If you’re looking for only the best free WordPress theme in the market for 2021, then you’re in the right place.
Not to mention, this theme is free to download. If you want to make a design change this year, or just want some recommendations in this direction, you’re going to enjoy this a lot. Here’s the free WordPress theme available.
Free WordPress theme
ListingHive is a lightweight, clean, and modern WordPress theme. By default, it’s just a minimalist blog theme, but if you pair it with the free HivePress plugin, you can easily build any type of directory and listing website. With ListingHive you can monetize your site in 6 different ways: sell ad spaces, charge users for adding or promoting listings, allow businesses to claim their listings, charge users for viewing listing details or even turn your site into a marketplace of services or digital downloads, such as Fiverr or Creative Market. Whether it’s a business directory, job board, marketplace, real estate, classifieds, or basically any listing website — ListingHive is a great choice for it!
Easy to Use
ListingHive settings and options seamlessly blend into the WordPress dashboard, so if you have basic experience with WordPress, you will set ListingHive up and running in minutes. All settings and options are very intuitive, for example, if you want to change the number of listings displayed per page, you simply navigate to Settings > Listings > Display section to change this. Each non-trivial option has a tooltip, to help you understand what it does without having to read the documentation.
Extensible by Design
ListingHive comes with a bunch of free extensions that allow you to easily extend the core functionality with 1 click, directly from your WordPress dashboard. In this way, you can avoid bloating your site with unnecessary settings and features, and install only what you need. There are 7 free extensions at the moment, and more are in development:
- Authentication – Allow users to sign in via third-party services, such as Facebook or Google.
- Favorites – Allow users to keep a list of favorite listings.
- Messages – Allow users to reply to listings or send direct messages.
- Geolocation – Allow users to search listings by location and display them on a map with Google Maps integration.
- Reviews – Allow users to rate and review listings, sort listings by rating and display the average rating for each listing.
- Claim Listings – Charge users for claiming their listings.
- Paid Listings – Charge users for adding, featuring and renewing listings.
Customization
But what’s good about the theme if it is not customizable? Fortunately, ListingHive plays nice with WordPress Customizer, which means that you can easily change various aspects of the theme, from the site logo and icon to colors and body fonts.
If you find that the customization options are not enough, you are free to craft your own CSS and use it with the theme. ListingHive has a very straightforward, BEM-compliant HTML and CSS files, so you can develop for it easily with just a basic knowledge of HTML and CSS.
Developer Friendly
If you’re familiar with CSS, then customizing ListingHive layouts and styles will be a breeze for you. Since we followed the BEM methodology for structuring HTML and naming CSS classes, the overall structure is highly semantic and CSS classes are human-readable.
There’s a powerful hooks API (WordPress actions and filters), that lets you customize basically any aspect of your site. It’s possible to customize any template, form, or menu by using filters or hook custom actions to any events, like creating, updating, or deleting listings.
In addition, there’s a built-in REST API, so if you’re not happy with ListingHive front-end, you can develop your own front-end, or even a mobile app, and use the HivePress plugin as a back-end for your listing website.
Secure by Default
We followed the best security practices while developing ListingHive. Every user input is sanitized, and any output is escaped properly. Any action, like adding or deleting listings, checks user authorization, and so on.
Users can manage their accounts and listings solely via the front-end forms, so they will not even know you’re using WordPress. There’re also moderation and reporting options, so you can manually approve the submitted listings, and let any user report inappropriate listings.
In addition, there’s a built-in reCaptcha integration, so you can protect any of the available forms from spam bots, without making any code changes or installing third-party extensions.
Regularly Updated
We are constantly working on improving ListingHive, the HivePress plugin, and its extensions, and there’s an update released at least once a month. Since it’s in the active development stage, we listen to any feedback or suggestions, and your suggestions may actually be implemented.
You can forget about manual updates via uploading ZIP packages, both ListingHive and HivePress are listed on the official WordPress repository, so you’ll receive automatic updates right in your WordPress dashboard.
Supported by Developers
We provide free support that includes fixing bugs and answering questions about ListingHive, and we always aim to reply within 24 hours or less. Support is provided by developers of ListingHive, so issues are resolved in the best way possible, and you get suggestions that are the most suitable for ListingHive since developers know their products best.
Backed by the Community
Unlike some proprietary WordPress themes, ListingHive is completely free to use and licensed under GPL. It means that it doesn’t depend on a single developer, and anyone can contribute to ListingHive development to keep it up-to-date and supported. As a result, it will never get abandoned if there’s an active community.
At the moment ListingHive is trusted by 4,000+ websites, so there’s a community of at least 4,000+ website owners, ready to share suggestions or help other website owners find solutions or resolve issues regarding ListingHive. Join the ListingHive community forum to share your suggestions and help us keep ListingHive awesome!
Installation
Requirements
HivePress is a WordPress plugin, so the only requirement is a working WordPress installation of version 5.0 or later. Many hosting providers offer 1-click WordPress installation, but if you are a more advanced user, you might prefer to install it manually.
Final Words
We hope that our comprehensive review of this theme will convince you to start your own listing website confidently. If you feel stuck, remember that the WordPress community is big and you can get support easily through various channels, such as forums and wiki pages. Good luck with your endeavor!
