Everything You Need to Know About WordPress Admin Themes

If you’re not too happy with the look and feel of your admin dashboard in WordPress, don’t worry, there are great solutions available.

WordPress is a flexible platform and almost every part of it is possible to modify or customize. Sometimes quite simple, sometimes more complex. Perhaps you want something more stylish and colorful when you or your clients are working in WordPress?

If you would like to change and create something unique or just give your dashboard in WordPress a facelift with a new WordPress admin theme, there are a couple of options to choose from: With a WordPress plugin or by simply changing the CSS.

I must admit that it is pretty much easier with a plugin, but if you have knowledge of CSS and WordPress, why not try creating your own WordPress admin theme plugin?

In the WordPress codex, you can read and follow exactly how to creating an admin theme and style it with colors and options you like. Some knowledge is required if you choose this option.

If you choose a lighter and easier way, you use a plugin. I have put together the best WordPress admin themes plugins you can use to create a fancier and more elegant dashboard when you use WordPress.

In this post, I have also included great articles about admin themes and courses that I hope you can benefit from when you re-design and create your unique and awesome WordPress admin theme.

Legacy – White label WordPress Admin Theme

Everything You Need to Know About WordPress Admin Themes

Legacy WordPress admin theme plugin is one of the most advanced and feature-rich admin theme available. It includes white label branding features. Legacy comes with 20 elegant and beautiful themes. Fully customizable login screen. Ready to use on a multisite network. Form customizing CSS options panel. 650+ Google Fonts integrated and much more.

STATUS: OUTDATED OR NO LONGER AVAILABLE!

Forest – WordPress Admin Theme

Everything You Need to Know About WordPress Admin Themes

With Forest you can create an attractive admin dashboard to yourselves or your clients. With an innovative interface, you can switch to an awesome QuickPanel within minutes. Features included in Forest: 2 admin styles, full-width background image, background color and opacity, custom menu font, custom Login logo image and much more.

STATUS: OUTDATED OR NO LONGER AVAILABLE!

Modern Admin – Flat WordPress Admin Theme

Everything You Need to Know About WordPress Admin Themes

Modern Admin is a flat styled WordPress admin theme with modern, trendy and retina ready design. The layout is clean, elegant. This plugin comes with 5 color schemes included Blue (default), Green, Red, Yellow, Purple. More features are custom logo text/image, import/export settings, retina support, multilanguage support and auto updates.

STATUS: OUTDATED OR NO LONGER AVAILABLE!

Ultra – WordPress Admin Theme

Everything You Need to Know About WordPress Admin Themes

Ultra is a WordPress admin plugin with 30 awesome built-in themes and you have the option to create your own theme as well. This is a feature-rich plugin with endless of possibilities. Along with white label branding features it comes with options such as customize admin top bar, footer, menu icons, multisite compatible. Custom logo for the login page, content box styling options.

STATUS: OUTDATED OR NO LONGER AVAILABLE!

WPShapere – WordPress Admin Theme

Everything You Need to Know About WordPress Admin Themes

With WPShapere you can easily customize and style the WordPress admin dashboard. WPShapere comes with a user-friendly interface to manage the colors and elements. Key features are a powerful and simple to use options panel, unlimited color options + 16 pre-made pro themes. White label branding, export and import settings, multi-site network support.

STATUS: OUTDATED OR NO LONGER AVAILABLE!

WAT – WordPress Admin Theme

Everything You Need to Know About WordPress Admin Themes

WordPress Admin Theme (WAT) is a premium plugin to customize the look and feel of your WordPress admin dashboard. This is a feature-rich plugin. WAT includes 43 built-in color themes. White label branding. Multi-site network support, Google fonts, flat and Shadow effect color options. Custom logo options for login and dashboard pages.

STATUS: OUTDATED OR NO LONGER AVAILABLE!

Clientside – WordPress Admin Theme

Everything You Need to Know About WordPress Admin Themes

Clientside is a WordPress admin theme packed with features a variety of options to help you customize and style you admin dashboard. Clientside comes with a clean, simplified and uncluttered interface. Features included are responsive layout, themed login page with custom logo options. A toolbar notification center, white label, translation / WPML ready.

STATUS: OUTDATED OR NO LONGER AVAILABLE!

Slate Pro – A White Label WordPress Admin Theme

Everything You Need to Know About WordPress Admin Themes

Slate Pro is a powerful WordPress admin theme plugin to dress up your admin dashboard with an elegant look and feel. With this plugin, you can create a customized WordPress admin area for your website or clients. Slate Pro comes with features such as custom colors, custom login screen, custom admin branding, multisite compatible. Add colors that matches your brand.

STATUS: OUTDATED OR NO LONGER AVAILABLE!

