Classic#27

Lightning

Lightning is a free WordPress theme by Hidekazu Ishikawa with 100K+ active installs, ranked #27 among the most popular WordPress themes today. It is rated 4.8/5 from 12 reviews and has been downloaded 3.3M times. The latest version 15.42.0 was released on September 9, 2026.

100K+Active installs1.07% of tracked installs

#27RankPeak #19

139Downloads / dayprev 571

1.7M7-day downloads

3.3MAll-time downloads

93Days tracked93 in top 50

1d▬7d▼ 830d▼ 890d▼ 8

Highlights

Slipped 8 positions over the last 30 days.
Ranks in the top 5.7% of all tracked themes.
Best position recorded: #19.
Last updated 2 months ago.
Next install milestone: next 200K+.

Performance (Lighthouse)

87Mobile

98Desktop

LCP: 2.7s
FCP: 1.8s
TBT: 70ms
CLS: 0.01
Page weight: 190 KB

Tested on a clean install with demo content. Scores vary ±5 between runs. Run a live test ↗

Real-world usage

60KDetected live sites

100K+WordPress.org installs

Trend explorer

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Monthly readings

Month	Rank	Change
November 2026	#27	▬
October 2026	#27	▼ 8
September 2026	#19	▲ 1
August 2026	#20	—

Monthly readings

Month	Installs	Change
November 2026	100K	—
October 2026	100K	—
September 2026	100K	—
August 2026	100K	—

Websites using Lightning

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Details

Author: Hidekazu Ishikawa
Version: 15.42.0
Last updated: September 9, 2026
Added: July 24, 2015
Requires WordPress: 6.6
Requires PHP: 7.4
First tracked: August 1, 2026

block stylesblogcustom backgroundcustom colorscustom logocustom menueditor stylefeatured imagesfooter widgetsfull width templateone columnsticky posttheme optionsthreaded comments

Description

Lightning is a very simple & easy to customize theme which is based on the Bootstrap. It is also very friendly with custom post types and custom taxonomies. When you add a new one, the breadcrumbs will be adjusted and posts will look beautifully without editing or adding a template files.