Do you run a Drupal 7 website? Or, are you interested in building a website powered by the most popular Drupal version at the moment?
Another important point in the favor of Drupal 7 is that the support for the version will not end anytime soon. According to the following graph taken from the official Drupal website, Drupal 8 still has quite a long way to go if it wants to catch up with Drupal 7’s popularity.
So now that I have resolved your worries about Drupal 7, let’s move on to one of the most important things for any website, the looks and the appearances of the website. Also don’t forget to check out some of the best Drupal 7 Modules. Drupal has a very streamlined theme management process. Themes are packages of pre-defined files that set the appearance of the website. Given the popularity of Drupal 7, it is no wonder that there are a huge number of themes available for the platform.
Drupal Themes are an important part for merely anybody visiting your Drupal-powered application, see when they view any page in their browser. You’ll be able to think of a topic as a layer, like a screen, that exists between your Drupal substance and the clients of your website.
The biggest challenge that you might face when deciding which theme to use for your Drupal project is the ‘spoilt for choice’ factor. So, to simplify the process and save you the hassle of trying out themes on your website, I have listed down the top 10 free Drupal 7 themes in this post. These themes come in a variety of flavors which can be customized to almost any use case or business scenario.
Topics in Drupal 8 are stored within the topics folder interior of the root directory. Here you’ll be able to subcategorize folders into custom or contributed themes. In Drupal, you’ll be able to utilize any topic as the base topic.
Is it any surprise that the official Bootstrap theme for Drupal is the most popular one out there? Created by the founders of Twitter, bootstrap is the number one framework for developing websites with the ‘mobile-first’ mindset. Drupal is well known for its ability to adapt to changing technologies, and this theme is the perfect example of this fact. As mobile platforms surpass desktops, responsive design has become the most important consideration for website design.
The bootstrap framework has simplified the process of creating responsive websites incredibly easy, and it’s integration with Drupal through this theme allows all Drupal users to make their websites responsive without much hassle.
Zen is a very popular and powerful theme for Drupal 7. Built using HTML5 and component-based CSS, its claim to fame is its well-known ability to be used as a base theme for custom Drupal 7 themes. This is a win-win situation for everyone as you get a very powerful foundation for your theme and then get to learn the Drupal 7 theme development process as work on the theme.
Omega is a very customizable theme for Drupal 7 users who are interested in building a customized theme. Various versions of this theme cater to different scenarios. For instance, version 4.x is for people who want to customize their theme through code. Version 3.x is for people who want a customized user interface for the theme. You can visit the official page of the theme to find out more about it.
This theme is very different from the others because this theme is made for the Drupal administration panel. Drupal’s administration panel is pretty bland and is considered rather difficult to use. All of these worries can now, fortunately, be put to rest, thanks to this beautiful responsive theme for the Drupal’s admin panel.
This theme does not shy away from the fact that it is geared towards beginner Drupal theme developers. Even it’s slogan stays true to this idea: “No code – no problem!”. The theme is designed for people who do not wish to dive very deep into the code of the theme and wish to get a responsive and sophisticated theme by writing only a bit of CSS code. You can read all about the features of this great theme on its official page.
A clean and no-frills theme geared mainly towards corporate websites, just like its name.
Another theme for Drupal’s admin panel, this theme was originally used in the popular Drupal distribution for eCommerce websites, “Drupal Kickstart Commerce”. However, this theme could be used for any Drupal website.
Tao is a bit different from the other themes on this list, in the sense that it is not a complete theme in itself. It basically handles various tasks which allow sub-themes to function smoothly. Check out the official page for more details.
As you can guess from the name, this theme is aimed towards businesses (especially small to mid-sized ones). This is a clean, sleek and a hassle-free theme. You just need to install it and be at ease, knowing that your business websites looks good.
Rubik is one of the most popular administration themes for Drupal 7. It has been reportedly been installed on over 15,000 Drupal sites. The popularity of the theme can be attributed to the use of icons for Drupal admin pages and the reduction of unnecessary elements wherever possible.
Conclusion
Drupal offers a variety of themes for all business scenarios. And, in case you cannot find a theme that suits your needs, you could easily create a custom theme for your website. Do note, that the themes on this list were picked due to their popularity and active maintenance by developers.Hope you find these themes useful.
If you are looking to speed up your Drupal website, you might be interested in reading our blog post on: Speeding Up Drupal.
Until next time, happy theming!
Hamza Zia
Hamza is a Drupal Community Manager at Cloudways - A Managed Drupal Hosting Platform. He loves to write about Drupal and related topics. During his free time, he can be seen obsessing over Football, Cars, Android and Gaming.
