In the wide – and sometimes wild – world of WordPress templates and themes, choosing the best Premium WordPress Magazine theme can seem a little daunting…
With that in mind, while you’ve been surfing the web and enjoying your Facebook friends, we’ve been doing some pretty extensive research and here it is: a list of the very best premium WordPress themes for magazines and news sites.
Business and blog owners, we look forward to seeing your site out there very soon. Developers, maybe your design will make our list for 2015 – we can’t wait to see your entries!
Best Online Award
This year’s winner of Best Online Award for the category Best Premium WordPress Magazine Themes goes to City Desk. This theme allows you to give your columnists specified space for publication and reward authors with badges while enjoying intuitive site navigation and lots of freedom with posts, headers, sliders, and categories. It lets you – and your staff – create an online news site that is not only sleek and professional, but totally flexible. There’s just no end to what you can do with City Desk.
City Desk
Best Value For Money Award
Brooding sophistication and handsome design come together in Mysterious, a very savvy choice when you’re looking to buy premium WordPress themes. We’re awarding Mysterious the Best Value For Money Award because of the big punch this theme packs. Stately, bold, and as intriguing as its name, this theme is sure to draw in an audience and keep them reading with beautiful color contrast possibilities and an easy-to-navigate landscape that organizes and informs. At under $60, with dual featured articles sliders, and so many great customization options you’ll have trouble incorporating them all into your site.
WP-Mysterious
Best Innovative Product Award
OnPlay is a responsive theme that gives you the green light to create and publish with a beautiful and flexible layout and brilliant custom post options so that you can blog from a coffee shop, your kitchen table, or (gasp) even in the carpool line while waiting for your kids to exit the school in the afternoons. OnPlay also offers a footer carousel that is a wonderful finish to your homepage and gives you a gallery to show off content that you don’t want readers to miss. OnPlay is the winner of the Best Innovative Product Award 2014.
OnPlay
Editor’s Pick Award
The Editor’s Pick Award is for a theme that doesn’t fall easily into any of the other categories, but is worth a mention for its great all-around character. We fell in love with the Styled site builder, and while we compared every other theme we looked at, we came up short. Made by Viva Themes and undeniably chic, Styled lets you fill a defined, online space with thoughts and ideas that make the site your own. A WordPress premium magazine theme, Styled is a study in all things fashionable and grand. Custom backgrounds and multilingual capabilities, along with post thumbnails and threaded comments control, are just a few of the features you’ll love with Styled and that will help you create a truly urbane and ultra cosmopolitan site of your own.
Styled
Other Nominees
While we can’t give every great theme an award, here’s a fairly extensive list of some other themes that are certainly deserving of a mention. You’ll find that there are a multitude of great designs available from a spectrum of providers… and there’s sure to be one that’s a great fit for your own site or blog. We look forward to seeing your site online soon! Happy creating!
WP-Brilliance
Crisp, cool and delightfully functional, WP-Brilliance is one of the most user-friendly ways to create a professional look that outshines the competition. Enjoy the handsome layouts, some awesome tools, and lots and lots of brilliant concepts, all rolled up into one stellar theme that is worthy of its name.
Neuton
The written word may never have looked so good. The Neuton theme organizes your news and content into an expertly packaged product so that you can inform and entertain your audience while looking like a pro. Choose Neuton to get out the word and spread the news your readers need and want to know.
Chronicle
Simple and eye-catching, the Chronicle theme offers all the news that’s fit for your publication as close as the click of a mouse, giving your readers easy access to your content and helping you provide a great platform no matter which device they choose to view your site.
WP-Blossom
Sophisticated beyond measure, the WP-Blossom theme has a contemporary look and feel that are certain to garner attention, but even better, it offers some features that are certain to make you fall even harder for its riveting ability to present your point of view.
WP-Radiance
Soft and welcoming as its moniker, the Radiance theme offers a wide variety of features that work as well with small business blogs as with content heavy publications and give you intuitive tools and features to make showing your vision to the world a breeze.
Momentum
You’ll love it for its responsive nature and sleek good looks, but you’ll also love Momentum because this theme puts you –quite literally—in the driver’s seat. Change the layout or the style on a whim; with Momentum, it’s your call.
