Twenty Thirteen was the WordPress team's default theme for the 2013 release cycle, built around post formats and a bold, magazine-like color palette. It's old now, but not forgotten: our crawl data puts it among one of the fifty most used themes we track, which says something about how long a default theme keeps circulating after its year is over.
A default theme with a past
Every year from 2010 to roughly 2017, WordPress shipped a new numbered default theme, and Twenty Thirteen was the one built for blogging first. It's authored by the WordPress team itself, which means no license fee and no premium tier — it was originally bundled with WordPress core, though you won't necessarily find it as an active download on WordPress.org today. Sites still running it tend to be ones that installed it years ago and never had a reason to switch.
Post formats, front and center
The theme leans hard on WordPress's post format system: quotes, galleries, links and asides each get their own visual treatment instead of looking like a plain blog post. There's no drag-and-drop builder here — you're working with the classic editor or blocks, plus the Customizer for header images and colors. That's a very different workflow from anything using Elementor or Divi, and it's part of why it's fallen out of fashion: it does one thing (post-based publishing) and doesn't try to be a page builder.
Who actually runs it
In our data, this is not a niche theme in the industry sense — it spreads across personal blogs, religious and community groups, schools, photography sites and nonprofits in roughly even measure. That's consistent with a general-purpose default theme rather than something built for one market. English and German sites dominate, with French, Japanese and Dutch also showing up. Business-type data leans nonprofit and services over ecommerce, which tracks: this was never built with an online store in mind.
What still holds up
It's lightweight compared to a lot of what replaced it. There's no bundled builder framework loading extra CSS and JS on every page, so the base footprint is small. The post-format display is still genuinely distinctive — few modern themes bother styling quotes and asides differently from standard posts. And because it's a WordPress-team theme, it's had a long run of security and compatibility patches, which matters more than most people give it credit for. The plugins we see paired with it most are ordinary and sensible: Contact Form 7, Yoast SEO, and Jetpack, with a smaller but real slice running WooCommerce despite the theme's blog-first design.
If you want something newer
If the appeal is a free, well-maintained default theme, the WordPress team's later entries are the direct upgrade path — Twenty Seventeen, Twenty Twenty, and the block-theme-based Twenty Twenty-Four all outrank it in our usage data and get built-in full-site editing. If what you actually want is more design flexibility, Hestia gives you a modern one-page layout with Elementor support, while Total and Uncode are page-builder-first themes for sites that need more than a blog template.
Where it shows its age
No block-based full-site editing, and its layout options are fixed by comparison to anything from the last few years. There are effectively no child themes built for it in wide use, so customizing beyond the Customizer usually means editing PHP and CSS directly — not something every site owner wants to touch. The overall trend in our data is a slow, steady decline rather than a cliff, which fits a retired default theme coasting on inertia rather than active choice.
Before you install it
Is Twenty Thirteen free?
Yes. It was released by the WordPress team as a default theme with no license cost, though it isn't necessarily listed as an active download on WordPress.org anymore.
Does it use a page builder?
No. It's built for the classic or block editor and the Customizer, not Elementor, Divi, or a bundled builder framework.
Is it a good fit for an online store?
Not really. Some sites in our data pair it with WooCommerce, but it wasn't designed for product layouts — a dedicated ecommerce theme will serve you better.
Should you use Twenty Thirteen today?
If you already have a site running it and it's stable, there's no urgent reason to rip it out — it's still patched, still light, and still does post formats better than most current themes bother to. If you're starting fresh, though, pick a newer WordPress-team theme like Twenty Twenty-Four for the same free, no-lock-in philosophy with block editing included, or go with Hestia or Total if you want real layout flexibility. Twenty Thirteen is a fine relic; it's a poor choice as a first install in the current year.
Last updated 2026-07-22
