Are Block Themes Finally Ready to Replace Classic WordPress Themes?

Have you noticed something different about WordPress lately? If you've been building websites for any length of time, the shift is hard to miss. The old way of doing things, with PHP templates and traditional customizers, is slowly giving way to something entirely new. Block themes and Full Site Editing have moved from experimental curiosities to mainstream tools that real people use every day.

A recent WP Engine poll found that 68% of WordPress professionals now prefer native FSE themes over traditional ones or page builder solutions. That's not a minor preference. That's a fundamental shift in how the community approaches web design. The reasons cited most often include cleaner code, easier updates, and better long-term maintainability.

But what does this mean for bloggers, small business owners, and anyone who just wants a website that works? Let's dig into the changes happening right now and figure out whether block themes deserve a place in your toolkit.

The Rise of Twenty Twenty-Five

Every year, WordPress releases a new default theme, and these themes tend to signal where the platform is heading. Twenty Twenty-Five, which launched alongside WordPress 6.7 in November 2024, represents the most ambitious default theme yet. It's built entirely with blocks, patterns, and the Site Editor in mind.

What makes this theme different from its predecessors? For starters, it ships with more than 70 block patterns. These aren't just decorative elements. They include full page layouts for landing pages, service showcases, testimonial sections, event listings, and contact forms. The idea is that you can assemble an entire website by mixing and matching these pre-built sections.

The theme also includes nine style variations. Each variation offers a different color palette and typography combination, allowing you to dramatically change your site's appearance without touching any code. The default uses Manrope for both headlines and body text, giving sites a clean, modern look that feels appropriate for everything from personal blogs to professional portfolios.

According to a Kinsta developer overview, the theme's philosophy centers on simplicity for users and flexibility for developers. It's designed to work well for someone publishing their first blog post and for an agency building client sites at scale.

Why Professionals Are Making the Switch

The growing preference for block themes isn't arbitrary. There are concrete technical reasons why developers and designers are moving in this direction, and understanding them helps explain why this trend matters.

Cleaner, More Maintainable Code

Classic WordPress themes rely on PHP templates, functions files, and custom stylesheets that can become unwieldy over time. Updates often require careful testing because changing one file might affect unexpected parts of the site. Block themes, by contrast, store design information in a single theme.json file. This centralized approach makes it much easier to understand how a site is configured and to make changes without breaking things.

According to WP Developer, the widespread adoption of block themes represents one of the most notable trends in WordPress development this year. Developers now rely heavily on theme.json and block.json files to specify design rules such as spacing, color palettes, typography, and layout structure.

Performance Advantages

Speed matters more than ever. Google data shows that 53% of mobile users abandon sites that take longer than three seconds to load. Block themes tend to perform better than traditional themes combined with page builders because they don't carry the same overhead.

Page builders, while powerful, often load large JavaScript and CSS files to enable their drag-and-drop functionality. Block themes use the native WordPress block editor, which ships with WordPress core. There's no additional plugin to load, no extra database queries to run, and no third-party scripts slowing things down.

Felt Media notes that FSE themes offer a performance advantage because they're lightweight, bloat-free, and provide a faster experience straight out of the box. When you're competing for attention online, those milliseconds add up.

Future-Proof Investment

WordPress is actively developing the block editor and Site Editor. New features, improvements, and bug fixes arrive with each release. Classic themes, while still supported, aren't receiving the same attention. If you build with blocks now, you position yourself to take advantage of future enhancements automatically.

The WordPress 6.7 release, for example, included 87 core enhancements and over 200 bug fixes. Eight Gutenberg versions were merged into core, bringing 445 improvements and 464 bug fixes to the block editor alone. Classic themes don't benefit from most of these updates in the same way.

What Full Site Editing Actually Means

The term "Full Site Editing" gets thrown around a lot, but what does it actually mean in practice? At its core, FSE lets you edit every part of your website using the same block-based interface you use for posts and pages. Headers, footers, sidebars, archive pages, search results, and 404 pages all become editable in the Site Editor.

Before FSE, customizing these elements required either diving into PHP template files or hoping your theme's customizer offered the options you needed. Now, you can visually arrange blocks, adjust spacing, change colors, and see the results immediately. The learning curve exists, but it's generally gentler than learning PHP templating.

Maple Creative explains that the Site Editor empowers users to design and customize their entire website using blocks. You can edit templates, individual parts like headers and footers, and the site's global styles for a streamlined and intuitive site-building experience.