Magazine Pro
Get the slick look of a glossy covered tabloid online and delight your viewers with this elegant theme that shows off your sense of style and savvy with a certain and professional ease. Your front page beckons the world with Magazine Pro.
Lifestyle
Get comfortable and welcome the world to the way you see it with the Lifestyle theme from Studio Press. Casual elegance that will make your readership right at home is this theme’s calling card and will soon become your blog’s trademark look.
Gazeti
This cool magazine theme offers up all the bells and whistles you’d ever ask for – and then some. Let you content capture your audience with sizzling sliders, cool carousels, and captivating color schemes while you roll out great content like a pro and never look back.
Stylebook
A timeless, yet ultra-responsive theme that gives you the foundation you need to launch a great success story of your own, Stylebook is as savvy a design as its name suggests and as versatile as the user who molds it according to his or her personal sense of style.
Valenti
A vanguard look for your vanguard site, Valenti offers a premium platform for breaking news, your latest musings, or the must-see photographs that will have your readers oohing and aahing in no time flat. You’ll love its drag and drop customization and unparalleled menu builder.
Metro
Classic and yet stylistically urbane, the Metro theme demands attention and offers up the ability to customize a look to your own discriminating tastes. Packed with features that draw in your audience and are sure to increase interaction, Metro is the hub of a great blog beginning – maybe yours.
WP-Critique
Ready to make an impression? WP-Critique gives you the means to do just that. Tell the world what you think as you tout the products and services you love and warn about those on the flip side. WP-Critique is so easy to customize that product reviews are only the beginning.
Magazine
Themify’s Magazine theme offers the ease of drag and drop placement and a foundation with more than 40 ready-to-go layouts. The news theme that offers more than you could dream of in a platform, it’s one of the best premium WordPress themes on the market.
WP-Bold
Get a design you’ll be proud to show off with the WP-Bold premium WordPress theme from Solostream. Made to draw your readership in with a variety of sliders, this responsive design is just the one you’ve been looking for.
Newsetter
Be a trendsetter with Newsetter, the Themefuse theme made to tout the latest and greatest in technology in a bold and brilliant format. SEO-friendly in a big way, Newsetter will get your bottom line to the top of the search engines quicker and easier than ever.
WP-Clear
Sometimes simple and straightforward communication is the best communication. You’ll be speaking loud and clear to your audience with this awesome and highly customizable theme from Solostream. With widgets you’ll love and built in pages to build your business, it’s pretty clear that this theme should be a top consideration for your next website.
Horizon
With a sleek and modern look that touts your choice of eight gorgeous colors, Horizon is a theme that will surpass your wildest expectations and keep your audience focused on your great content.
Dolce
Show off your personality with a blog that screams you. Beyond a truly responsive layout, Dolce gives you a barrage of custom widgets and – count ‘em – six unique homepage options to help you get your point across beautifully.
Yamidoo Magazine
Perhaps one of the best magazine premium WordPress themes we’ve seen, the Yamidoo Magazine theme doesn’t leave you wanting for more. A smooth and modern looking layout that offers up classic style and a great video integration option, we promise you’ll love it.
WP-Prosper
Gorgeously striking, this theme allows you to upload your logo and has cool slider options to help you show off your content. This WordPress theme gives you beautiful, sustainable control and you won’t be disappointed.
Tribune
Just as its name implies, this premium news WordPress theme sets a high standard and gives you the custom layouts and widgets you need to leave your competition in the dust. Make your theme decision count with Tribune from WP Zoom.
WP-Aire
You’ll be walking on Cloud 9 when you implement the WP-Aire premium magazine theme from Solostream. Enjoy options like social network integration and the ability to utilize gravatars and your logo with ease. Light, bright, and simple, have you breathing easier in no time.
Patterns
Packed with features including a news ticker, ad space, and a unique feature collage that gives your readers and fans a great overview of news they can use, the Patterns theme from Gabfire is an amazing start for your blog – and one of the coolest news WordPress themes we’ve seen yet.
Isabelle
A Bluchic special, Isabelle offers a touch of feminine fabulosity and is nothing short of chic. You’ll fall in love with a variety of theme options and widgets and add some extra personality with your own logo. Even better, Isabelle comes with step-by-step directions for getting your site up and running fast.
