19 Best Jekyll Themes & Templates 2026 (Free + Premium)

Jekyll remains one of the most reliable static site generators in 2026. With over 50,000 GitHub stars and native GitHub Pages integration, it offers zero-cost hosting: push Markdown to a repo, and your site builds and deploys automatically — no CI/CD, no build scripts, no monthly bill.

The Ruby-based generator has been around since 2008, giving it the largest theme ecosystem of any SSG. We reviewed GitHub to find the 15 best free Jekyll themes that are actively maintained, well-documented, and genuinely worth using today.

Best Free Jekyll Themes & Templates

1. Academic Pages

⭐ 16,420 GitHub Stars

Category: Academic/Portfolio  |  CSS: Custom SCSS  |  License: MIT

The most popular Jekyll theme on GitHub, purpose-built for researchers with dedicated pages for publications, talks, teaching, and a structured CV. Ships with a BibTeX-to-Markdown generator, 6 skins, and Docker/DevContainer support. Forked from Minimal Mistakes, stripped down to focus on what academics need.

Best for: Researchers, postdocs, and professors who want a professional academic web presence with structured publication and CV pages.

2. al-folio

⭐ 15,055 GitHub Stars

Category: Academic/Portfolio  |  CSS: Bootstrap + MDB  |  License: MIT

The most feature-rich academic theme available, with auto light/dark mode, Google Scholar citation badges, a team directory, and a blog engine supporting Plotly.js charts, Jupyter notebooks, Mermaid diagrams, and LaTeX math. Bootstrap + Material Design styling gives it a polished, modern look. More setup than Academic Pages, but significantly more capable.

Best for: Research groups and academics who want the most feature-rich academic theme available and don’t mind spending time on initial setup.

3. Minimal Mistakes

⭐ 13,391 GitHub Stars

Category: Multi-purpose  |  CSS: Custom SCSS  |  License: MIT

The Swiss Army knife of Jekyll themes: 9 skins, multiple layouts, SEO with Twitter Cards and Open Graph, 6 comment systems, i18n for 35+ languages, and Algolia/Lunr.js search. Works as both a gem-based and remote theme. Arguably the best-documented Jekyll theme in existence, and the foundation that Academic Pages and many others forked from.

Best for: Anyone who needs a general-purpose Jekyll theme that can serve as a blog, portfolio, documentation site, or all three.

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4. Chirpy

⭐ 9,743 GitHub Stars

Category: Blog/Technical  |  CSS: Bootstrap  |  License: MIT

Purpose-built for technical blogging with polished dark mode, pinned posts, hierarchical categories, auto-generated TOC, MathJax, and Mermaid diagrams. Ships as a PWA with offline reading and built-in search — no external service required. DevContainer support means zero local Ruby setup.

Best for: Developers and engineers who write technical content and want a professional blog without any design work.

5. Just the Docs

⭐ 8,841 GitHub Stars

Category: Documentation  |  CSS: Custom SCSS  |  License: MIT

A focused documentation theme with Lunr.js search, hierarchical parent-child navigation, collapsible sections, dark mode, and callout blocks. Navigation is defined in the front matter of Markdown files — no separate configuration required. Deploys to GitHub Pages with zero configuration beyond _config.yml.

Best for: Teams documenting open-source projects, APIs, or internal tools — the Jekyll equivalent of Docusaurus for the React ecosystem.

6. Hux Blog

⭐ 7,664 GitHub Stars

Category: Blog  |  CSS: Bootstrap  |  License: Apache-2.0

A visually striking theme built around full-width header images, an author sidebar, and a publication-style reading experience. Supports PWA features, tag-based organization, and syntax highlighting. Posts look best with a large banner image, so plan to source header photos.

Best for: Bloggers who write visual content and want a polished, publication-style reading experience that stands out from minimalist Jekyll themes.

7. Beautiful Jekyll

⭐ 5,757 GitHub Stars

Category: Blog/Personal  |  CSS: Bootstrap  |  License: MIT

Designed for first-time Jekyll users, with step-by-step docs from fork to first post. Includes SEO, 6 comment systems, Google Analytics, search, cover photos, and MathJax. Nearly everything is configurable through _config.yml without touching HTML or CSS.

