Stoat – Free WordPress Blog Theme

Stoat is a free WordPress blog theme for writers who take their blog seriously: clean, readable posts, a newsletter signup right where readers see it, and pages that stay fast as your audience grows. It is just as easy to start with if you write for yourself: import a demo, adjust it in the Customizer and start writing, with no page builder and nothing heavy (a ~240 KB theme with self-hosted fonts).

Overview

Stoat is a clean, modern, general-purpose WordPress theme for writers, bloggers, newsletter publishers, creators and professionals. Use it for a personal blog, a newsletter, an author or CV site, or a marketing site with landing pages. It’s RTL-ready for Arabic and Hebrew sites, works with WPML for multilingual sites, is free on WordPress.org, made by Owldraft, and maintained for the long term.

It’s built to stay light. The theme zip is about 240 KB. On the front end it loads one stylesheet (about 26 KB gzipped) and one small script (about 3.5 KB gzipped) for the search dialog and the mobile menu, and nothing from a third-party server: no Google Fonts, no external scripts, no trackers. Fonts are self-hosted through WordPress’s Font Library (WordPress 7.0+), with a system-font fallback on older versions.

You write in the native WordPress block editor (Gutenberg), styled to match the front end, and you set up the design in the WordPress Customizer with a live preview: header layout, a light or dark header, fonts, colors, and archive and post options. There’s no page builder in the way. The markup is clean and semantic, with skip links and a search dialog and menu that work from the keyboard, so pages are easy to read for people, screen readers, search engines and AI assistants alike.

Features

• Free, GPL v2 or later, listed in the WordPress.org theme directory
• Small ~240 KB theme zip
• Tested up to WordPress 7.1; needs WordPress 6.5+ and PHP 7.4+, PHP 8 ready
• One stylesheet (~26 KB gzipped) and one small front-end script, no page builder
• Self-hosted fonts via WordPress’s Font Library (WordPress 7.0+), no Google Fonts
• Separate body, heading, navigation & logo fonts, with heading weight and letter case
• Colors for text, accent, background, meta text and text selection
• Header: three layouts (logo left, logo centered, menu below), light or dark skin, custom colors, and an optional call-to-action button such as Subscribe
• Text or image logo, with its size (24 to 96px) and corner radius
• Three menu locations: primary, social and footer, with brand icons picked from each social link’s URL
• Search dialog at every screen width
• Blog home: the newest post as a featured hero, then an After Featured Post widget area for a newsletter signup form or a note
• Archive: thumbnail side, ratio, width and corner radius; dates as a date or “3 days ago”; show or hide categories, excerpt, date, author and comment count
• Single post: featured image with a width cap, subtitle, category position, tags and comments
• Layout: narrow or full content width for archives, pages and posts, plus wide and full-width blocks
• Two post editor styles: Simple, or the serif Manuscript writing sheet
• Footer widget area (equal columns, or the first or last one wider) and a footer menu
• Sticky post styling and styled Query Loop blocks
• Accessibility: skip links, plus a search dialog and mobile menu that work from the keyboard
• Responsive, from phones to wide screens
• RTL-ready for Arabic, Hebrew, Persian and Urdu sites: header, menus, sidebar, post list, comments, search dialog and mobile menu all mirror, in the editor too
• Multilingual: WPML compatible (the copyright line and header button register for translation), works with Polylang, and translation-ready
• Works with Owldraft Newsletter, our free newsletter plugin
• Set up a site like the demo in a few minutes with the free Starter Sites plugin (guide)

Example sites

Here are some websites that use the Stoat theme:

• owldraft.com (this site)
• owldraft-newsletter-demo.owldraft.com (newsletter, the Owldraft Newsletter demo)

FAQs

Is this theme free?

Yes. Stoat is free and licensed under the GPL v2 or later, so you can use it on as many sites as you like, personal or commercial. Install it from Appearance → Themes → Add New Theme by searching for “Stoat”.

Is Stoat a block theme?

No. Stoat is a classic theme that fully supports the block editor: you write posts and pages with blocks, and you set up the design in Appearance → Customize, with a live preview.

Does Stoat use Google Fonts?

No. Fonts are self-hosted through WordPress’s Font Library (WordPress 7.0+), and older versions use the system font stack. The theme requests nothing from other servers.

How do I make my site look like the demo?

Install the free Starter Sites plugin and import the Stoat demo: posts, pages, menus and settings. The install guide walks through it.

Can I add a newsletter signup form?

Yes. Put a signup form in the After Featured Post widget area or the footer widgets, and point the header button at your signup page. Any newsletter plugin works; Owldraft Newsletter is ours, and free.

Do I need to keep the theme credit in the footer?

No, you don’t have to — turn off Customize → Footer → Keep theme credit. But we’re thankful if you keep it ^^

Can I use it on WordPress.com?

Yes, but only on a WordPress.com plan that lets you install third-party themes and plugins (Creator or Entrepreneur). The Personal and Premium plans can’t install themes from WordPress.org.

Will you maintain/update it?

Yes. We will maintain it. This is a long-term project.

Changelog

Every released version is listed in the full changelog.

Updates & Support

Stoat is actively maintained. Updates ship through the official WordPress.org theme directory, so you’ll be notified inside your dashboard whenever a new version is available.

Need help? Start with the documentation, or post in the WordPress.org support forum.

Stoat WordPress Theme, © 2026 Owldraft, GPL v2 or later. Bundled resources and screenshot photos: credits.