Morning
Flexible, friendly, and made for morning people like you, this amazing premium WordPress theme find will give you an edge with a host of custom widgets and custom post templates that are not only bright and beautiful but all-day practical.
WP-Launch
Launch your blog or business with this remarkable and effective theme from Solostream. Simple and striking, the Launch gives you a variety of widgets, a range of colors from which to choose, and easier SEO to make your visions a reality.
Genius
One of the most ingenious news WordPress themes around, WP-Genius lives up the high standards of its name with a gorgeous two-column layout and options for gravatars, thumbnails of your posts, and widgets galore, making your blog or site look smarter and pretty cool, too.
Sport Edge
A WordPress theme made for the way you play and the life you love, this Themefuse design that helps you reach your audience seamlessly with features like a striking image slider and custom header designs based on individual sports.
Magazine Explorer
Let your readers explore the world you’ve been waiting to show them with this cool, magazine premium WordPress theme that lets you create slideshows of featured images and then customize your theme with a beautiful, crisp, responsive layout.
Telegraph
Relay the information of the day or week with this classic premium WordPress theme that is not only easily customizable no matter what your needs, but offers a range of custom widgets to make reader’s experience even better as you get your ideas across.
Elegance
As refined as its name suggests, this charming theme by Solostream is nothing short of exquisite while offering all sort of customizations. Choose Elegance and enjoy creating a “piece de resistance” website.
Splendid
A simply delightful premium magazine WordPress theme, Splendid packs a big punch and gives you lots of options and features like customizable page templates and polished drop down menus that speak to your great content and undeniable good taste.
Blacklight
A refined, premium WordPress magazine theme, Blacklight offers up both functionality and phenomenal style perfect for periodicals and news releases. You’ll enjoy improved SEO and cross-browser compatibility along with a more advanced dashboard to customize its look and feel.
Cadabrapress
Nothing short of tech-savvy magic, Cadabrapress is an impressive news WordPress theme that boasts multiple layout options within a Zoom Framework, helping you create a blog or website that is sure to leave a lasting impression. Enjoy adding widgets and adjusting your theme with just a click of the mouse.
Prologue
A first in premium news WordPress themes, WPZoom’s Prologue ups the ante with customizable features including a footer carousel, sticky posts, and even featured categories. Best of all, an easy to use dashboard keeps you organized and at the head of the class.
Clear Photo
Clean and sophisticated, and crafted to let you showcase images with zest and zeal, the Clear Photo theme is customizable and offers stellar features that include top-quality color choices, a cool featured content slider and widgets upon widgets, making it a great foundation for an even greater website.
Venus
A design that speaks to strength and femininity, Venus is a magazine premium WordPress theme that lends itself to simple customization and features great images and video. With a quartet of color options and custom logo integration, you’ll be proud to make Venus your own.
Defacto
A Themeshift theme made to contend with the best WordPress premium themes out there, Defacto keeps it sweet and simple with templates and widgets to take your farther and other customizable features to help you do it style.
Origin Mag
A simple yet capable magazine premium WordPress theme that gives you the power to compel just beautifully, Origin Mag offers up customizable details at every turn, and provides the access you need to widgets, slideshows, and layouts to make big impressions with the slightest nuances.
Weekly
The Weekly theme from Theme Junkie boasts lifetime support and easy optimization along with the classic good looks you would expect from a premium news WordPress theme. Social media integration and RSS Feeds also help your audience interact with posts and content.
Backcountry
Ruggedly handsome meets gorgeous layout and an image-focused facade that might even make your readers swoon in this nothing-less-than-the-best news template for WordPress. Perfect for lifestyle bloggers, business owners that want to make a big impact, and others who are drawn to visually oriented design.
MediaMag
One of the finest premium WordPress themes for magazine content available, the Media Mag template gives you access to banner advertising, gravatar incorporation, and video integration and supports a clean, organized look for content-heavy sites.
Newspaper
Theme Junkie’s Newspaper Theme gives you the look and feel of a professional tabloid page with digital clarity and beautiful design. You’ll enjoy customizable page templates and widgets to make your site your own and draw in the audience you’re looking for.
