9 Best Free WordPress Themes With Slider 2026

The free WordPress themes that still have a working slider are Activello, Sparkling and Travelify, which put a featured-post carousel at the top of the page with no plugin, and News Portal, whose slider comes with a breaking-news ticker beside it. This list is short on purpose. We opened the live demo of every theme that claims a slider and kept only the 9 where one is actually running, plus 3 paid themes for people who want to design slides rather than pick posts.

Here is what the research turned up, and it surprised us. Most free themes have quietly dropped their sliders. ColorMag, Newsmatic, NewspaperUp, News Magazine X, Sydney, Zakra and Total all shipped one a few years ago and now open on a static featured grid or a single hero image instead. That is a deliberate move, because a rotating carousel hurts the page-speed scores Google measures, and most visitors never see slide two. So if you specifically want a slider, the field is far smaller than the search results suggest.

Related roundups: themes with a video slider, themes with a video background, and the full free collection.

Table of contents — all 12 themes

Activello

Sparkling

Travelify

News Portal

HitMag

Cream Magazine

SuperMag

Newsup

Vantage

Avada

Salient

Divi

Quick comparison: top slider picks

ThemePriceBest forStandoutUpdated
ActivelloFreeA blog with featured postsFlexSlider built in, no pluginAug 2026
SparklingFreeA blog that wants nothing elseSame slider, lighter themeAug 2026
TravelifyFreeA travel or photo blogImage-led slides with dotsAug 2026
News PortalFree / ProA newspaper front pageSlider, ticker and ad slot togetherSep 2026
HitMagFree / ProReaders who pick their own slideThumbnail navigation stripDec 2025
VantageFreeA slider on an inner pagePage Builder slider widgetApr 2026
AvadaPaid, $69Designing slides from scratchSlider Revolution includedAug 2026

We tested it: what a slider costs you

How we tested: we installed each free theme on the same clean WordPress site with identical content and no extra plugins, then measured the homepage with Google Lighthouse on mobile. Because the content is the same everywhere, what you see below is the theme itself. This matters more on a slider post than anywhere else: the first slide is usually the largest image on the page, so it is what Google measures as your largest contentful paint.

ThemePage weightRequestsLighthouseLCP
Travelify365 KB1794/1002.8s
Cream Magazine569 KB1783/1003.9s
Sparkling647 KB2474/1005s
SuperMag670 KB2881/1004.1s
Activello762 KB2577/1004.4s
HitMag796 KB2769/1005.4s
News Portal813 KB3368/1005.3s
Vantage986 KB3265/1006.5s
Newsup1441 KB3862/1008.8s

Free WordPress themes with a working slider

Every theme below is free on WordPress.org, still maintained, and its slider runs in the free build. Each screenshot is the theme’s own demo with the slider on screen, so you can see the thing you are choosing rather than take a feature list on trust.

1. Activello

Activello puts a FlexSlider carousel above the fold and fills it from whichever category you point it at, so the slider updates itself as you publish. Setting it up is one customizer field, which is the whole reason to pick a theme with a slider over a theme plus a slider plugin.

✅ Pros: slider works in the free theme, category-driven, maintained by us   ⚠️ Cons: the slider pulls posts only, so you cannot design a custom slide

More info / Download

2. Sparkling

Sparkling gives you the featured-post slider without the rest of a magazine theme around it, so the page stays clean and quick. If you want a carousel of your best writing and a normal blog underneath, this is the smaller, tidier option.

✅ Pros: slider in the free build, clean layout, lighter than most themes here   ⚠️ Cons: no news furniture at all, so a busy front page is not its job

More info / Download

3. Travelify

Travelify’s slider gives each image the full width of the content area and lays the title over it, so a strong photograph does the work. It has been maintained for over a decade and still ships releases, which is unusual for a theme of its generation.

✅ Pros: image-led slider, long maintenance record, maintained by us   ⚠️ Cons: an older layout underneath the slider, and fewer options than the news themes

More info / Download

4. News Portal

News Portal is the most complete free front page here: a breaking-news ticker, a featured slider with arrows, small headline blocks beside it and a leaderboard ad slot in the header. Everything is configured from the customizer.

✅ Pros: flawless rating, slider plus ticker and ad slot, dense newspaper layout   ⚠️ Cons: the density only works if you publish enough to fill it

More info / Download

5. HitMag

HitMag builds its whole front page from widget areas, the slider included. That makes it the easiest theme here to restructure when the shape of your site changes. It has gone longer between releases than most themes on this list, so check the update date before a large build.

✅ Pros: slider as a widget, easy to rearrange, well rated   ⚠️ Cons: the longest gap between updates of anything here

More info / Download

6. Cream Magazine

Cream Magazine plans for advertising: a leaderboard above the masthead, the slider and breaking bar beneath it, then another leaderboard under the grid. For a site that intends to run banners, that is a much easier starting point than adding them later.

