Responsive Miracle Hover to scroll · click a device to open the full responsive preview
Is Salient a good WordPress theme for a creative portfolio?
Salient is a $60 creative multipurpose WordPress theme from ThemeNectar with 171,287 sales and a 4.81 rating from around 6,900 buyers. It runs a heavily customised version of WPBakery with both front-end and back-end editing, and adds design features you will not find elsewhere: shape dividers, cascading images with parallax, page transitions and the Nectar Slider.
Best for: a design-led portfolio or agency site where the motion and layout details are the point
The Salient WordPress theme has sold 171,287 copies at a 4.81 rating, one of the strongest scores among the long-running ThemeForest bestsellers. ThemeNectar has been shipping it for over a decade, and a single licence still carries free updates for life.
Design features that are genuinely exclusive
To begin with, Salient earns its reputation on details other themes do not have. Shape dividers let you cut section boundaries into curves and angles with control over size, position and colour. Moreover, cascading images overlap on the page and can parallax on scroll. In addition, page transitions smooth the move between pages, and the Nectar Slider handles parallax scrolling, image and video backgrounds, and per-slide recolouring of the header navigation from light to dark.
A closer look at the Salient demo
A page builder in two places
Meanwhile, Salient ships a heavily customised version of WPBakery with a redesigned interface, available both on the front end and in the admin. Consequently, you can lay a page out visually on the live site or work in the back end when you would rather see the structure. Furthermore, global sections mean a header block, call to action or footer band edited once updates everywhere it appears.
Lifetime updates on a single licence
Notably, ThemeNectar commits to free updates for life on one purchase, which is unusual on a marketplace that has largely moved to renewal cycles. For a portfolio site that will run for years without a redesign budget, that is worth more than another twenty demos.
Four icon packs and the small stuff
Additionally, the theme bundles four icon families – Iconsmind, Font Awesome and others – which is one of the most complete icon sets on ThemeForest. WooCommerce 10.x is supported for shops, and WPML covers translation.
Where Salient is behind
However, Salient is built on WPBakery in a market that moved to Elementor and, more recently, to the block editor. Therefore, a Salient page does not open cleanly in another theme, and the pool of developers comfortable maintaining it is smaller than it was. In short, 1 June 2026 is also the slowest update cadence of the seven themes we refreshed here – not alarming for a mature theme, but worth noting against Enfold’s September release.
Key features:
- Customised WPBakery builder, front-end and back-end
- Shape dividers with full size, position and colour control
- Cascading images with optional parallax on scroll
- Nectar Slider with video backgrounds and per-slide header recolouring
- Page transitions, optional per site
- Global sections reusable across the whole site
- Four bundled icon packs
- Lifetime free updates on a single licence
- WooCommerce 10.x and WPML support
Our verdict on the Salient WordPress theme
Building a site where the motion and layout details are the whole point? The Salient WordPress theme still does things nothing else on ThemeForest does. Open the Free Theme Demo and scroll through it!
Finally, ThemeNectar last updated it on 1 June 2026 over on ThemeForest.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Salient use Elementor?
No. Salient runs a heavily customised version of WPBakery with a redesigned interface, usable on the front end and in the admin. It is not an Elementor theme.
Are Salient updates free forever?
Yes. ThemeNectar provides free lifetime updates on a single licence, which is unusual on ThemeForest. Support is the standard six months and can be extended separately.
What are shape dividers and cascading images?
Both are Salient exclusives. Shape dividers cut curved or angled boundaries between sections with control over size, position and colour. Cascading images overlap on the page and can parallax as the visitor scrolls.
How many sales does Salient have?
171,287 at the time of writing, with a 4.81 rating from around 6,900 buyer reviews – one of the higher scores among the long-running bestsellers.
Is Salient good for a portfolio site?
Yes, that is its natural home. The motion features and layout tools suit design-led portfolio and agency sites more than content-heavy business sites.
Is Salient still updated?
Yes, though less often than some rivals. The last update was 1 June 2026, and it lists WordPress 7.0.x and WooCommerce 10.x support.
This theme belongs to the WordPress Collections of:
- Best Multipurpose WordPress Themes
- Best Responsive Portfolio WordPress Themes
- Best Agency WordPress Themes
Visit to find more similar themes.
What we like
- 171,287 sales at a 4.81 rating - among the highest of the veteran bestsellers
- Lifetime free updates on a single licence, unusual on ThemeForest
- Shape dividers, cascading images and page transitions are Salient exclusives
- Nectar Slider with parallax, video backgrounds and per-slide header recolouring
- Front-end and back-end page builder, both included
- Four bundled icon packs, one of the largest sets on ThemeForest
- Global sections so a block edited once updates site-wide
- WooCommerce 10.x support
Worth noting
- Built on WPBakery rather than Elementor or Gutenberg
- Heavily customised builder means Salient pages do not open cleanly elsewhere
- Last update 1 June 2026 - the slowest cadence in this group
- Compatibility list is short: no Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms or Events Calendar entries
- The motion-heavy demos need care on slow hosting