Chameleon
A simple, clean base template lets you take your website wherever you want it to go with Chameleon, a Frogs Theme premium WordPress design that comes with access to a catalog of photoshop files with subscription and a range of customer page templates that you can take to the extreme.
Responz
Three beautiful columns and a drag-and-drop builder helps you position your content and build greatness at every turn with the Responz Theme from Themify. Enjoy header and footer sliders and eight cool theme skins for a truly custom look.
WP-Inspired
A design with unrivaled moxie, the savvy WP-Inspired WordPress theme is an outstanding buy and among the best magazine premium WordPress themes on the market. It gives you license to step out of the box and inspire your readership with great content and images that you’ll show off in optional photo galleries and your choice of content sliders.
Newswire
The Newswire theme from Theme Junkie gives your content an edge with custom widget control and high-functioning search engine optimization. Bold, bright, and crafted for stellar resolution on any device, it’s a great choice in premium WordPress news themes.
Manifesto
Elegance and style come wrapped in a sensationally sophisticated package that offers beautiful visual detailing along with ultimate flexibility to allow you to provide your audience a rich experience in the content you present.
Magazinum
Bold design made for the way you publish gives you a framework to attract attention and to keep it. Magazinum is WPZoom’s answer for those who publish sites that are chocked full of content and need a strong platform for rich images. The Magazinum theme offers a range of custom features like menus and widgets and login forms to make your site unique.
Blognews
A Gabfire creation, The BlogNews theme is among the best magazine WordPress premium themes you’ll find anywhere, with seven distinctive styles and a multitude of other options that allow you to create a custom look and feel for your online news and features outlet.
Press-Two
If you liked Obox’s Press design, you’ll love PressTwo. Control over custom posting options and a modern, clean design give you ultimate tool for great and easy content publication. Perhaps best of all, you can show off a bit with PressTwo’s portfolio and testimonial page templates, features that make this theme one of the best WordPress news themes for serious publishers.
Linepress
Professional polish and powerful design make Linepress from Gabfire a premium WordPress theme you won’t want to miss out on. Linepress offers a range of page layouts and control over a selection of sliders, along with a media gallery template for good measure.
Balance
A great way to get the buy-in of your readership, the Balance theme is built around communicating well and includes responsive e-mail opt in forms and beautifully organized threaded comments sections. Three clean, crisp layouts and five color choices round out the Balance theme.
Magpress
Magpress will catch your eye and may just steal your heart with its truly glamorous minimalist design and wonderful customization features including a home page that can be created with drag-and-drop ease and custom sliders that give your readers control of content presentation.
Pulse
Your heart is certain to beat just a little faster when you see results from this cool and stylish premium magazine WordPress theme from WPZoom. Made to impress, it includes a video section complete with gallery organization and feature slider to promote you latest content.
Sportpress
Never overwhelming, and a best bet for content rich publications, the Sportpress premium WordPress theme is one that is easily customizable with plenty of layout options and a selection of menu and widget choices that come together to make your site truly exceptional.
Journey
Journey theme was inspired by travel. It is a perfect format for journalists who feature multiple locations on their sites – or for destinations that want to show off all they have to offer. Your choice of galleries and custom layouts, as well as video and slider options, add even more flavor to your adventure in blogging.
Ellie
The Ellie Premium WordPress theme is Solostream’s answer for bloggers who want to give their audience a bold and captivating experience while providing easy access to a range of posts and images. Widgets, sliders, and lots of customization options puts Ellie among the best news WordPress themes on the planet.
Arts and Culture
Showcase all things extraordinary when you choose Arts and Culture theme with its nothing-short-of-exceptional good looks and responsive framework for use on multiple devices. Seriously sleek, it’s a great buy for those interested in creating riveting content for an audience in the know.
Transcript
Transcript offers up control over advertising content and gives you real options for publishing – including a top-notch media gallery and sliders that captivate your audience and keep them reading. So simple, you’ll wonder why you didn’t try it sooner; Transcript will prove to be a favorite in WordPress news templates for sure.
NewsPro
Highlight the content your readers demand with NewsPro, a versatile WordPress premium news theme that gives you a super cool widgetized footer that you can make your own, plus a comprehensive media gallery and great sliders for a professional looking site that will lend credibility and captivate with every click.