✅ Pros: ad slots designed around the slider, breaking-news bar, perfect rating so far   ⚠️ Cons: only a dozen ratings, and a busy layout to tame

More info / Download

Want video rather than images in the slider? Our video slider roundup covers that, and the full free collection covers everything else.

7. SuperMag

SuperMag pairs a straightforward featured slider with a magazine grid and gets out of the way. It is the plainest theme in this section, which is a virtue if you intend to restyle it rather than accept a vendor’s look.

✅ Pros: simple slider that just works, easy to restyle, well reviewed for its size   ⚠️ Cons: a small install base, and little visual personality out of the box

More info / Download

8. Newsup

Newsup’s lead image cycles through your featured posts, and the theme ships a set of importable front pages that arrange it differently: full width, boxed beside a headline list, or replaced by a grid. Twenty thousand sites run it and it is updated constantly.

✅ Pros: multiple free slider layouts, large user base, frequently updated   ⚠️ Cons: the rotation has no visible arrows or dots, so readers may not realise there is more than one story

More info / Download

9. Vantage

Vantage is built around SiteOrigin’s Page Builder, and its slider is one of the widgets you drop into a row. That means you can put a slider on any page, not just the homepage, and change it without touching the customizer. It is an older theme, but still updated.

✅ Pros: slider on any page, free page builder, thirty thousand installs   ⚠️ Cons: an older design language, and you must learn Page Builder to use it

More info / Download

Paid themes with a proper slide builder

The difference at the paid end is not a better slider, it is a slide builder. Instead of choosing which posts appear, you design each slide: layered text, buttons, animation and video, saved as a template you reuse. Slider Revolution is the one most of these bundle, and buying it separately costs more than some of these themes. Sales figures and ratings come from each theme’s marketplace page.

10. Avada

Avada is the best-selling WordPress theme there is, and for this list the relevant part is what it includes: Slider Revolution and LayerSlider, plus its own builder. That means layered slides with animation and video, designed rather than assembled from posts.

✅ Pros: Slider Revolution and LayerSlider included, over a hundred prebuilt sites, unmatched sales record   ⚠️ Cons: a heavy theme, and the bundled plugins add weight you must manage

More info / Download

11. Salient

Salient builds its slider into the theme instead of shipping someone else’s plugin, so there is less to load and less to keep updated. The result is more restrained than Slider Revolution and considerably easier to live with.

✅ Pros: built-in slider, no plugin to maintain, strong design defaults   ⚠️ Cons: less powerful than Slider Revolution if you want complex layered slides

More info / Download

12. Divi

Divi treats the slider as just another block you drop into a layout, which is the most flexible arrangement here. Each slide is edited visually with its own heading, text and button, and the licence covers every site you build.

✅ Pros: sliders anywhere on any page, visual editing, unlimited sites   ⚠️ Cons: adds page weight, and leaving Divi later means rebuilding those pages

More info / Download

Theme slider or slider plugin? What to look for

• A theme slider is simpler; a plugin is more powerful. If you want your latest posts rotating at the top, the themes above do it with one setting. If you want designed slides with layered text and animation, that is a plugin’s job, and Slider Revolution is the one most paid themes bundle.
• Check the first slide’s weight, because it is your largest contentful paint. The opening image is usually the biggest thing on the page and Google measures it. Compress it properly, and be wary of sliders that load every slide up front rather than on demand.
• Autoplay is a trade, not a feature. Rotating slides move the page under a reader who is still on the first one. If you autoplay, make it slow, and make sure the arrows and dots are large enough to overrule it.
• Swipe on mobile is not automatic. Most sliders here support touch, but check on a phone rather than in a narrow browser window. A carousel you cannot swipe is a carousel most visitors will never reach the second slide of.
• Some themes need no slider at all. Astra and Hestia, both excellent, have no native slider because they lead with a static hero instead. Inspiro’s free build likewise gives you a fixed video hero rather than a rotating one. If one message is enough, that is the faster choice.
• Watch what the slider pushes down. A tall slider can push your actual content below the fold on a laptop. Check the demo at your own screen height before committing, not just on a phone.
• Confirm the slider is in the free build. Several themes advertise a slider that turns out to be a Pro feature. Every theme above has a working slider without paying, which is why some better-known names are absent.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which one should you use?

For a blog, install our own Activello or Sparkling, point the slider at a category and you are finished in a minute. For a news site, News Portal gives you the slider with a ticker and an ad slot around it. If you need a slider somewhere other than the homepage, Vantage is the only free theme here that manages it. And if none of these fits, that is your signal to pick any modern theme you like and add a slider plugin, which is what most of the industry now does.