Yes, BlankSlate is completely free to use. It is available on WordPress.org at no cost.

How many websites use BlankSlate?

BlankSlate has 10K+ active installations as tracked by WordPress.org.

What are the best BlankSlate alternatives?

Popular alternatives to BlankSlate include Astra, Twenty Twenty-Five, Twenty Twenty-Four. You can compare them on our theme directory.

Does BlankSlate work with the latest WordPress?

BlankSlate requires WordPress 5.2+ and PHP 7.4+. Check the theme's WordPress.org page for the latest compatibility information.

BlankSlate

Name: BlankSlate
Rating: 4.9 (61 reviews)
Author: Web Guy

By Web Guy·One Column·Free

4.9(61 reviews)

·10K+ active installs·Updated 4 months ago

Live Preview Theme Homepage

As of April 2026, BlankSlate is a WordPress theme with 10K+ active installations and a 4.9/5 rating from 61 reviews. It has been downloaded 463K+ times in total. Requires WordPress 5.2+ and PHP 7.4+. Available on WordPress.org since 2011. Top alternative: Astra.

4.9/561 reviews

10K+active installs

463K+total downloads

15 yearssince 2011

Overview

Donate: https://opencollective.com/blankslate. Learn: https://blankslate.me/. BlankSlate is the definitive WordPress boilerplate starter theme. I've carefully constructed the most clean and minimalist theme possible for designers and developers to use as a base to build websites for clients or to build completely custom themes from scratch. Clean, simple, unstyled, semi-minified, unformatted, and valid code, SEO-friendly, jQuery-enabled, no programmer comments, standardized and as white label as possible, and most importantly, the CSS is reset for cross-browser-compatability, with no intrusive visual CSS styles added whatsoever. A perfect skeleton theme. For support and suggestions, go to: https://github.com/webguyio/blankslate/issues. Thank you.

Read full description on WordPress.org

Ratings & Reviews

4.961 reviews

5 ★

4 ★

3 ★

2 ★

1 ★

Recent Reviews

This is very useful

by dspplug·1 year ago

I was considering making a new theme and I was upset with a theme built upon underscores, which is good; but heavily modified. I need to make something simpler.

I’ll definitely donate, though I might change code and release a commercial theme with this; because I have 25 years experience and it’s so upsetting the amount of plugins required to do things in general.

It’s so easy to say that it would be nice to remove cookie consent plugins, lol. everything gets so slow.

Thankyou, what you do is very important.

Why Blank Slate Rocks!

by WebTrooper·2 years ago·1 reply

Half the problems with design and functionality stem from themes with built-in crap you don’t want or need. Blank Slate does away with all that. Of course, I still have to deal with scripts and functions built into the plugins I need for my purposes, but it’s nice to know they’re not coming from the theme. But most importantly, I can create my own design from scratch. Blank Slate is free, but freedom to create my own design is priceless.

Great work

by nikhil645445·2 years ago

Very good for creating custom developed websites

Nice

by mertoncel·3 years ago

Liked that, handy for getting quick start for WP theme structure.

The best starter theme for custom theme developers

by janemig·3 years ago

Truly a blank slate. Many thanks.