that, as the name suggests, is the perfect option for displaying video content in a magazine site layout. It supports all the popular video websites, including YouTube, Vimeo, and others.
Beyond that, it’s responsive and Retina ready, and it even comes with WooCommerce support if you want to sell physical or digital products.
To make VideoBox your own, you’ll get a dedicated theme options panel, as well as a live customizer.
20. Valenti
This theme hasn’t been updated for more than 1 year. It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when used with more recent versions of WordPress. Continue at your own risk.
Valenti is a cutting-edge, feature-rich WordPress magazine theme that is fully responsive. Using the integrated drag and drop page builder users can have fun creating a unique homepage and easily make modifications to it any time they wish. With the theme’s powerful and integrated reviews system and widget, you can use Valenti fully as a review theme too.
Valenti also offers multiple page templates and dedicated integrations for two WordPress plugins – bbPress and BuddyPress – along with an Ajax login widget.
21. 15Zine
This theme hasn’t been updated for more than 1 year. It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when used with more recent versions of WordPress. Continue at your own risk.
15Zine is a cutting edge WordPress magazine theme. Powerful, modern, and supremely clean to ensure your site looks like it belongs to the future. You can also customize your site’s typography with Google Fonts.
22. CheerUp
CheerUp is a theme with luxury design options, tailored to be exceptional on all kinds of blogs and minimal magazines.
23. Broadsheet
Broadsheet offers a newspaper magazine layout with three widget areas, a featured posts section, and a full-width homepage slider that grabs your visitors’ attention. In the developer’s words, it offers a “classical newspaper” look.
24. Felt
Felt is a modern theme that helps you create a digital magazine, complete with a magazine cover-like visual approach (like a full-width slider).
25. Collecto
Collecto is a super minimal WordPress magazine theme that offers quite a bit more white space than most other themes on this list. It’s a good option if you want to give your content a little more room to breathe.
26. Newspaper
Though it doesn’t have the most creative name, Newspaper is a popular WordPress magazine theme from tagDIV that offers a modern, flexible look. You’ll get 50+ pre-made importable demo sites, integrations for bbPress and BuddyPress, plus tons of other features.
27. Bucket
Bucket is a WordPress magazine theme that comes with its own custom page builder and an integrated review system for product reviews. This makes it a great option for a magazine-style review site.
Which of these WordPress magazine themes is best for you?
Given the choices, it might be tough to select the one and only out of all of the WordPress magazine themes available for your online magazine or newspaper. If you can’t make up your mind between two or three themes, there is always room for experimenting in order to make the best choice.
However, if you want to be sure that your online magazine runs smoothly and meets all of the requirements for a flawless experience for you and your readers, our recommendation is to check out the Indigo theme, our pick of the WordPress magazine themes from 2022.
Otherwise, let us know which theme from our list is a winner for you. What’s your favorite of these WordPress magazine themes? We would love to read your feedback in the comments.
Happy publishing!
September 16, 2017 12:06 pm
Great list Ina…I have always been a fan of SmartMag. No doubt it’ll be really helpful for anyone looking to build any type of news website.
Good Research.
Thanks
September 20, 2017 9:25 pm
theme Zox News is the best
I recommend it to you
October 12, 2017 7:31 am
Great List Ina!!!!
Thanks for putting it all together and I love The Voux theme. This is a brilliant theme.
Keep sharing like this.
October 14, 2017 5:20 pm
The winner magazine/newspaper theme for us has been Newspaper theme from Tagdiv. It’s not in your list though.
October 28, 2017 1:13 pm
Very nice list tou’ve got here!!
Thank you so much!
November 6, 2017 7:21 am
Great list over here. All the magazine themes are awesome but I like the Valenti theme. Thanks for sharing an interesting post with us. Please keep doing great work.
Best of luck!
May 24, 2018 5:23 pm
Awesome, I like all of them but my favorite one is SimpleMag theme. Would surely get this in on my personal blog.
September 20, 2018 1:01 pm
Any similar themes to Zox theme???