The most exciting new open-source blog platform this year, Ghost 0.3 beta has finally been released to the public and is ready for you to use for your own new blog. It’s not 100% finished yet, but it’s already good enough that Envato has used it to launch the new Inside Envato blog — and it’s a great platform for you to start a new Markdown-powered blog that gives you an easy way to share your thoughts with the world.
Ghost is a bit more involved to get running than, say, WordPress, but we’ve already covered everything you need to get a new Ghost blog running. And once it’s running, Ghost is insanely easy to use. You’ll likely find yourself writing more than ever when it’s this simple to publish.
But what good’s a new blog without a shiny new theme? The default theme’s pretty nice, but if you want more than that, you’re in luck. There’s already dozens of beautiful Ghost themes online, ready for you to add to your Ghost blog or tweak to look just like you want, including over 30 on the ThemeForest Ghost marketplace, a handful of nice themes from the new Theme Spectre and Polygonix teams, and free themes on GitHub. Here’s our dozen favorite Ghost themes from across the web:
Heroid
Ghost is a blogging platform like no other, and you need a theme like no other to make your Ghost blog stand out. Heroic is a great choice for that. It turns your posts into a beautifully animated timeline, with subtle iOS 7-style transparencies throughout the theme that’ll make your content look classy on any device.
Designer: PluginHero
Price: $22
Pxl8
What’s more modern than a blast from the past of retro gaming? Pxl8 turns your Ghost blog into a homage to the 8-bit graphics in games we grew up with, and newer favorites like Minecraft. It’s cute, and is still a great blogging theme — one that’s sure to be fun to use.
Designer: Polygonix
Price: Pay what you want (min. $9)
Vapor
A minimal, typography-focused responsive theme, Vapor is everything you could ask for in a theme that’s ready to make your own. It’s 100% free — the full code’s on GitHub — so you can hack away to your hearts content and make it your own. Or, you could just use it like it is — Vapor’s a pretty nice theme all on its own, too, no customization required.
Designer: Seth Lilly
Price: Free
Venkman
An elegant theme that pays homage both to the default Ghost theme and the paper letters we all used to write, Venkman is a nice theme that’ll make your words stand out. It’s designed to complement your content, and is light enough to keep your blog fast while still being more graphical than a bare-bones text-only theme.
Designer: guuthemes
Price: $22
The Ranger
Ghost isn’t just for simple blogs — it can be whatever you want it to be. The Theme Spectre team has turned it into a professional blog that’d look perfect as the landing site for your company or the new project you’re launching. It’s a powerful way to get more out of Ghost, today.
Designer: Theme Spectre
Price: $25
mots.
The popular new place to write this year is Medium, and for good reason: it’s simple to use, and makes your writing look sharp. Now, you can get all of that while still having your own site, since Ghost makes online publishing simple and the mots. theme gives you a similarly nice theme that’ll make your words stand out.
Designer: QBKL
Price: $18
Specter
Wanting a photo blog instead of a place to write? Specter is the theme you need. It’s a beautifully new photography and video focused theme that’s unique and will make your graphics pop. Plus, it gives you the space you need to describe what you’re sharing when the pictures themselves aren’t enough.
Designer: kostaspt
Price: $18
Kapow!
Feeling like a superhero? Here’s the theme you need to save the world. Kapow! brings the style of classic comics to your Ghost blog, making it the perfect theme to document your adventures or perhaps publish your own online comic.
Designer: Polygonix
Price: Pay what you want (min. $9)
Quarter
Elegance, meet Ghost. This theme gives you everything you need to make a beautifully designed fashion site — or perhaps a full-featured newspaper theme. It’s even got the sidebars you’d expect from, say, a WordPress theme, so you can include all the info you need about your publication right on the front page.
Designer: audemedia
Price: $22
Phantom
You’re switching to Ghost because you want to use the latest blogging platform, so why not deck your blog out with the latest in web design that almost no one else is using on their blog yet? Phantom is easily the most surprising theme in this list with its beautiful parallax animations when you scroll through the theme. It puts your post’s featured image front-and-center, then delightfully animates it away as you read through the article. If you like the animations, say, on Apple’s new Mac Pro site and other sites that are using parallax animations in scrolling, you’ll love Phantom.
Designer: Nevide
Price: $18
Storylane
Facebook wall, meet Ghost and some serious customization. Storylane turns your blog into a timeline of post widgets, complete with a featured image for each post that’ll catch your readers’ eyes. It’s even got social network and writer info sections on each post, making it great for a team blog, and Disqus-powered comments to turn your Ghost blog into a community.
Designer: datcouch
Price: $18
Huckleberry
I may have saved the best for last this time — Huclleberry’s that impressive. It’s got a clean design that looks great for anything you throw at it, with special touches like floating elements that let you set quotes off to the side and full-width media to make your articles look even more impressive. But what’s even more impressive is how fast it is, thanks to its JSON powered backend that grabs the full posts from your blog without your readers having to reload the whole site. Just tap a link, and the new article will fade into view nearly instantaneously. It’s brilliant.
Designer: Studio164a
Price: $18
And That’s Not All
That’s quite a selection of beautiful new themes for Ghost, each with some neat new features and tricks that’ll set your blog apart. But if you haven’t found the perfect theme yet, don’t despair: there’s still dozens more on ThemeForest and the Ghost Marketplace, and there’ll be tons more coming soon from designers across the web.
Be sure to let us know what Ghost theme you’re using in the comments below, and leave a link to your new Ghost-powered blog — we’d love to see it in action!
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