First – WordPress Admin Theme

Everything You Need to Know About WordPress Admin Themes

With First WordPress admin theme plugin, you can give your admin dashboard a new fresh look and feel. You can easily custom the admin bar, menu, icons, and colors. Login page: Change the login page logo. Style: Change the icons and colors. More features are: Disable open-sans font from google web font API, use local open-sans fonts and more.

STATUS: OUTDATED OR NO LONGER AVAILABLE!

Blue Press – WordPress Admin Theme

Everything You Need to Know About WordPress Admin Themes

Blue Press is a WordPress admin theme plugin to customize your admin dashboard in WordPress. The plugin includes 6 color schemes: Blue, Turquoise, YellowGreen, DarkOrange, Violet, FireBrick. A lot of color schemes to match your brand. Responsive design, WPMU support, custom login page, custom text in the footer, icon menu on the admin page and more.

STATUS: OUTDATED OR NO LONGER AVAILABLE!

Easy Admin

Everything You Need to Know About WordPress Admin Themes

Easy Admin is a premium WordPress plugin from AitThemes. Easy Admin offer you can your customers the ability to adapt and customize the WordPress admin panel. Add a more user-friendly look and feel. It is fully responsive, multilingual and easy to install and use. This is a great plugin to help non-technical clients a beautiful and simplified dashboard.

STATUS: OUTDATED OR NO LONGER AVAILABLE!

AdminPress – Custom Admin Theme

Everything You Need to Know About WordPress Admin Themes

AdminPress is a custom Admin Theme plugin from DuoGeek. With AdminPress, you can redesign and customize almost everything of your dashboard. AdminPress comes loaded with great features and options such as customize colors, buttons, link color, background image, background Opacity, Google fonts. Select login logo, add message over the login box plus much more.

STATUS: OUTDATED OR NO LONGER AVAILABLE!

Helios Solutions Custom Admin Theme

Everything You Need to Know About WordPress Admin Themes

Helios is an easy-to-use free WordPress admin theme plugin you can use to create your own WordPress admin color schemes. You can select from preset themes or create your own. Features included in the Helios admin theme plugin: Custom background color, font color, navigation menu color, post and page form color plus much more.

STATUS: OUTDATED OR NO LONGER AVAILABLE!

Slate Admin Theme

Everything You Need to Know About WordPress Admin Themes

Slate is a minimalist, clean free WordPress admin theme plugin. The designers goal was to simplify the visual design with a primary focus on the content writing experience. I think they succeeded very well. Slate simply provides a clean, simplified design for your WordPress Admin area. Sometimes less is more!

STATUS: OUTDATED OR NO LONGER AVAILABLE!

AG Custom Admin

Everything You Need to Know About WordPress Admin Themes

AG Custom Admin is a feature-rich free WorPress plugin to easily customize your WordPress admin panel. Brand your admin panel pages with custom content, colors, images, and text. AG Custom Admin comes packed with features such as free and responsive admin panel themes. Colorizer is a tool that can be used to change default WordPress admin panel colors, the admin bar, admin menu, login page, backgrounds, and fonts.

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AdminRocket

Everything You Need to Know About WordPress Admin Themes

AdminRocket is a free WordPress plugin that allows you to customize your WordPress backend with custom themes, dashboard widget, and your own settings. Features included in the plugin: Customize colors, background, buttons, menu, admin bar. Fonts, CSS animations, footer, the design of the admin login form, CircularNav plus much more.

STATUS: OUTDATED OR NO LONGER AVAILABLE!

Articles

If you want to read and learn more about Admin themes for WordPress, there are some good articles available I think you should take a look at.

Courses

  • Customizing the WordPress Admin Area

Wrapping up

As you can see, there are quite a few ways to change the style and look in your WordPress dashboard with crisp admin themes. Most of the plugins are simple to install and customize. Some include more options than others, so try a few plugins to find something you like.

If you feel more adventurous, why not create an admin theme plugin of your own. It’s not super difficult, but it might take a while before all the pieces fall into place. There are several free plugins in the list but if you want more features and purchase a plugin, good news, none of them are especially expensive.

Have I forgotten or overlooked something that fits in the article please leave a comment.

1 thought on “Everything You Need to Know About WordPress Admin Themes”

  1. This is very interesting and could spawn a whole new industry of admin theme building. I believe the introduction of the WP REST API will make it more feasible, too.

    I have a couple of concerns.

    1) Training on WordPress
    If the admin panel is different on each client site, it could be harder for training providers to sell consistent training solutions. Training would have to be tailored to the individual site, or users could get confused if the look of wp-admin is different from that in the training materials.

    2. Accessibility
    The Make WordPress Accessible team is trying to get theme authors to adopt accessibility standards for themes. To this end they have created the accessibility-ready tag for themes that meet those standards. Would admin themes be subject to the same scrutiny?

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