Excellent
A confident, well-rounded pick.
At a glance
Jarida is a well-regarded, purpose-built WordPress theme that delivers genuine editorial value for news sites, digital magazines, and high-frequency blogs. Its exceptional buyer rating across a large review pool makes it one of the more trustworthy options in its category. We recommend it to publishers who need a credible, content-first layout and are comfortable with the current update gap — but advise confirming TieLabs' maintenance roadmap before committing.
Best for

The review
4 min readWhat Is Jarida and Who Is It For?
Jarida — the Arabic word for "newspaper" — is a responsive WordPress theme developed by TieLabs, a studio with a focused catalog of editorial and news-oriented themes. It targets site owners running online newspapers, digital magazines, or content-heavy blogs who want the visual credibility of a major publication without commissioning a bespoke design. If you're launching a political commentary site, a local news outlet, a niche hobbyist magazine, or a multi-author blog that publishes frequently, Jarida was built with your workflow in mind.
This is not a general-purpose multipurpose theme repurposed for news. Its category — News/Editorial — signals a deliberate design focus on content hierarchy, reading experience, and the kind of dense, scannable layouts readers expect from digital publications.
Standout Capabilities
Editorial Layout System
Jarida's core strength is its library of pre-built homepage and category-page layouts built around magazine-style grid blocks. These let editors place breaking news, featured stories, trending posts, and section previews in a visually ordered hierarchy — the kind of flexibility that usually requires custom development. Multiple header styles and post-listing variations mean you can tune the look of individual sections without touching code.
Typography and Readability
News themes live or die on their reading experience. Jarida's design emphasizes clean typographic scale, comfortable line lengths, and clear category color-coding — all standard expectations in the editorial space that TieLabs appears to have executed with care, consistent with its high buyer satisfaction score.
Responsive and Mobile-First Presentation
With a large share of news traffic arriving on mobile devices, a theme that collapses gracefully to a single column is non-negotiable. Jarida is marketed as fully responsive, and its sustained sales volume alongside a near-5-star rating suggest real-world mobile behavior has not been a consistent complaint from buyers.
Advertising and Monetization Readiness
Most news and magazine publishers monetize through display advertising. Jarida, like virtually all mature themes in this category, includes built-in ad widget areas and banner placement zones so publishers can drop in AdSense or direct-sold units without custom coding.
RTL and Multilingual Considerations
The theme's name and TieLabs' publishing history suggest attention to right-to-left script support — a meaningful advantage for publishers targeting Arabic, Hebrew, or other RTL-language audiences, a segment frequently underserved by Western theme studios.
Pricing and Value Assessment
At $99 for a one-time license, Jarida sits in the mid-tier of premium WordPress themes. It is priced above entry-level options ($29–$49) but below agency-focused or subscription-bundled products. For a publication-specific theme with this depth of layout options and a track record of updates and buyer support, $99 represents reasonable value — particularly given there are no recurring license fees attached to the one-time purchase. Buyers should, however, factor in the cost of extended support if they want coverage beyond the included period, as marketplace support renewals add to the total cost of ownership.
Reading the Sales and Rating History
8,100 sales is a meaningful milestone in the WordPress theme marketplace. It places Jarida clearly in the upper tier of its category without reaching the blockbuster status of the most widely recognized multipurpose themes. Crucially, the 4.78/5 rating from 1,300 reviews is not a small-sample anomaly — 1,300 verified buyer reviews is a large enough pool to be statistically meaningful. A score this high across that many reviews suggests consistent satisfaction with both the theme's functionality and the author's responsiveness to support requests.
One note of caution: the last recorded author update was July 2024. As of 2026, that represents roughly 18–24 months without a confirmed update. WordPress core, popular plugins, and browser standards evolve continuously, and a gap of this length warrants a direct question to TieLabs about their active maintenance commitment before purchasing.
Who Should Look Elsewhere
Jarida is a purpose-built editorial theme, and that focus is both its strength and its limitation. If you're running an e-commerce store, a portfolio, or a business service site that also has a blog, a multipurpose theme with WooCommerce-first architecture will serve you better. Similarly, developers who want a blank-canvas theme they can extend programmatically may find Jarida's opinionated layouts constraining. Buyers who rely heavily on a specific page builder (such as Elementor or Bricks) should confirm compatibility before purchasing, as news themes often ship with their own custom meta framework rather than page-builder integration.
