When you're building a website on a limited budget, a free WordPress theme is a no-brainer. It lets you save money for essentials like hosting, copywriting, or hiring a cheap web designer for specialized tasks.

Affordable web design is about smart resource allocation. You want a site that's fast, looks sharp, and performs well on mobile—without breaking the bank. The themes below excel in these areas.

They're lightweight, customizable, and integrate seamlessly with popular plugins. Whether you're a startup, freelancer, or hobbyist, these themes provide a cost-free starting point.

Top Free WordPress Themes for 2025

1. Astra

• Load time/size: ~400 ms, 48 KB
• Best for: Multi-purpose websites
• Key features: Super lightweight, no jQuery, 300+ pre-built templates

Astra is a favorite among cheap web designers for its ready-to-use templates and ease of customization. Adjust colors, typography, and layouts without touching code.
Ideal for affordable web design projects needing quick, professional results.

2. GeneratePress

• Load time/size: ~525 ms, 50 KB
• Best for: Bloggers, consultants

GeneratePress is built for performance with a clean codebase and visual customization via the WordPress Customizer. Cheap web designers use it to create fast, accessible sites with minimal effort.

3. Neve

• Load time/size: ~407 ms, 28 KB
• Best for: Small businesses, service providers

Neve is fast and versatile, supporting Elementor and Gutenberg with professional-grade templates. Perfect for affordable web design with quick setup and sleek designs.

4. OceanWP

• Load time/size: ~556 ms, 280 KB
• Best for: eCommerce, versatile sites

OceanWP offers advanced features like sticky headers and Instagram feeds, great for dynamic projects. Delivers robust sites without premium add-ons.

5. Kadence

• Load time/size: Fast and compact
• Best for: Agencies, content-driven sites

Kadence provides premium features like header/footer builders and content blocks in its free version. Go-to for affordable web design, delivering custom designs on a budget.

6. Blocksy

• Load time/size: ~764 ms, 118 KB
• Best for: Designers seeking flexibility

Blocksy is Gutenberg-focused with tools like live header builders and dynamic sidebars. Enables modern, unique sites without coding.

7. Botiga

• Load time/size: ~450 ms (varies)
• Best for: eCommerce stores

Botiga is tailored for WooCommerce, delivering fast product pages and mobile-friendly checkouts. Smart pick for affordable web design in online retail.

8. Hello Elementor

• Load time/size: ~393 ms, 300 KB
• Best for: Elementor-driven sites

Hello is a lean theme built for Elementor, keeping sites fast and focused. Preferred for efficient, high-quality Elementor builds.

Choosing the Best Theme

Uncertain where to begin? Here's a breakdown:

• Simple sites or blogs: Astra, GeneratePress, Neve
• Online stores: Botiga, OceanWP
• Design-heavy sites: Blocksy, Kadence
• Elementor projects: Hello Elementor

All themes support responsive design, SEO, and popular plugins - perfect for affordable web design.

Final Thoughts

Free themes are now robust and versatile, often surpassing premium themes slowed by bloat. They enable:

• High-quality work at reduced costs for designers
• Cost-effective solutions for small businesses
• Professional, manageable sites for individuals

Workflow: Select → Test on staging → Tweak → Launch. Done.

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I was foolish to believe capitalism would allow real dissent. It is not within the capacity of capitalism to allow self-harm. My waning faith in left wing political commentary is all but spent. They cannot harm the system.

Apart from those at the top for whom the system is rigged, capitalism allows only viable businesses to survive. The obscene joke we are compelled to partake in, all that exists, all that is allowed to exist, is only that which will do the lest harm to capitalism.

Do you think your anti-capitalist blogger will save the world? The obscene elegance of capitalism allows for a person to announce freely its every flaw in exquisite detail, whilst perpetually donating to its cause: paying capitalism for the privilege of critique.

And do support your political commentator of choice! There is no harm in it; how else will fools learn?; but be sure that it will not see the decline of our greatest foe. We all need to eat, have rent to pay, and your particular brand of counterculture needs to be supported; but remember what business model you are investing in.

Supporting political commentary is to lubricate the dissemination of ideas; but that is all. You are donating to support words.

