Delish WordPress Theme

The Delish WordPress Theme was one of a family of free blog themes we released at WPNeon. If you arrived here by clicking a “Delish Theme” credit in the footer of a website, you are in the right place — and you are almost certainly running a theme that has not been updated in a long time.

Here is the straight answer before anything else: Delish is no longer maintained and is no longer distributed. It was one of a small family of free blog themes we released, and like most free themes from that era, it reached the end of its life quietly rather than with an announcement. This page exists to tell you what that actually means for your site, how to work out whether anything is genuinely broken right now, and what to do next if it is.

We are not going to pretend the theme still competes with what is available today. It does not. But “unmaintained” is not the same as “broken tomorrow”, and the honest answer to “do I need to panic?” is almost always no — with some real caveats worth understanding.

What the Delish WordPress Theme was

Delish was a free WordPress blog theme distributed with a footer credit link, which is why you probably found this page. That distribution model is the reason it still appears on a few dozen live sites years after active development stopped: nobody had a reason to remove the credit, and the theme kept working.

It was part of a group of free themes we put out around the same period. Several of those are still documented here:

• Trope — a clean, content-first theme for personal and fashion blogs
• Candour — aimed at blogs, travel and magazine-style sites
• Bubbly — a lighter blogging theme with multiple homepage layouts
• Wiles — a three-column masonry theme built on Underscores
• Engross — a zigzag-layout blog theme with widget positioning options
• Dansal — a child theme of Twenty Sixteen
• Parole 2015 — a child theme of Twenty Fifteen

If you are running any of those rather than Delish, everything below applies to you equally. The two child themes are a partial exception, and we cover why further down.

Is the Delish WordPress Theme still maintained?

No. There are no further updates, no security patches, and no compatibility work being done against new WordPress releases.

It is worth being precise about what that means, because “unmaintained theme” gets used to scare people into migrations they do not need. An unmaintained theme does not stop working on a schedule. WordPress is unusually good at backwards compatibility — that is a deliberate project value, and it is why sites running decade-old code often keep chugging along. What actually happens is slower and more specific than “it breaks”.

What genuinely goes wrong with an unmaintained theme

Four things, roughly in the order you are likely to encounter them.

1. PHP version drift

This is the one that bites people. Hosts upgrade PHP, and older themes were written against PHP 5.x or early 7.x conventions. Functions get deprecated, then removed. The usual symptom is not a white screen — it is a stream of deprecation notices in your error log, or a warning banner at the top of your admin, or one specific feature that quietly stops working.

If your host has recently moved you to PHP 8.x and something looks off, this is the first place to look. It is also the most common reason an old theme finally does break outright.

2. Core API changes

WordPress has changed shape substantially since these themes were written. The block editor replaced the classic editor as the default writing experience, and full site editing changed how themes declare templates, styles and layout. A classic theme still functions, but it sits outside the newer system entirely — you will not get block-based template editing, global styles, or the newer design tools, because the theme does not declare support for them.

Nothing is broken here. You are simply on the old track, and the gap widens with each release.

3. Security surface

Themes are executable code. An unmaintained theme is one that will not receive a patch if a vulnerability is found in it. In practice, most reported WordPress vulnerabilities are in plugins rather than themes, and a simple blog theme has a much smaller attack surface than something bundled with sliders, form builders and demo importers. But the risk is not zero, and it is a risk that only ever increases.

If you are staying put for now, this is the argument for getting your other housekeeping right — see our guides to WordPress security plugins and backup plugins. A current backup is the single most useful thing you can have.

4. Performance and Core Web Vitals expectations

The bar moved. Themes from this period were built before Core Web Vitals existed as a ranking consideration, and before mobile-first indexing was universal. They are not necessarily slow — many older themes are lighter than modern ones precisely because they do less — but they were not designed against metrics like Largest Contentful Paint or Cumulative Layout Shift, and things like image lazy-loading, modern image formats and font loading strategy were not part of the design.

Worth noting honestly: theme choice is only one input into site speed. Hosting, plugin load, image sizes and caching usually matter more. Swapping themes to chase a performance score, while leaving twenty plugins and unoptimised images in place, tends to disappoint.

How to check whether your site is actually affected

Before deciding anything, spend ten minutes establishing what is true of your site specifically. In order:

1. Confirm what you are actually running. In your WordPress admin, go to Appearance → Themes. The active theme is the one to check. If you are running a child theme, note the parent as well.
2. Open Site Health. Tools → Site Health → Info gives you your PHP version, WordPress version, and server environment in one place. The Status tab flags anything WordPress itself considers a problem.
3. Check your PHP version. If you are on PHP 8.1 or later and the theme predates it, deprecation notices are likely. If you are still on PHP 7.4 or earlier, your host will move you eventually — better to find out on your terms.
4. Look at your error log. Most hosts expose this in the control panel. A wall of repeated deprecation warnings from theme files tells you precisely where you stand.
5. Test the site on a phone. Not an emulator — an actual phone. Old themes often handle narrow viewports adequately but not well, and this is where the visible problems usually are.

