5 Highly Customizable Premium WordPress Themes

Customizable WordPress Theme Illustration

Canvas from WooCommerce (formerly WooThemes) and Thesis from DIYthemes have been removed from this list.

I didn’t feel like giving you 50 themes to choose from because I didn’t want you to go through analysis paralysis. If you give a person too many choices, they won’t choose any of them.

Out of the box, these themes may not look like much, but they all come packed full of features. All of these themes also come with great support just in case you run into problems customizing them. By great support, I mean that you’ll usually get an answer to your question in a business day or less.

1. Divi from ElegantThemes

Divi Logo

I’ve used Divi since it was first released. I built the current Mr. Technique website and a few other websites with this WordPress theme. ElegantThemes has made this theme their flagship theme. It’s highly customizable and it comes with its own drag and drop page builder.

Here’s a screenshot of the Divi Page Builder from the WordPress admin section.

Divi Page Builder in the WordPress Admin Area

The Divi Page Builder makes it easy to add:

  • Parallax Sliders
  • Audio Players
  • Bar Counters
  • Buttons
  • Call to Action Sections
  • Countdown Timers
  • Dividers
  • Email Optin Sections
  • Maps
  • Testimonials
  • Accordions
  • Portfolios
  • and whole lot more.

See all of the available Divi modules below.

Available Divi Modules

If you’re versed in CSS, you can give each section on each individual page a unique ID or class name for more customization. Since version 3, Divi has added a front-end page builder, but I find Divi’s front-end page builder most useful for minor page edits. I prefer their backend page builder to build pages.

View Divi Theme Demo* | View Websites Using the Divi WordPress Theme

2. Beaver Builder from FastLine Media

Beaver Builder Logo

Just because I have this theme listed at #2 doesn’t mean I like it any less than Divi. I love this theme just as much. Their front-end page builder is the best out there. I can make page edits and see what these changes will look like on the fly. Divi now has a front-end page builder, but Beaver Builder came out with their front-end page builder first. The Beaver Builder theme already comes with the Bootstrap CSS framework, so if you’re familiar with Bootstrap classes, you can add them to the source code and see them on the fly.

Here’s a tiny glimpse of what it is like to edit a page with Beaver Builder’s front-end page builder.

Beaver Builder Page Builder Demonstration

I find Beaver Builder’s front-end page builder easier to use than Divi’s page builder. In the Customize section, you can customize the look of the header, nav menu, content area, and much more.

Beaver Builder Theme Header Customizer

View Beaver Builder Demo* | View Websites Using the Beaver Builder Theme

3. Avada by Theme Fusion

Avada WordPress Theme Logo

Avada is ThemeForest’s top selling theme, and I see why. I inherited a couple of client websites that were using unlicensed versions of Avada, so I purchased a license for both sites to receive the theme updates and tech support. I didn’t know anything about Avada, so I had to put in several support tickets. I was very pleased with Theme Fusion’s tech support team. They helped me with all of my issues, and they responded quickly. If it’s a business day, they will respond within a couple of hours. If you put in a support request on the weekend, they’ll reply on the next business day.

Avada uses their own page builder called Fusion Builder. The learning curve is steeper than Beaver Builder or Divi, but not by much. Every element on Fusion Builder can be customized in the Avada Theme Options section, and there are a lot of elements as you can see below:

Avada WordPress Theme Options: Fusion Builder Elements

Avada comes with its own slider called the Fusion Slider. If you want a complex slider with animation and parallax effects, then you’re in luck, also. Avada comes bundled with the Revolution Slider plugin.

View Avada Theme DemoView Websites Using the Avada WordPress Theme

4. Genesis from StudioPress and the Dynamik Child Theme

Genesis

After hearing many of the speakers and attendees at the 2014 Atlanta WordCamp rave about it, I decided to purchase Genesis along with the Dynamik child theme from CobaltApps*. The child theme is needed to make customization a cinch. With just a few clicks, you can set the width of your content areas and sidebars and so much more.

Everything with Dynamik is done via the admin panel. You never have to create a WordPress template file. You can even add the Beaver Builder plugin to Dynamik so you can have total control over your layouts!

View Genesis Theme DemoView Websites Using Genesis WordPress Theme

5. U-Design from ThemeForest

uDesign

This theme is one of ThemeForest’s top sellers. It comes with a highly customizable slider and over 600 fonts to choose from. The home page consists of multiple widget sections allowing for complex designs. You can specify a different color or background image for different areas of your website. There are 8 different page templates in which you can define which side the sidebar displays on.

Visual Composer which is another front-end page builder now comes with the uDesign theme. Here’s what Visual Composer looks like in action:

View uDesign Theme DemoView Websites Using the U-Design WordPress Theme

If you’re looking for a great customizable WordPress theme, I hope reading this blog post will make the decision easier. If you do choose one of these themes, please feel free to let me know in the comments. WordPress developers, if you’re not making your own theme from scratch, what’s your favorite theme to work with?

(Disclaimer: Any links with an * is an affiliate link. Although prices are the same, Mr. Technique, Inc. earns a commission on any purchases made using the link. Read more in our privacy policy)

5 Comments

  1. Tie Love on July 29, 2014 at 12:42 pm

    Most of these would be in my top too. This is my newest favorite theme.. X THEME http://www.theme.co.

    It’s mindblowingly incredible what can be done with this theme.

    p.s.
    Awesome website!



  2. Tom Nguyen on August 8, 2014 at 11:26 pm

    Thanks for the complement and for suggesting another theme, Tie! I saw the X Theme has over 20,000 sales and has good reviews. Have you ever used any of the themes above? If so, which is your favorite one of the 5 that I listed?



  3. Germaine Mills on August 19, 2014 at 11:32 pm


  4. Lucy D. on September 22, 2014 at 9:37 am

    I am looking to upgrade my blog. I was looking at Canvas but someone recommended Divi. My research so far indicates that Divi is awesome for websites, but that its blogging theme is not very accommodating. What do you think about that?



  5. Tom Nguyen on September 22, 2014 at 10:43 am

    Lucy,

    The Divi blog looks fine to me. Take a look at my blog to see for yourself. I did have to ask ElegantThemes through the support forum about how to add a previous and next post link on individual post pages, but they responded in less than 24 hours.

    I still like Canvas a lot. I designed a website for a plastic surgeon in Atlanta using it (http://www.imagecosmeticcenter.com). The website has a blog as well.

    Take a look at both websites to see which blog format you like better.



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