As a rule capitalism honours those who aid the system; so no matter how radical the voice, it exists in equilibrium to the money making machine. Any alteration to that paradigm will lead only to financial ruin or else a greater endorsement of capitalism. Your voices of counterculture will not bring an end to capitalism.

The popular bloggers and commentators could easily join forces to disseminate ways for the public to unite in dissent; but the fact they have not done that already is perhaps all you need to know. Capitalism allows only that which will do the least harm to its system. Obviously they are not politicians; so we should not expect revolution from them. But more than that, they are not strategists: they have no clue how to effectively dissent. They have no clue how to assuage the looming fascism that is currently gripping the world.

But they can report it, and they can denounce it.

Over and out for now, guys!

xxx

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#Linux #Systemd #opensource

00:00 Intro
00:42 Sponsor: 10% off your first website
01:36 Init systems and SystemD
03:21 SystemD is bloated?
05:48 Everything depends on it now?
07:01 It's a Red Hat project?
08:44 It restricts choice and modularity?
09:51 It makes Linux less secure?
10:59 Why use systemD?
12:37 Parting thoughts
13:52 Sponsor: Get a PC made to run Linux
14:52 Support the channel

All Linux based systems use an Init system, short for initialization: it's the first process that starts after you boot your OS, and it runs in the background while you're using your computer, to manage system services, and various processes. For many, many Linux distros, SystemD is this init system.

SYstem D is a relatively recent project, at the scale of Linux anyway, it started in 2010, and was spearheaded by Red Hat. Its goal was to replace the existing solutions, like SysV or Upstart, to make things faster and more resilient.

It quickly became the default on Fedora, obviously, then on Arch Linux, Debian, Ubuntu, SUSE, and many, many others.

The famous Bloat argument is one advanced most often. System D, as time went on, encompassed more and more features that were generally handled by individual services, not the init system itself, like device management, login, or network management and creating logs.

This can be perceived as going against the Unix philosophy, where a piece of software is supposed to do just one thing, and to communicate well with other small systems.

What's certain is that most distros that implement it are general purpose distros, that need to provide as many systems as possible, and so they tend to use most of systemD's features and modules.

SystemD also "hides away" certain configurations with its own tools, like systemctl, instead of exposing everything as a config file. Whether these things are important or not, though, depend on the person.

Another criticism levelled at System D is the fact that it has become so pervasive that a lot of other components are created with a hard dependency on it: without SystemD, they can't work at all, or will have a limited featureset. This results in some extra work for distros that don't want to use systemD, as they have to use an alternative implementation of these features.

Another regular criticism of SystemD comes from the fact it's mainly a Red Hat project, or at least was started by Red Hat. The fact remains that while systemD was started at Red Hat, it IS an open source project, and it is receiving contributions from a lot of people that aren't at Red hat.

Another criticism of SystemD is that it's making Linux based systems uniform and that it restricts choice. I'd argue this isn't really true, since there ARE other alternatives, like OpenRC, Dinit, SysVInit and more.

One final problem people identify with SystemD is system security. First, there's the fact that having one single system that powers the init and service management of most distros is a security risk: an attacker can target many, many systems by targeting systemD.

Second, some people would say that since SystemD is huge and does a lot of things, it has a very large attack surface.

But why would you WANT to use it, exactly?

SystemD is a unified project, which means you don't have to learn 20 different programs if you need to interact with something: you learn how systemD works, and you can manage everything.

Compared to other init systems, it's also simpler, as it opens various sockets that services can plug into, and services can start in mostly any order. And finally, systemD is written in C, and isn't the usual compilation of bash scripts, so it tends to be faster and more efficient than many other init systems.

Fun Fact:
Obwohl „Emoticon“ und „Emoji“ ähnlich klingen und sich beide auf grafische Ausdrucksformen von Emotionen beziehen, sind sie etymologisch nicht miteinander verwandt.

„Emoticon“ ist ein Kofferwort aus dem Englischen, zusammengesetzt aus emotion (Gefühl) und icon (Symbol).
„Emoji“ hingegen stammt aus dem Japanischen und bedeutet wörtlich soviel wie „Bildschriftzeichen“.
Er setzt sich aus den Schriftzeichen 絵 für „e“ (Bild), 文 für „mon“ (Ausdruck) und 字 für „ji“ (Buchstabe) zusammen.