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Theme Frameworks are a great way to kickstart developing your next WordPress theme. While not always popular amongst the die-hard developers they offer a more accessible route into developing Themes and knowledge that there is often support and a community around the framework you choose to go with. You'll find hundreds of Theme Frameworks available ranging from Free to Paid.

Why Use A Framework?

Frameworks offer a broad variety of benefits. Many of the popular frameworks are open source, have been in active development for years and have a strong community around them with a wealth of knowledge to help you on your way. Also open source frameworks benefit from peer reviews and hundreds of developers checking the core code base for security and best practices. Plus by starting with a Framework, it'll help you learn more about WordPress development and how everything works.

Before you pick a Theme Framework, always make sure to read or at least glance at the documentation first.

You don't want to start with one theme framework, then realize the documentation is lacking and get lost on what to do next. When using a Theme Framework for your project, documentation is one of the most important factors along with how active development of the theme is. You'll also want to decide if you want to use the WordPress Theme Customizer (Recommend) or go with an options panel in the wp-admin area for the theme.

Let's take a look at some of the best frameworks available, in no particular order.

1: Genesis - Price $59.95 (Unlimited Sites).

Genesis is one of the most popular theme frameworks regardless of price. Developed by StudioPress, Genesis benefits from fantastic documentation, great support, and a stable code base. Not only that, but there are also very active Facebook groups dedicated to the theme and a range of premium and free plugins offered as add-ons by third-party developers. Backed up by vibrant community support. You can't go wrong with picking Genesis as the basis for your next theme.

2: Underscores - Price $free (unlimited sites - open source)

Underscores is the work of the Automattic team and a variety of open source contributors. Not only has it been developed to WordPress coding standards by the best developers in the business, it benefits from a wide range of online tutorials, an active community and being open source, anyone can submit a pull request, make contributions and keep up with the development on Github.

Unlike other Theme Frameworks, underscores isn't designed to be a parent theme with a child theme used.

Underscores is intended to be the start of your next project. Rename it, change it. Go wild.

There's even a site for Underscores where you can generate the theme with your name to be used throughout the theme: http://underscores.me/ Without a doubt Underscores is one of the best, if not the best, open source theme frameworks.

Lightweight. No bloat. No fancy bells and whistles.

3: Sage - Price $free (unlimited sites - open source)

Sage formerly known as Roots until it was re-branded is one of the most popular open source Theme Frameworks. Based on the twitter bootstrap framework with the latest HTML 5 templates and coded to PSR-2 coding standards. Sass stylesheets out the box, live reloading support. Auto minification of scripts, integrated with the WordPress Theme Customizer.

Community supported and with a well-written range of docs available to help you get started,  Sage is a smart choice for anyone who wants to get started with WordPress Theme Development or is a seasoned pro.

4: Unyson - Price $free (unlimited sites - open source)

Just like some of the other Theme frameworks we've explored above, Unyson is also free and open source. Created by the team at ThemeFuse Unyson is one of the most well-documented Theme Frameworks available making it perfect if you're newer to WordPress Development. Also a lightweight no bells and whistles Page Builder is included.

While you wouldn't normally find page builders in theme frameworks and it's certainly an interesting choice, you aren't required to use it though some users may find it useful.

In addition, Unyson includes multiple modules and support for Mega Menus, Unlimited Sidebars, Sliders, Portfolios and much more. Making Unyson almost more like a fully featured theme with the ease of use and expandability of a Theme Framework yet still completely free and well documented. What more can you ask for?

5: Hybrid Core - Price $free (unlimited sites - open source)

Hybrid Core is one of my personal favorite theme frameworks. Not just because it's created by Justin Tadlock, one of the best theme developers in the business, but because of its simplicity and ease of use, but also power. You won't quite understand the power of the framework until you start using but out of the box support for Microdata (rich snippets), pagination, custom theme layouts and post templates and breadcrumbs. Translation ready out the box. It offers everything you'd need in a WordPress Theme Framework.

Not only that but it's also got some pretty great documentation.

Why didn't you include Themes like Divi?

I'm sure people will ask this or at least think it to themselves. Themes like Divi are good and useful to people including fancy front-end page builders, a variety of modules and what seems like unlimited design options.

...but they are just that: themes. Multi-purpose themes. They aren't theme frameworks. A theme framework is meant to be taken and extended.

With a theme like Divi you'd just create a Child theme and maybe add some custom CSS and tweak it more or less. While that isn't a bad thing per se, it's not what a theme framework is meant to be, and that's why nothing like Divi was included in this roundup.

Hopefully this will help you pick the framework for your next project. Developed your own theme framework? Have a favorite I've missed? Let us know in the comments below.