A collection of great Jekyll themes
When I started Thrifty Engineer, I decided to avoid the hassle of hosting providers. I also wanted to avoid wordpress and go for a static website to make my site fast and secure. After a fair bit of research, I decided to go for Jekyll. However, the themes found in the official source simply weren't suited for what I was looking for. There simply weren't enough options. This lead me to search for more themes. This post aims to help you out if you are in the same boat.
To make it easy for you to choose, I have included Live demos within the page. This way, you don't have to open every demo in a new page and forget which was which. Make sure to click on "Allow unsecure Content" on the address bar if it asks when you load a demo.
Note: If the theme is on Github, you need to clone it to a folder and then run bundle install from that folder instead of the process shown in the official Jekyll website.
Here are some of my favorite Jekyll Themes:
Author:qwtel
This Author has a lot of free themes and a few paid themes. Do look at his paid themes and buy them if you like them. He sure has put in a lot of effort into it.
1. Hydejack
https://github.com/qwtel/hydejack/raw/master/assets/img/blog/hydejack-8.png
Live Demo:
Source: Github
Demo: Hydejack
This truly is one of the best jekyll themes out there. I really loved it and wanted to use it for ThriftyEngineer.com. Only issue I faced was that it has a slide left gesture on the homepage. Though it looks good, it's not really optimized for Desktop. It feels unnatural to press and swipe with your mouse. There was no way to disable this either. So I had to pass up on this theme. If majority of your users are going to be on mobile, I highly recommend this to you.
Author:Artem Sheludko
2. Galada
Live Demo:
Source: Github
Demo: Galada
If you haven't noticed it from the picture, yes this the theme I decided to go with! There's not much to say apart from the fact that you need to turn your images black and white to go with the theme. This colour scheme is frankly the future though. So might as well go with it.
3. Chelia
Live Demo:
Make sure to click on "Allow unsafe scripts" on the address bar if it asks when you load a demo. You are also suggested to inspect the script element before doing so.
Source: Github
Demo: Chelia
Another great portfolio theme from this developer.
4. Fresh
Live Demo:
Source: Github
Demo: Fresh
This is a great theme but I am not a fan of the font though. This too has features such as Google Analytics and disqus integration. Use it if it's to your taste.
5. Bef
Live Demo:
Source: Github
Demo: Bef
Another theme from the same developer. This is a great theme with features such as Google Analytics and disqus integration. Use it if it's to your taste.
6. Adam Blog
Live Demo:
Source: Github
Demo: Adam Blog
Another theme from the same developer as Galada. This is a great theme with features such as Google Analytics and disqus integration. Use it if it's to your taste.
7. Flexible-Jekyll
Live Demo:
Source: Github
Demo: Flexible-Jekyll
Another theme from the same developer as Galada. This is a great theme with features such as Google Analytics and disqus integration. A notable feature of this theme is that it generates an approximate time needed to read a post.
8. Lokmont
Live Demo:
Source: Github
Demo: Lokmont
Another theme from the same developer as Galada. This is a great theme with features such as Google Analytics and disqus integration. Use it if it's to your taste.
9. Flexton
Live Demo:
Source: Github
Demo: Flexton
Another theme from the same developer as Galada. This is a great theme with features such as Google Analytics and disqus integration. Use it if it's to your taste.
10. #Mr.Brown
Live Demo:
Source: Github
Demo: #Mr.Brown
Another theme from the same developer as Galada. This is a great theme with features such as Google Analytics and disqus integration. Use it if it's to your taste.
Author:Antonio Trento
This guy has made some really great themes. Issue is, he has created a lot of Github accounts and uploaded them from them. So it's quite hard to find them all.
11. Helium
Live Demo:
Source: Github
Demo: heliumjk
This is another top notch jekyll theme. The biggest pro with this theme is that it has integration for Google Adsense and Google Analytics along with disqus and SEO integrations. If you wish to use this theme for a blog alone and don't want a landing page, just replace index.html with blog.html. I have done that here. Feel free to fork that for use. The downside with this theme is that it hasn't been updated in a while. It still works fantastic though!
12. AntCV
Live Demo:
Source: Github
Demo: AntCV
This one is a portfolio theme.
13. Antonio Trento
Live Demo:
Source: Github
Demo: Antonio Trento
This one is a pretty good portfolio theme. Can't find an image for it though.
14. Antonio Trento
Live Demo:
Source: Github
Demo: Antonio Trento
Another one of this dude's themes? I am not really sure of the original author of this them but found it on his Github. Please do let me know if this belongs to aomeone else.
15. noalfemminicidio
Live Demo:
Source: Github
Demo: noalfemminicidio
Another one of this dude's themes? I am not really sure of the original author of this them but found it on his Github. Please do let me know if this belongs to aomeone else. Not really sure what it says on the page either. Has some good animations btw.
Author: Phlow
16. Phlow
Live Demo:
Source: Github
Demo: feeling-responsive
A cool theme with some nice and simple animations. Nothing very fancy.
Author: Thomas Vaeth
17. Thomas Vaeth Portfolio
Live Demo:
Source: Github
Demo: Thomas Vaeth Portfolio
This is a great portfolio theme. Very, very fancy! Must try!
18. Trophy
Live Demo:
Source: Github
Demo: Trophy
An interesting theme with a sidebar and really good animations. Comes in a retro style.
I hope you liked them and managed to find the best theme for your blog or portfolio. I have built this list to specifically not include the famous themes you find everywhere you google. Please do leave a comment and feel free to contact me.
