Raft

by Themeisle

A lightweight block theme aimed at blogs and small business sites that need speed first.

4.9Block themeFreemium

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What Raft is

A lightweight block theme aimed at blogs and small business sites that need speed first.

It sits in the block theme part of the theme market and is sold by Themeisle on a freemium basis. A theme decides your layout, your typography and a large slice of your page weight, so it is the hardest thing on a WordPress site to change later.

Before you commit, record a speed test of your current site, then run the same test after you switch, on the same page, so you can see exactly what the new theme costs you.

What Raft looks like

The official screenshot from the WordPress.org theme directory, as published by the theme authors.

Raft WordPress theme homepage screenshot

See it running on a live demo site at the WordPress.org preview.

Real user ratings

Score

4.9/5

Reviews

Active installs

10,000+

Downloads

274K

Latest version

1.1.14

Last updated

2026-09-03

Figures come straight from the public WordPress.org theme directory API for version 1.1.14. You can check them yourself on the WordPress.org listing.

Where Raft ranks elsewhere

Raft does not appear in the published "best of" lists we track from WPBeginner, TechRadar, Kinsta, Themeisle and similar sites. That is not a mark against it - those roundups are short and skew towards the biggest names.

What changed in the latest version

v1.1.14Latest release2026-09-03

Updated dependencies

v1.1.132026-06-25

Codebase updates.

v1.1.122026-06-03

Add title-tag support for WP < 5.9
Add support for Raft Pro

Release notes are the developer's own words, published on WordPress.org. Read the full changelog

Pros and cons

Very small asset footprint for a full site editing theme.
Rated 4.9 out of 5 by 48 WordPress.org reviewers.
There is a free version you can trial before paying.
Works with the block editor and the mainstream page builders.

Fewer patterns than larger block themes, so expect manual layout work.
Switching themes later means rebuilding page layouts, so choose deliberately.

How to use it

1Install the theme from Appearance > Themes, then activate it on a staging copy first.
2Create a child theme or use the theme's own custom CSS panel so updates never overwrite your work.
3Set global colours, fonts and container width before you build any pages.
4Import a starter layout if one fits, then strip out demo sections you do not need.
5Replace demo images with compressed WebP versions sized for the slot they sit in.
6Run a before and after check on our speed test so you can see the real page cost.

How it compares

Other block theme themes we recommend, with their public WordPress.org score where one exists.

Theme	Rating	Reviews	Pricing	Best for
Raft	4.9/5	48	Freemium	Very small asset footprint for a full site editing theme.
Spectra One	4.8/5	28	Free	Well-judged typography and spacing defaults for block editing.
Frost	5/5	6	Free	Patterns cover most marketing sections out of the box.
Ollie	5/5	36	Freemium	The setup wizard produces a usable site in minutes.

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