Enfold is a premium WordPress theme from Kriesi, sold as a one-time license rather than given away free. Across the sites we crawl it's consistently one of the ten most common themes we detect — not new, not trendy, but still holding its share. If you're sizing it up against something newer, that staying power is worth noting.
A Kriesi theme that's outlasted its era
Kriesi built Enfold as a general-purpose business theme rather than something tied to one niche. It's been in our tracking since 2018, and a lot of the sites still running it were clearly set up years ago and never migrated. That's typical of a mature theme: once a site works, there's little reason to swap it out just because something newer exists.
Avia, the builder underneath
Pages are built with Avia Layout Builder, Enfold's own drag-and-drop system, which predates Gutenberg and still runs independently of it on most installs we see. You assemble rows, columns and Avia's own elements rather than blocks. That gives you flexibility without a subscription tied to the builder, but the interface feels dated next to Elementor-style editors, and pulling content out of Avia's shortcodes later isn't simple.
Where it actually turns up
The pattern in our data is clear: agencies and marketing firms are the biggest single group running Enfold, followed by SaaS companies, nonprofits, legal and finance sites, schools and hotels. It's a theme built more for corporate or service brochure sites than blogs. German shows up as the second-most common language among sites we detect, well ahead of what you'd expect for a theme this size, which tracks with Kriesi's roots in Europe. Plugin pairings support that reading: Yoast SEO, Contact Form 7 and WooCommerce lead the list, with cookie-consent tools like Borlabs and Complianz turning up heavily too.
What holds up
Built-in flexibility
Avia covers most business layouts — sliders, pricing tables, portfolios, forms — without stacking extra plugins.
One-time license
No recurring builder subscription needed to keep editing, which matters over a long site lifespan.
Long track record
Kriesi has kept it updated well before our tracking started, and it still turns up on recently rebuilt sites.
If Enfold isn't quite it
Enfold isn't the only long-running builder-theme still active. Avada plays a similar game — one-time purchase, its own builder, a long feature list — and shows up more often in our data. For a lighter footprint without a built-in builder, GeneratePress or OceanWP paired with a block editor or Elementor tend to load faster by default. Kriesi also sells narrower themes like Flashlight and Display, worth a look if a full business theme is overkill.
Where it starts to hurt
The builder is also the main catch. Avia is shortcode-based, and shortcode-heavy pages tend to carry more markup and script weight than block-built ones — a common reason we see WP Rocket paired with Enfold installs, to claw back load time. Its overall share has been holding steady rather than growing, so it isn't pulling in the newer wave of Gutenberg-first sites. And because the builder is proprietary, leaving Enfold later means rebuilding pages, not just switching themes.
Before you commit
Is Enfold free?
No. It's sold as a one-time license on ThemeForest, not distributed through WordPress.org.
What page builder does Enfold use?
Its own — Avia Layout Builder — built before the WordPress block editor and running independently of it.
Does Enfold work well for online stores?
It supports WooCommerce and we detect that pairing often, but a dedicated e-commerce theme will usually handle a large catalog more efficiently.
So, should you use it?
Enfold fits an agency, consultancy, nonprofit or small SaaS company that wants a business site live without custom development, and that would rather buy a license outright than rent a builder plugin. It's a weaker match if page speed is the priority from day one, or if you want to build natively with the block editor — GeneratePress or OceanWP handle that better. If you've inherited an Enfold site, it's stable enough to keep running as is.
Last updated 2026-07-20