Best for: First-time Jekyll users and non-technical bloggers who want a professional site with minimal friction and maximum configurability.

Building web applications alongside your Jekyll site? Our guide to the best Django admin dashboard templates covers free admin panels for Python-based backends.

8. Minima

⭐ 3,783 GitHub Stars

Category: Blog  |  CSS: Custom SCSS  |  License: MIT

The official default theme maintained by the Jekyll core team, guaranteed compatible with the latest versions. Offers 6 skins, RSS feeds, SEO tags, and customizable Sass variables — no CSS framework, no JS libraries. The ideal starting point for understanding how Jekyll themes work; many popular themes started as Minima forks.

Best for: Developers who want a clean, no-frills blog foundation or a learning base for building their own custom Jekyll theme.

9. Automatic App Landing Page

⭐ 3,613 GitHub Stars

Category: Landing Page  |  CSS: Custom SCSS  |  License: MIT

Enter your App Store ID and the theme auto-fetches your app’s icon, name, price, description, and screenshots. Supports video previews, privacy policy pages, changelog, and download buttons for both stores. Your landing page stays in sync with your store listing automatically.

Best for: Indie developers who need a professional mobile app landing page in minutes, without manual screenshot resizing or marketing copy.

10. Online CV

⭐ 3,428 GitHub Stars

Category: Resume/CV  |  CSS: Bootstrap  |  License: Attribution required

Turns your resume into a responsive single-page site powered by a YAML data file. Edit _data/data.yml with your experience, education, and skills. Offers 8 color skins and print-friendly output. Note: free but requires an attribution footer link; removing it needs a purchased license.

Best for: Job seekers who want a professional online resume in 15 minutes with zero HTML editing, and don’t mind the attribution link.

11. TeXt Theme

⭐ 3,332 GitHub Stars

Category: Multi-purpose  |  CSS: Custom SCSS  |  License: MIT

iOS-inspired design with clean typography, 6 skins, i18n, search, and auto-generated TOC. Standout feature: a built-in extension system for MathJax, Mermaid, Chart.js, and embeddable audio, video, and slide presentations. Compatible with GitHub Pages via remote_theme.

Best for: Educators, presenters, and content creators who need rich multimedia embedding (audio, video, slides, charts) beyond just text and images.

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12. Modern Resume Theme

⭐ 2,273 GitHub Stars

Category: Resume/CV  |  CSS: Custom SCSS  |  License: MIT

A cleaner alternative to Online CV with card-based layout, timeline for work experience, and dark mode. All content is YAML-driven with better typography and visual hierarchy. Fully MIT licensed — no attribution requirements. Works seamlessly with GitHub Pages.

Best for: Job seekers who want a modern-looking online resume with MIT licensing freedom and dark mode support.

13. No Style Please

⭐ 1,364 GitHub Stars

Category: Blog (Minimalist)  |  CSS: Nearly no CSS  |  License: MIT

Approximately 1KB of CSS total — not minified, just genuinely tiny. Perfect 100s across all Lighthouse categories and sub-100ms load times. Supports light, dark, and auto modes, RSS feeds, and SEO meta tags. Proof that a blog only needs HTML and a handful of typographic styles.

Best for: Minimalism advocates and performance purists who want the fastest possible blog with zero visual distractions.

14. Jekyll Theme Yat

⭐ 1,192 GitHub Stars

Category: Blog  |  CSS: Custom SCSS  |  License: MIT

Modern flat design with a parallax banner header, night mode toggle, Font Awesome 5 icons, and gradient-backed category headers. Card-based post listings and smooth scroll animations rival premium themes. Full remote_theme support — no need to fork the repository.

Best for: Bloggers who want a visually engaging Jekyll site with parallax effects and colorful design without a heavy CSS framework.

Exploring JavaScript framework options for your web applications? Our guide to the best Vue admin dashboard templates covers free Vue.js admin panels with modern tooling.

