As a WordPress expert, I’ve had the chance to explore a variety of tools and services. In this post, I’ll be sharing my top recommendations that every WordPress developer should consider.

Just to note—there are no affiliate links here. I’m simply sharing these because I often get asked for suggestions. Keep in mind that the best tools depend on your unique preferences and project requirements, so I encourage you to try them out for yourself.

WordPress Themes

Astra by Brainstorm Force

The Astra WordPress Theme is a lightweight and customizable theme that is perfect for bloggers and small business owners. It’s also a great starting point for customization because it is clean and fast, making it easy to build upon and create a unique website.

GeneratePress

GeneratePress is a very lightweight WordPress theme that focuses on speed, stability, and accessibility. It fits perfectly for sites such as hobbyists, freelancers, or agencies.

Block Themes

OllieWP

OllieWP is an excellent block-based theme designed for full site editing. It’s highly customizable and perfect for developers looking to create unique, dynamic websites without extensive coding. OllieWP leverages the power of the WordPress block editor, making it easy to design and modify layouts visually.

TwentyTwentyFour

TwentyTwentyFour is the latest default WordPress theme, showcasing the capabilities of full site editing. It’s a versatile starting point for custom themes, offering a modern design and extensive customization options through the block editor. Ideal for both beginners and experienced developers.

Rockbase

Rockbase is a powerful block theme designed for high performance and flexibility. It offers a range of customization options and pre-built templates that make it easy to create professional websites quickly. Rockbase is ideal for developers looking to build highly responsive and visually appealing websites.

Powder

Powder is a sleek, minimalistic block theme built for creative professionals. It offers a clean and elegant design, ideal for showcasing portfolios or creative projects. Powder’s simple layout and intuitive block editor integration make it easy to build visually stunning websites with minimal effort.

Theme Frameworks

TailPress

TailPress is an awesome minimal boilerplate for developing custom WordPress themes with Tailwind CSS and comes with block-editor support out of the box. TailPress uses the Tailwind CLI, PostCSS and esbuild.

WordPress Plugins

WPML

With WPML, you can translate pages, posts, custom types, taxonomy, menus and even the theme’s texts and plugins such as WooCommerce or BuddyPress. Besides that, it also offers a wide range of translations to choose from, such as automatic translation via Google, Microsoft Azure, WPML AI and DeepL or direct integration to professional translation services such as Transline, Textmaster, acclaro and more. (I work for the company behind WPML.)

Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is one of the most popular SEO plugins for WordPress. It helps you optimize your website for search engines by providing comprehensive tools for SEO analysis, keyword optimization, and content readability.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a powerful eCommerce plugin that allows you to sell anything, beautifully. It is built to integrate seamlessly with WordPress, making it the world’s favorite eCommerce solution that gives both store owners and developers complete control.

Gravity Forms

Gravity Forms is a powerful form plugin for WordPress that allows you to create complex forms quickly and easily. It offers advanced features like conditional logic, file uploads, and multi-page forms.

Development Tools

Local by Flywheel

Local is a free local development environment designed to simplify the workflow of WordPress developers. It offers features like one-click WordPress installation, SSL support, and easy site sharing.

Laragon

Laragon is a powerful local development environment for Windows that makes setting up and managing local WordPress sites incredibly easy. It’s lightweight, fast, and comes pre-configured with essential tools like Apache, MySQL, and PHP. With Laragon, developers can spin up a fully functional WordPress environment in seconds. It also offers features like auto SSL for local sites and automatic updates for PHP versions, making it a go-to choice for WordPress development on Windows.

Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code is a free, open-source code editor developed by Microsoft. It offers a powerful set of features like IntelliSense, debugging, and Git integration, making it a favorite among developers.

XDebug

Xdebug is an essential debugging and profiling tool for PHP developers, widely used in WordPress development. It allows developers to trace, debug, and profile PHP applications, making it much easier to find and fix errors in code. Xdebug integrates seamlessly with most modern IDEs like PhpStorm and Visual Studio Code, providing real-time insights and breakpoints during the development process. Whether you’re working on complex plugins or custom themes, Xdebug is a must-have for improving code quality and speeding up debugging workflows.

Hosting Services

SiteGround

SiteGround is a popular web hosting provider known for its excellent customer service, reliable performance, and robust security features. It offers managed WordPress hosting, making it an ideal choice for WordPress users.

Kinsta

Kinsta offers premium managed WordPress hosting with high-performance, security, and scalability. It is powered by Google Cloud Platform and provides a user-friendly dashboard for managing your sites.

Cloudways

Cloudways is a managed cloud hosting platform that simplifies hosting for developers, designers, and agencies. It offers seamless scalability, security, and 24/7 support. This site runs on Cloudways via DigitalOcean, combining the ease of Cloudways’ platform with the powerful infrastructure of DigitalOcean.

DigitalOcean

DigitalOcean provides cloud infrastructure to deploy, manage, and scale applications. It is known for its simplicity and robust performance, making it a favorite among developers looking for flexible cloud solutions.