From Hero to Outsider: The Rise and Fall of ThemeForest in the WordPress Ecosystem
Back in the early days of WordPress, ThemeForest was a godsend. I remember how excited I was to tell folks at WordCamps about it, how a $25 theme could save me days of client work and let me build sites without hiring a team. I even showed off my own blog, proudly running on a ThemeForest theme.
Now we’re in 2025, and things haven’t aged all that well for ThemeForest.
So what happened? How did one of the largest WordPress marketplaces become the awkward outsider in the room? And more importantly, what can we, as developers, creators, and founders, take away from it?
The Author Rates Never Made Sense
Let’s start with the elephant in the room. For years, ThemeForest (and Envato in general) operated on a revenue share model that felt like a bad record deal. Authors gave up 30% to 50% of their earnings, sometimes more, just to have their work listed. In return, they got access to a huge audience, sure, but at what cost?
The big problem wasn’t just the percentage, it was the lack of ownership. You didn’t control your branding, your customer list, your licensing terms. You were just another file in their library.
As a developer, I always found that hard to stomach. I’ve had themes pulled without warning, support tickets I couldn’t respond to, and customer emails I was never even allowed to see.
As I often say now: “If you’re not building your own customer base, you’re working for someone else.”
The GPL Argument Is Old News
For a while, the community blamed the licensing. ThemeForest was late to embrace the GPL, and when they finally did, it was a partial split license that only covered the PHP. But let’s be real: most major marketplaces followed that same path. Even StudioPress and Woo didn’t go all-in on GPL from the start.
This isn’t the real reason ThemeForest lost credibility. The community moved past that debate years ago.
The Quality Control Problem
This is where the cracks really started to show. ThemeForest has always been a mixed bag. You could find some beautifully designed themes, Kriesi, for example, built an empire there. But for every gem, there were ten more with bloated page builders, non-standard code, hardcoded shortcodes, and mystery meat navigation.
No consistency, no shared framework, no real commitment to quality. Just a race to the bottom.
I’ve edited more ThemeForest themes than I can count. Some were clean and well-structured. Others made me want to chuck my laptop into a river. It didn’t take long for devs to start saying, “If it’s from ThemeForest, I don’t want to touch it.”
The Community Never Fully Accepted It
Here’s the truth: ThemeForest was never built for developers. It was built for mass-market buyers. The quick-win crowd. Agencies who wanted to ship fast. Beginners who wanted something pretty and cheap.
That’s not a bad thing, but it always felt at odds with the rest of the WordPress ecosystem, where transparency, standards, and long-term thinking actually matter.
At some point, people just stopped talking about ThemeForest in serious dev circles. It didn’t die, but it faded into the background.
Australians?
Since I’ve come up with few sound arguments as to why ThemeForest is so loathed by WordPress community, I’ve going to go ahead and play the race card–I think it’s because Envato is an Australian company.
We live in a crazy age where if you’re Australian, you’re probably not going to get the welcome map when competing again American businesses. Obviously, I’m just kidding about the Aussie racism part.
So, What’s the Lesson for 2025?
I built WPBay because I knew we could do better. As developers, we need a platform that respects our work, supports our growth, and doesn’t force us into someone else’s mold. A place where we keep our customers, control our branding, and set our own pricing. And where users can trust that what they’re buying isn’t going to break their site in six months.
That’s the real difference. ThemeForest taught us what not to build. It commodified creativity. It built walls between developers and customers. And over time, it became irrelevant in a community that evolved beyond it.
WPBay isn’t trying to be the next ThemeForest. It’s trying to be the platform we all hoped ThemeForest would grow into, but never did.
If you’re a developer looking to sell your plugin or theme, do yourself a favor. Don’t just chase exposure. Build something you own. Own your customer base. Own your brand. That’s how you grow something real in 2025.
And if you’re tired of rent-a-platform models that take half your paycheck and give nothing back, come talk to me. We built WPBay for developers like us, the ones who believe in doing things right.
