I’ve tested all 202 Hugo themes from the catalog plus 3 missing from it for basic functionality and picked the best blog-oriented ones. By that I mean all them have blog posts shown on the main page and most of them support posts tags.

All themes below have active developers, I’ve didn’t include 3-years-old themes without newer commits. I’ll present them in alphabetical order, they’re all fine quality and couldn’t be compared or ranked in any unified way I can think of.

Main page

I love themes which cut straight to the content, and this is not one of them – when someone comes to your site by URL, they should scroll or click to see posts.

Navigation

For posts, it’s the same as with the main page, a lot of space eaten by the banner. I couldn’t get working tags navigation.

Single page

Nothing extra on the single post page. but a lot of space unused, all posts list on the right in addition to related articles list on the end of the article, no Disqus support.

Main page and navigation

Cut anything that distracts you from reading, add a little navigation to your posts — and you’ll get beg theme. Everything in its place, nothing you don’t want to be there is present. Navigation looks exactly the same as the main page, only the title changes — you get what you expect, that’s nice.

Single page

Beginning of the page looks exactly the same as the main page, so that screenshot taken from the middle. The only reason you don’t read this blog in the mentioned theme is this: it renders bold text bold and highlighted, and italic as highlighted text but not italic. That’s the only issue I found after using it for several months apart from no related articles list present at the moment. It supports Disqus and nice from all points of view.

Main page

A hybrid between having nothing extra apart from the text but navigation and huge banner in ananke. Black and white text, summaries of the posts are present and rendered nicely. Posts page is exactly the same, only title changes.

Single page

That’s best text handling I’ve seen so far. Post title, description, tags and time, and then content – nothing special, but then comes magic: images have a slightly bigger weight than the text. So simple and yet genial. Of course, the theme supports Disqus.

Related articles

Ladies and gentleman, I want to show to you the nicest approach to “next article” and “related articles” presentation on the market: one of both in separate boxes, same information but present in so tasty way you couldn’t stop the desire to click.

Main page

The main page is pretty neat, no preview for posts, just post names, custom text, and navigation. I almost missed it but couldn’t exclude it from this post when I saw how cool my blog looked like in it.

Navigation

Just text – nothing extra. Hell with the posts’ summaries, that’s classy.

Single page

Text with fixed width, a sign of a good taste. However, minimalism means there is no Disqus support out of the box. Formatting is what you could name “plain”, nothing special, but everything on its place – well-balanced and very solid.

Main page

Simplicity at largest. Everything on its place, right font – and here comes your first impression.

Navigation

Posts page lacks both tags and summaries, either one of them is better to be present. Tags lack frequency information but instead have a date of the last post which is rare and cool.

Single page

Widest post content out there with deep spacing between the lines, there is a room for improvement for better readability and higher density but it’s unique for sure and someone might find this style appealing. No Disqus comments and no related articles list present yet.

Main page

Simple yet unique and functional, and also includes working search field. On the cons side – posts are shown completely, not only summaries.

Navigation

Fabric’s posts page is the best navigation without summaries I’ve seen out there, all possible information present and rendered nicely. Tags page is small and leaves something to be desired (like sort by a number of posts in the tag), but functional.

Single page

Solid text renders without anything out of order. I’ve included a bit bigger screenshot than usual to show you neat shadow around the image and caption under it, which is present in no other theme. Disqus support is there, however no related articles list support.

Main page

Classy simplicity, a pure text of highest quality – that’s what Jane theme is about.

Navigation

Tags look exactly like you expect them to look like, but a slightly better.

Single page

I’ve chosen another post to take the screenshot from because that’s something worth seeing: that colors choice is best you could find. Posts which use a lot of formatting, quotes, images and code blocks shine in this theme, the author definitely has a good taste which we might benefit from. Disqus comments supported but hidden by “Show Disqus Comments” button not to distract you from the content itself. No related articles block but it would be redundant on this text celebration.

Main page

Simplicity and nice fonts, what else do you need? No tags, no categories.

Single page

One of the nicest fonts out there, neat render with great attention to details. However, nothing else but post content is present, not comments nor related articles list.

Main page

Pure minimalism, looks very solid.

Navigation

The same minimalism, but a little overwhelming this time — what is enough for the main page, is not enough for tags page (e.g. information about how “big” the tag is missing). Posts list missing tags, which is pretty important when you don’t show post summary.

Single page

Wide text block shows more text than any other theme in this list. Simple text renders without anything special about it, black and white palette. No related articles and no Disqus comments.

Main page

Another minimalism approach at it’s best.

Navigation

Fixed width text even on navigation pages, which is sweeter than candy. Tags won’t tell which one is most used, and posts don’t show tags which is important because of lack of a summary.

Single page

In line with main and navigational pages, post content and nothing extra. The text is rendered in a very neat way, quotation and source code blocks adjusted to be in style with the theme and it’s done really nice. Only next\previous posts shown below, no related posts. Disqus comments support is present.

Main page

By the main page, you could say it’s not only a blog theme. The actual content is hidden somewhere where you should scroll and click, same with posts page. It has a lot of features which are not related to the blogging itself.

Navigation

Like all other pages, tags page have a ridiculous red banner on top, but under it is pretty tags list which is sorted by how many posts with each tag the blog have, which is the best possible sort in my humble opinion.

Single page

It’s better to see once for yourself. That big banner doesn’t seem to be doing anything useful, but magically it adds importance to whatever written on it and draws attention to the post title and description. The text is light and nice, and utilize black, white and red palette. No related articles list or links to the previous article, however, Disqus comments are present.

Main page

That’s the only theme which chooses to show a single post instead of the main page. Everything is… no fancy, in a good term.

Navigation

Navigation reminds me of Reddit. I like it a lot, it’s the best representation of the information you could get with staying that simple.

Single page

Nothing fancy there as well, black on gray with a little red. No related articles list, no Disqus comments, bit with such design it’s a plus, not a minus.

Main page

Underdog, which is yet not included to catalog. Nothing distracting, straight to the business, red on gray palette. Posts descriptions instead of summaries, in between nothing and summaries, to me it seems one of the best possible variants.

Navigation

Posts page looks exactly main page, tags have all needed information and sorted alphabetically.

Single page

Very unique design I’ve seen only once more in all 200+ themes, this theme almost directly quotes markdown code from which the content is created (e.g. ## becomes * , ### becomes ** , but they also still represent h2 and h3 HTML tags). If you think there is something unusual on the right, you’re right: that’s nicely crafted table of content, one of two enabled by default from all themes there, and done with the finest quality. No related articles, however next and previous pages links are present, and comments are in place, but they are Isso in addition to Disqus.

Main page

“Cool” is the last thing you could say when you see this theme. I guess you could either love or hate it, but nothing in between. Sadly I wasn’t able to set up navigation correctly.

Single page

It looks like I imagine 80’s terminals, but in a way, there were redefined in Alien (1979), and also it refers to Tokyo neon lights from Bladerunner (1982). No related articles (but previous

ext post link present), but Disqus comments are supported.

Main page

Black, white and blue palette, everything is very clear and assembled with great care. Also, you could notice that’s one of the themes with the table of content enabled by default.

Navigation

Posts page is the same as the main page and tags page, only title changes. Posts are listed with summaries and all the metadata. Tags are the best out there, they have maximum metadata presence plus alphabetical sort – my heart is with these tags.

Single page

The text is not fancy, but very solid and readable and have no distracting elements which some themes tend to use (like quotation boxes). Disqus support is in place, next\previous post navigation but no related articles (which could look alien there).