The trade-offs
What works, what to weigh
What works
- Strong niche focus on news and magazine layouts reduces setup complexity vs. adapting a multipurpose theme
- 4.78/5 from 1,300 verified reviews reflects consistent, broad buyer satisfaction
- One-time $99 license with no mandatory recurring fee offers clear cost predictability
- Multiple pre-built section and homepage layouts support varied editorial structures out of the box
- 8,100 sales indicate a large user community and wide availability of third-party tutorials and help
- Apparent RTL language support broadens its appeal to non-English-language publishers
What to weigh
- Last author update was July 2024 — roughly 18–24 months old as of 2026, raising questions about ongoing maintenance
- Deep news-specific layout system creates a learning curve for publishers new to magazine-style WordPress themes
- Not suited for e-commerce or portfolio use cases; the focus on editorial content is narrow by design
- Extended support beyond the included period requires an additional paid renewal
- Heavy use of custom widget areas and layout blocks may introduce plugin/theme conflicts in complex site builds
Under the hood
Specs & compatibility
Works with
- On the market
- 13 years ago
- Columns
- 3
- Widget-ready
- Yes
- Documentation
- Well Documented
- Files included
- PHP Files, CSS Files, JS Files
Marketplace-listed browser compatibility: IE9, IE10, IE11, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Chrome.
Editorial scores are judgements about documented features and marketplace signals, not measured speed or support benchmarks. Marketplace data last checked: 2026-08-03. Read our assessment method.
Questions, answered
Frequently asked
Is Jarida still actively maintained, and will it work with the latest version of WordPress?
Jarida was officially deprecated by TieLabs on January 1, 2020, and the last marketplace update was recorded in July 2024. The theme lists compatibility with WordPress 5.3.x, which is several major releases behind the current WordPress core. Buyers should verify compatibility with their WordPress version before purchasing, and TieLabs themselves recommend migrating to their Jannah theme for long-term support.
What do I get for the $99 one-time price, and are there any recurring fees?
The $99 license is a one-time purchase that covers a single-site use of the theme, as is standard for ThemeForest Regular Licenses. There are no recurring subscription fees from TieLabs, though six months of author support is included, with the option to extend it at an additional cost through the marketplace. Given the theme's end-of-life status, buyers should weigh the value of that support coverage carefully.
Does Jarida work with WPML for multilingual or RTL sites?
Yes, Jarida is listed as compatible with WPML, making it a viable option for multilingual publications. The theme also explicitly supports RTL (right-to-left) layouts, which is useful for Arabic, Hebrew, or Farsi-language news sites. That said, confirming that these features function correctly with your current WordPress and WPML versions is advisable before committing, given the theme's deprecation status.
Is Jarida beginner-friendly, or does it require developer experience?
The theme is described as well-documented and includes shortcodes and widgets to help non-developers manage layout and content. It does not appear to natively support major drag-and-drop page builders like Elementor or WPBakery based on available metadata, so buyers expecting a visual editor workflow should verify this before purchasing. Site owners comfortable with the WordPress block editor and basic theme customization should find the learning curve manageable.
Can I run a WooCommerce store alongside my news or magazine content with Jarida?
WooCommerce is listed as a supported use case for Jarida, so basic e-commerce functionality — such as selling merchandise or digital products alongside editorial content — is intended to be compatible. However, since the theme has not been updated beyond WordPress 5.3.x compatibility, buyers running a recent version of WooCommerce should test for conflicts thoroughly. For a production store, confirming compatibility in a staging environment first is strongly recommended.
How reliable is Jarida based on buyer feedback, and what do reviewers commonly flag?
With 8,100 sales and a 4.78 out of 5 rating across 1,300 reviews, Jarida has one of the stronger trust signals in the news-magazine category on ThemeForest. That volume of reviews over the theme's lifespan suggests consistent satisfaction with its editorial layout and feature set. The main concern buyers raise — and which our editorial team echoes — is the deprecation notice and the update gap, which introduces real uncertainty around long-term compatibility and security.
Our verdict
Jarida is a well-regarded, purpose-built WordPress theme that delivers genuine editorial value for news sites, digital magazines, and high-frequency blogs. Its exceptional buyer rating across a large review pool makes it one of the more trustworthy options in its category. We recommend it to publishers who need a credible, content-first layout and are comfortable with the current update gap — but advise confirming TieLabs' maintenance roadmap before committing.
Topics & features
Keep exploring
About the author
TieLabs has been selling on Envato since February 2010 and has accumulated nearly 73,000 total marketplace sales — a track record that places them among the more established WordPress theme studios. Our editorial team has reviewed two of their flagship themes, Sahifa and Jannah, both built for news, magazine, and blog publishers.
- Reviewed by us
- 3 themes
- Avg editorial score
- 8.5/10
- Marketplace sales
- 73K
- Selling since
- 2010
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