Frameworks are used by designers and WordPress developers as a foundation for other themes. They are usually used as a parent theme for other designs however sometimes they are simply modified by users to suit their needs.
The table below lists the most popular WordPress frameworks today. Some free frameworks are very capable though please bear in mind that support may be limited (you get what you pay for!). Most frameworks have two licenses available: a personal option and another license for developers. Developer licenses are for people who will be using the framework on numerous websites and using the framework to design websites for clients.
| Personal License | Developer License | |
|---|---|---|
| Ashford | FREE | FREE |
| Atom | $79 | $159 |
| Backbone | $79 | $159 |
| Bones | FREE | FREE |
| Buffet Framework | FREE | FREE |
| Carrington | FREE | FREE |
| Catalyst | - | $127 |
| Elastic | FREE | FREE |
| Elemental | $59.99 | $149.99 |
| Gantry Framework | FREE | FREE |
| Genesis | $59.95 | - |
| Headway | $87 | $164 |
| HTML WordPress Shell | FREE | FREE |
| Obox Mobile | - | - |
| Platform | FREE | FREE |
| Page Lines | $197 | $397 |
| Premise | $85 | $165 |
| PressWork | FREE | FREE |
| Reverie | FREE | FREE |
| Roots | FREE | FREE |
| rtPanel | FREE | FREE |
| Sandbox | FREE | FREE |
| Simon WP Framework | FREE | FREE |
| Standard Theme | $49 | $99 |
| Starkers | FREE | FREE |
| Startbox | $75 | |
| Suffusion | FREE | FREE |
| Thematic | FREE | FREE |
| Theme Hybrid | FREE | FREE |
| Thesis | $87 | $164 |
| The _s Theme | FREE | FREE |
| Toolbox | FREE | FREE |
| Vanilla | FREE | FREE |
| Whiteboard | FREE | FREE |
| Wonderflux | FREE | FREE |
| WordPress Starter Theme | FREE | FREE |
| WP-DaVinci | $79 | $279 |
| WP Framework | FREE | FREE |
| WP Paintbrush | FREE | FREE |
| WP Theme Framework | $6 | - |
| WP Sumo | $89 | $129 |
| Xtreme One | $79.95 | - |
