Porto is a multi-purpose WordPress theme from P-THEMES built to cover stores, agencies, and corporate sites with one flexible template instead of a niche design. It's a paid theme you won't find in the WordPress.org repository, and our crawl data has been tracking it since 2018. It still sits among the fifty most used themes we track, though usage has been drifting down as newer, block-based builders pull share away from older page-builder themes.
A holdover from the WPBakery era
Porto belongs to a generation of premium WordPress themes built around drag-and-drop page builders rather than the block editor, sold as a one-time license through third-party marketplaces rather than free on WordPress.org. That model made sense years ago, when Gutenberg barely existed. It's long-established at this point, and its persistence in our data says something: plenty of sites built on it years ago simply haven't been rebuilt.
Who actually installs it
Porto is genuinely general-purpose — the sites we detect running it span software and SaaS companies, marketing agencies, electronics and tech firms, construction and trades businesses, manufacturers, and schools, with no single industry dominating. Most of those sites are service businesses or online stores, with a smaller slice of corporate and nonprofit sites mixed in. English-language sites lead, but there's a solid spread of Spanish, German, Italian, and Dutch installs too. That breadth is typical of a template sold as flexible for anyone, not a niche fit.
Built on WPBakery, not Gutenberg
The plugin pairings we see confirm the theme's age and approach. js_composer (WPBakery Page Builder) shows up alongside Porto more than anything else, followed closely by the theme's own porto-functionality companion plugin, Contact Form 7, and Revolution Slider. WooCommerce is common too, which tracks with how many ecommerce sites use it. Elementor turns up on a meaningful minority of installs, suggesting some site owners have layered a newer builder on top rather than sticking with the original workflow. Yoast SEO and WPML round out the common stack.
What holds up
Porto's case for itself is coverage: header layouts, WooCommerce-specific templates, and enough built-in options that an agency can reuse it across very different client briefs without switching themes. It's been maintained long enough that most common plugin conflicts have already been ironed out, and the WooCommerce integration in particular is mature — the wishlist plugin pairing we detect (YITH) is a sign of stores actually using its ecommerce features, not just installing WooCommerce as an afterthought.
Where it shows its age
The dependency on WPBakery and Revolution Slider is the honest trade-off. Both were dominant a decade ago and both carry a reputation for bloated markup and slower load times compared to block-editor-native themes. Sites we detect running older Porto installs tend to carry more plugin weight than newer competitors need. It's also a licensing commitment — updates and support run through the marketplace, not a free repository — and the theme's declining share in our data suggests fewer new builders are choosing it over lighter, Gutenberg- or FSE-based options.
If you're comparing options
Multi-purpose, page-builder-driven themes from the same period include Jupiter, which takes a similar all-in-one approach. If you want to move away from that model entirely, Bricks is the modern, block-based alternative built for the way WordPress now handles layout. For something free and minimal rather than feature-heavy, Twenty Thirteen sits at the opposite end entirely. P-THEMES also sells narrower themes like Medin for medical sites, worth a look if you don't need Porto's full generalist scope.
Questions worth asking first
Is Porto a free theme?
No. It's sold as a premium theme through a third-party marketplace rather than distributed free on WordPress.org, so you're paying for a license and ongoing updates.
What page builder does Porto use?
Its native builder is WPBakery Page Builder (js_composer), which is what we see paired with it most often in our data. Some site owners run Elementor alongside it instead.
Is Porto good for a WooCommerce store?
It can be — WooCommerce is one of the most common plugins we detect alongside it, and there's dedicated ecommerce styling. Just weigh that against the extra weight WPBakery and Revolution Slider add to page load.
So, is it worth it?
Porto makes sense if you're maintaining or extending a site that already runs it, or if you specifically want a mature, do-everything theme with a proven WooCommerce setup and don't mind a page-builder-based workflow. It's a weaker pick if you're starting fresh and want something built natively for the block editor, or if page speed is a priority — the WPBakery and Revolution Slider combination is the main thing working against it. For new builds, it's worth comparing against lighter, more current alternatives before committing to a license.
Last updated 2026-07-21