15. Type on Strap

⭐ 852 GitHub Stars

Category: Blog/Portfolio  |  CSS: Bootstrap SCSS  |  License: MIT

Combines a blog engine with portfolio and gallery pages, plus light/dark mode, search, KaTeX math, Mermaid diagrams, and Docker support. The portfolio and gallery pages set it apart from pure blog themes. Actively maintained with commits as recent as February 2026.

Best for: Developers, designers, and writers who want to showcase projects alongside blog posts with dedicated portfolio and gallery pages.

Every theme on this list works with GitHub Pages’ free hosting and has been battle-tested on thousands of real sites. Whether you need an academic portfolio, a technical blog, a documentation site, or a YAML-powered resume, fork a repository, customize the config, and you’re live — your only cost is the time spent writing content.

Beyond the free themes above, premium Jekyll themes from established theme studios deliver polished design, dedicated support, and production-ready features that free themes rarely match. Below are four hand-reviewed picks across business, SaaS, blog, and portfolio use cases.

Best Premium Jekyll Themes & Templates

If you need polished, professionally designed themes with dedicated support, premium Jekyll themes are worth the $24–$97 investment. The picks below add up to four hand-reviewed premium themes from Zerostatic, GetHugoThemes, and Anvod Studio — covering business, SaaS, blog, and portfolio use cases.

16. Jekyll Advance

$79 • Zerostatic Themes

Category: Multi-purpose / Business  |  CSS: Custom  |  Marketplace: Gumroad

The most complete multi-purpose Jekyll theme available. Features configurable homepage sections driven by front-matter (no HTML editing required), six service pages, a portfolio/projects section with case studies, and a full blog engine. The theme is fully responsive, SEO-optimized out of the box, and includes social media links, a contact page, and legal pages for privacy and terms. Hosted on Netlify for instant deployment. Zerostatic’s attention to clean code and semantic HTML makes this a solid foundation for any business site.

Best for: Agencies, consultants, and small businesses that need a professional multi-page site with services, portfolio, and blog — all configurable through front-matter.

17. Coderon

$79 • Anvod Studio

Category: Blog  |  CSS: Custom  |  Marketplace: ThemeForest

A sleek, modern blog theme designed for developers, designers, and content creators who want their writing to look as polished as their code. Ships with dark/light mode toggle, full-text search, newsletter signup integration, and a distinctive visual design that avoids the generic blog look. Categories and tags keep content organized, while syntax highlighting handles code snippets beautifully. The layout adapts seamlessly from desktop to mobile, and the vanilla JavaScript codebase ensures fast, dependency-free performance.

Best for: Developers and technical writers who want a visually unique blog that handles code content elegantly and doesn’t look like every other Jekyll blog.

18. Clancy

$79 • Anvod Studio

Category: Portfolio  |  CSS: Custom  |  Marketplace: ThemeForest

An elegant portfolio theme crafted for designers and photographers who want their work to take center stage. The clean, gallery-focused homepage displays a curated grid of nine portfolio images, supported by recent blog posts and a newsletter subscription section. The design emphasizes large-format imagery with generous whitespace and refined typography. Dark mode support, search functionality, and social media integration are all built in. One of the more visually sophisticated portfolio themes in the Jekyll ecosystem.

Best for: Photographers, illustrators, and visual artists who need a gallery-first portfolio where images dominate and text takes a supporting role.

If you’re also evaluating admin panel solutions for your web projects, check out our roundup of the best Tailwind admin dashboard templates covering React, Vue, and framework-agnostic options.

19. Tarne

$79 • Anvod Studio

Category: Portfolio / Services  |  CSS: Custom  |  Marketplace: ThemeForest

A professional portfolio theme with a services focus, featuring dedicated pricing sections (starting at $2,599–$5,399 in the demo), client testimonials from companies like Nintendo and Twitch, and project filtering by category. The dark mode design gives it a premium, agency-grade feel. Includes a blog/writing section for thought leadership content, a newsletter signup for audience building, and search functionality for navigating large project archives. Well-suited for freelancers who want to present both work and services in a single, cohesive site.

Best for: Freelancers and consultants who sell design or development services and need to display pricing, testimonials, and a project portfolio in one place.