Portal
A WordPress magazine theme that opens the door to great publishing creations, Portal is your pass to amazing features. It will help you launch a new business or brand your existing company as an expert in its field. Just upload and organize content – and reach your readership on a whole new level.
Forester
A magazine theme with more to offer, the Forester theme is a standout in premium WordPress themes. Choose it for cross-browser compatibility or for Theme Junkie‘s support, and know that you’re about to change the face of your organization for the better.
Amped
Your job is to stay in the spotlight, so let the Amped theme make your life easier so that you can concentrate on the things you love – and promote your personal brand with even more style. Add a calendar to let your fans know about tour dates and events, upload great video features and do more with Amped.
ChannelPro
Channel Pro is the premium WordPress news theme that puts you in control with puts great results for your business on the horizon. With exceptional widgets, SEO-wise design, and custom page templates that give you great flexibility, entertaining and educating your audience is easier than ever.
YamidooPro
Yamidoo Pro is a magazine-friendly WordPress premium theme with lots to offer. Full video integration, great sliders, and even tabbed and custom widgets are integrated into this sleek and functional design that is as easy on the eyes as it is intuitive and user friendly.
WP-Smooth
What happens when you create a site with a premium WordPress news theme that offers 10 color options, functional and handsome drop-down menus, gravatar and ad integration, and SEO to help your audience find you? Make it happen with WP-Smooth.
Serenity
Your audience will soon settle in to soak up the information you provide when they are presented with a gorgeous site based on the beautiful Serenity theme. Share your content through six custom layout choices and enjoy a variety of themes when you choose this premium WordPress magazine theme.
WP-Newspaper Theme
Doesn’t your content deserve a great looking, professional publication format? Choose the WP-Newspaper theme to showcase everything you have to offer. This premium WordPress news theme gives you a great media gallery, a quartet of layout options and controllable sliders for ultimate presentation.
Stockholm
A beautiful platform for amazing images, the Stockholm theme lives up to the reputation of its moniker as bold and compelling. A WordPress premium magazine theme that will certainly turn some heads, Stockholm gives users a custom widget gallery and great control over ad space.
Traveler
A theme built with adventure and value in mind, this cool Gorilla theme design makes building a website or blog both fun and satisfying. Choose your categories and incorporate search tools to fulfill your audience’s expectations as you provide stellar content to get them up and moving.
Advanced Newspaper
Gabfire’s own premium news WordPress theme, the Advanced Newspaper design is packed with features, giving you everything you need to create a site beyond all expectations. Choose a layout, incorporate a gallery, and profit from easy ad integration.
Press
As simple and straightforward as its name, the Press WordPress theme is a premium news theme with amazing potential waiting for you to harness it. Simple to customize with seven gorgeous color options and widgets that make your life easier, Press is an undeniably beneficial tool for bloggers who want to do bigger and better things.
Zenko
Crisp and controlled, with exceptional clarity and robust design, Zenko is among the best WordPress premium magazine themes out there. So easy to customize with your choice of widgets, sliders, and more, the Zenko theme could be just the one you’re looking for.
LitePress
Six different style options and a video slideshow homepage feature give you just enough momentum to launch a great site and keep your audience in the palm of your hand. LitePress is a wonderfully easy to use WordPress premium news theme and could just be the beginning of something great.
Femme
Expertly advanced and completely responsive, this WooCommerce compatible WordPress premium magazine theme allows you to create an e-shopping experience with a powerful content rich twist. Its responsive layout works well no matter the device and can be changed to meet your needs as a publisher whenever you like.
Connect
It’s time to open up to your readership and communicate in ways you may never have thought possible. This is a WordPress premium news theme built to help you spread the word and make an impact. Bold, sleek, and even BuddyPress capable, you’ll also find that it stimulates reader interaction.
Elastik
Want a premium WordPress theme that is ultimately and perfectly flexible? Meet Elastik: a gorgeous design crafted with maneuverability in mind. Elastik incorporates a look that flows and a variety of useful widgets, along with a slideshow option and theme choices to make it easy to deliver a great experience for your audience.