📄 Table of Contents
WordPress powers 43.5% of all websites as their CMS. This is no small feat.
It makes building a website easy by using visual editors, plugins and themes. Yet it comes with a couple of disadvantages.
Despite WordPress being free to self-host, plugins can make your site expensive. Some plugins come with recurring monthly or yearly fees. Code bloat can also be a problem and slow down your sites.
So what’s the best alternative for the modern web? A static site generator like Hugo!
Creating a professional website has never been easier with Hugo themes. In this post, I will show my top 8 picks for the best Hugo themes for blog and portfolio websites.
What is Hugo?
Hugo is an open-source static site generator based on the Go programming language. It’s designed for building complex high performance content sites.
Why Hugo Themes
Hugo allows users to create fast, responsive websites without the complexities of:
- Traditional content management systems (CMS)
- A big database
- Coding an entire site from scratch
You gain the performance benefits of a static website and an easy way to publish content without a CMS.
A theme gives you a starting point so that you don’t need to create your site from scratch with code.
You pick a theme and replace some elements to make it your own. It’s a matter of customizing your site, and then you can have it running in no time!
Once you have the look and feel ready you can start posting. Write and format your content in Markdown and let you Hugo generate the code for you.
Best Hugo Themes
Menca - A Modern Blog Theme
Menca is a modern personal blog theme that’s currently in use on my own site.
It allows easy integration of YouTube embeds. A post with a YouTube video will display an animated play button over the post image.
The homepage features a typical blog layout with:
- An email subscription form at the top
- Followed by previews of your latest blog posts
Plus, it offers a dark mode switch, so that viewers can enable or disable dark mode at any time.
You can buy Menca for $49 on ThemeForest.
Hilton - Perfect for Portfolios
If you like Menca’s modern look but need a portfolio site, Hilton is a great option. It’s designed to showcase your projects and client testimonials first, to help you sell your work.
Instead of a menu in the corners, it uses a centered navigation bar and a clean, responsive design.
There are also:
- Social sharing buttons
- Font Awesome icons
- A scroll-to-top feature
Hilton is available for $49 on ThemeForest.
Priam - A Professional Portfolio Theme
Priam caters to professionals wanting to showcase their skills and accomplishments.
With a clean, Notion-like design, this theme ensures easy navigation.
Everything has it’s own place with sections dedicated to:
- Your portfolio
- Videos
- Gallery
- Blog posts
It features automatic dark mode based on OS or web browser settings instead of a switch.
This theme follows SEO best practices and can help you rank your videos on the Google Video Section.
You can buy Priam for $49 on ThemeForest.
Clarity - A Free Theme for Technical Blogs
Clarity is a free theme based on VMware’s Clarity Design System for technical blogs.
This theme reminds me of a site I usually read for tech news called guru3d.
It includes:
- Left sidebar for categories and tags,
- Built-in search function
- Post social media sharing options
- Reading time for posts
You can find this theme on the Hugo Themes page, and follow the instructions there.
Blowfish - Lightweight and Customizable
Blowfish stands out as a lightweight theme built with Tailwind CSS, for bloggers.
Here are some of its features:
- Many homepage layout options
- Built-in table of contents (TOC) for easy navigation,
- Zen Mode for distraction-free reading (hides the TOC)
- Social sharing buttons,
Blowfish also features support for rich content like charts and diagrams using shortcodes.
You can get Blowfish for free on Hugo Themes.
Paper - A Minimalist Blog Theme
If you prefer a minimalist design, Paper is a clean and fast-loading theme for bloggers.
The homepage presents:
- Social media links
- An author bio
- A list of blog posts in a straightforward format
Paper focuses on functionality without unnecessary complexity. It’s great for those who value simplicity.
This theme is also avaliable on the Hugo theme page. Similar themes to explore include Paper Mod, Anubis2, and Typo.
Pehtheme - Minimalist Theme for Bloggers
Pehtheme is another minimalist option, built with Tailwind CSS.
While simple, it still offers features like:
- Featured post images
- Tag lists
- Sidebar ad placement for monetizing your site
- Comment section (Disqus integration)
- Email subscription form
You can find it for free on Hugo Themes.
Another similar in design is Quint which support automatic light and dark mode and is also very fast.
Hextra - Feature-Packed, Modern Theme
Hextra is a modern, responsive theme ideal for both blogs and documentation sites.
Built with Tailwind CSS, it includes:
- Full-text search
- Automatic table of contents
- Syntax highlighting
- LaTeX support (math expressions)
Hextra’s multilingual capabilities make it a fantastic choice for global audiences. You can download Hextra for free on Hugo Themes.
How to Install and Customize a Hugo Theme
Installing a Hugo theme is simple:
- Download the theme
- Add it to your project inside your code editor
- Change files as needed
Most themes offer documentation, making customization easy — even for beginners.
After the initial setup, posting content is as easy as you only need to write in Markdown. If you are familiar with note-taking apps like Notion or Obsidian you are already a step ahead.
With Markdown, you can use symbols to insert:
- Bullet and numbered lists
- Tables
- Code blocks
- Math expressions
It can also be used to write text in bold, italic effect and much more — No code needed!
For installing Hugo and deploying your website visit the Hugo documentation and follow the guides.
Start Building Your Website
With these Hugo themes, building a responsive, professional website shoulb be much easier.
Whether you’re launching a blog or portfolio site, Hugo themes allow you to get your site live in no time.
Now there’s only one thing left for you to do. Pick a theme from the list and start building your site!