If all five come back clean, you have time. Plan the migration properly rather than rushing it.

What to move to

If you are replacing a lightweight free blog theme, you want another lightweight theme rather than a multipurpose framework. The realistic shortlist in 2026:

• Twenty Twenty-Five — the current WordPress default. Free, maintained by the WordPress project itself, block-native, and the safest possible bet for longevity. If your site is genuinely just a blog, start here before considering anything else.
• Kadence — free tier is generous, good block editor integration, strong header and footer controls. A common landing spot for people leaving older classic themes.
• Blocksy — modern, block-focused, capable free version. Worth a look if you want more design control than the default gives you.
• GeneratePress — long-standing reputation for being lightweight and stable. The free version is deliberately minimal; the paid add-on unlocks most of the design controls.
• Astra — very widely used, large template library, works well with page builders if you plan to use one.

We cover this ground in more depth in our roundup of Gutenberg-compatible WordPress themes and our list of free WordPress themes.

One honest caveat on all of these: theme feature lists change, free tiers get restructured, and pricing moves. Check the developer’s current documentation before committing rather than trusting any roundup — including ours — as the final word on what is included today.

How to migrate without breaking your site

The mistake almost everyone makes is switching themes on the live site to “see how it looks”. Do not do that. Here is the order that avoids pain:

1. Take a full backup first. Files and database, downloaded somewhere off the server. Not negotiable.
2. Build on staging. Most decent hosts offer one-click staging. If yours does not, that is a reasonable prompt to look at better WordPress hosting.
3. Expect your Customizer settings not to transfer. Colours, layout choices, header settings and typography live in theme mods, which are theme-specific. Screenshot your current settings before you switch so you can rebuild them.
4. Check your widgets and menus. Widget areas are defined by the theme. Switching themes orphans widgets into an “Inactive Widgets” area — they are not lost, but they will need reassigning. Menus usually survive but need re-mapping to the new theme’s locations.
5. Watch for theme shortcodes. If the old theme provided shortcodes and you used them in posts, they will render as raw text after the switch. Search your content for square brackets before you commit.
6. Use a child theme for customisations. If you have edited theme files directly, those edits will be lost. Rebuild them in a child theme so the next update does not wipe them again.
7. Verify your SEO setup survived. Titles, meta descriptions and schema are usually handled by your SEO plugin rather than your theme, so they should carry over — but confirm it. If you are still setting this up, our guide to WordPress SEO plugins and our RankMath Pro review cover the main options.
8. Compare before and after on mobile and desktop, then push to live during your quietest traffic period.

A note on the child themes

If you are running Dansal or Parole 2015, your situation is slightly better. Both are child themes of WordPress default themes — Twenty Sixteen and Twenty Fifteen respectively — and those parents are still maintained by the WordPress project. The parent theme keeps receiving compatibility fixes even though the child does not. You are not exposed in the same way, and the migration is generally simpler because much of the underlying behaviour is standard.

If you want to keep running Delish anyway

That is a legitimate choice, particularly for a low-traffic personal blog that works fine and earns nothing. If you go that route, do these things:

• Keep WordPress core and all plugins updated, even though the theme is not.
• Run automated backups you have actually tested restoring at least once.
• Ask your host what PHP version you are on and when they plan to change it, so the upgrade is not a surprise.
• Remove plugins you no longer use — they are a bigger risk than the theme.
• Re-check the site properly after every major WordPress release rather than assuming.

And if the site matters commercially, migrate. The calculus changes entirely once there is revenue attached.

Common questions

Will my site break if I do nothing?

Not on a schedule, and probably not soon. The most likely trigger is a host-initiated PHP upgrade. Knowing your current PHP version and your host’s roadmap tells you most of what you need.

Can I still download Delish?

No. It is no longer distributed. If you find it mirrored on a third-party download site, do not install it — repackaged WordPress themes from unofficial mirrors are a well-known malware vector, and there is no upside when maintained free alternatives exist.

Do I have to remove the footer credit?

There is no obligation to keep it. If you are migrating away, the question resolves itself.

Will changing themes hurt my search rankings?

A theme change on its own does not typically cause ranking loss, because your URLs, content and metadata are unaffected. Problems come from what changes alongside it — losing internal links that lived in widgets, altering heading structure, dropping page speed, or breaking mobile layout. Keep your URL structure identical, preserve your heading hierarchy, and check internal links after the switch.

Is a free theme good enough in 2026?

For a blog, yes. Twenty Twenty-Five, Kadence and Blocksy all ship capable free versions. The paid tiers buy design control and support, not fundamentally better SEO or speed.

The short version

Delish is retired. If your site still runs it, nothing catastrophic is happening right now, but you are on a slowly widening gap between your theme and the platform it sits on. Check your PHP version and error log, take a backup, and plan a move to a maintained theme when it suits you — on staging, with your Customizer settings screenshotted, and with your widgets and menus checked afterwards.

If you are researching the replacement, start with our free WordPress themes roundup and our Gutenberg theme guide. If the migration has you rethinking your hosting at the same time, our WordPress hosting comparison is the place to start.