The Zoom Out Mode

WordPress 6.7 introduced a feature called Zoom Out mode that addresses one of the common complaints about block editing. When you're working with dozens of blocks on a page, navigating between them can feel tedious. Zoom Out mode pulls back to show you the entire page structure, letting you move, rearrange, and edit patterns as cohesive units rather than individual blocks.

This is particularly helpful when you're working with complex layouts. Instead of scrolling through a long page and losing context, you can see how everything fits together and make adjustments at the pattern level.

The Reality for Small Business Owners

All of this sounds promising in theory, but what about someone running a small business who just needs a website that works? The honest answer is that block themes have become genuinely viable for non-technical users, but there's still a learning curve.

If you're comfortable with the WordPress block editor for writing posts, transitioning to a block theme shouldn't feel dramatically different. The same concepts apply, but you're now applying them to more parts of your site. Adding a new section to your homepage works much like adding content to a blog post.

The pattern library in themes like Twenty Twenty-Five helps bridge the gap. Instead of starting from scratch, you pick a pattern that roughly matches what you want, drop it onto your page, and customize the text and images. It's not quite as simple as filling in a form, but it's far more accessible than writing code.

What About Classic Themes?

Here's something important that often gets lost in the enthusiasm around block themes: classic themes aren't going away. As of this writing, WordPress has not announced any plans to discontinue support for classic themes. They continue to be widely used and supported within the WordPress ecosystem.

This matters because many existing sites run on classic themes, and there's no reason to panic or rush into a migration. If your current theme works well, meets your needs, and receives regular updates, you can continue using it without concern. The shift to block themes is happening gradually, not through forced obsolescence.

That said, if you're starting a new project, the advantages of block themes are difficult to ignore. The performance benefits, maintainability, and alignment with WordPress's development direction all point toward blocks being the better choice for new builds.

The Page Builder Question

What about popular page builders like Elementor, Divi, or Beaver Builder? These tools revolutionized WordPress design by making visual editing accessible before the block editor existed. They still offer capabilities that the native block editor can't match, particularly around advanced animations, conditional logic, and highly specific design controls.

However, the gap is narrowing. Each WordPress release adds features that previously required page builders. The question many agencies and freelancers face is whether the added weight of a page builder justifies the extra features when simpler alternatives exist.

The 68% preference figure from the WP Engine poll suggests that for many professionals, the answer is increasingly no. Native FSE themes offer cleaner code and easier updates, which translates to lower maintenance costs and fewer headaches over time. Page builders still have their place, particularly for complex sites with specific requirements, but they're no longer the automatic choice they once were.

Looking Ahead to WordPress 6.9

WordPress development doesn't stand still. Version 6.9, released in early December 2025, brought additional improvements that make block editing even more practical. According to WordPress.com, this release speeds up everyday work, improves collaboration features, and adds new block options that give users more room to shape their sites.

The trajectory is clear. Each release makes the block editor more powerful and the Site Editor more complete. Features that seemed experimental two years ago are now stable and reliable. The platform is converging around a block-based future, and themes that embrace this direction will benefit most from ongoing improvements.

Practical Considerations for Your Next Project

If you're planning a new website or considering a redesign, here are some practical factors to weigh when choosing between block themes and classic themes.

Choose a Block Theme If

• You want a lightweight, fast-loading site without relying on caching plugins to compensate for bloat
• You prefer visual editing and want to customize headers, footers, and templates without code
• Long-term maintainability matters more than having every possible feature today
• You're starting fresh without legacy content that depends on shortcodes or specific theme features

Stick with Classic Themes If

• Your existing site works well and migration would be disruptive
• You rely heavily on plugins that haven't been updated for block compatibility
• Your theme receives regular updates and you're comfortable with your current workflow
• You need specific features that block themes don't yet support

The Bottom Line

Block themes have crossed an important threshold. They're no longer experimental or reserved for early adopters. With 68% of professionals preferring them, widespread pattern libraries, and continuous improvements in each WordPress release, they've become a legitimate first choice for new projects.

The transition isn't complete, and classic themes remain fully supported. But the direction of WordPress development points unmistakably toward blocks. Themes like Twenty Twenty-Five demonstrate what's possible when a theme is built from the ground up around the Site Editor. More than 70 patterns, nine style variations, excellent performance, and support for all post formats make it a capable foundation for almost any website.

For bloggers and small business owners, this shift ultimately means more control over your site's design without needing developer help. The learning curve exists, but it's manageable, especially if you're already comfortable with the block editor for content. Give a block theme a try on a test site, play with patterns, and see whether the workflow clicks for you.

The websites we build today need to last for years. Choosing tools that align with WordPress's development direction isn't just about features available now. It's about positioning yourself to benefit from everything coming next.