Back to templates

Template details

Efficiency_jekyll_theme

An open-source Jekyll theme for blogs, based on kotet/ultralight, claiming 18% faster performance, with syntax highlighting and smooth scrolling.

About this template

Efficiency_jekyll_theme is an open-source Jekyll theme for blogs on GitHub Pages, forked from kotet/ultralight, which the author reports runs 18% faster than the official Jekyll theme.

What is Efficiency_jekyll_theme?

Efficiency_jekyll_theme is a Jekyll theme distributed through the zichenstudio GitHub repository. It is a fork of kotet/ultralight with modifications, and it provides a minimal blogging layout that takes Markdown posts and outputs a static site. The theme bundles three JavaScript libraries: highlight.js for code syntax highlighting, welcometitle.js for a welcome title animation, and smoothscroll.js for smooth scrolling. The project is MIT-licensed: the original ultralight license is kept, and a new LICENSE covers the author's modifications.

Key Features

  • Reported speed — the author states their tests show this theme is 18% faster than the official Jekyll theme; no benchmark details are published.
  • Ultralight foundation — built on kotet/ultralight, so the theme is deliberately minimal and light.
  • Code highlighting — includes highlight.js, so fenced code blocks in posts get color syntax highlighting automatically.
  • Welcome title effect — uses welcometitle.js from zichenstudio to display a custom animated page title.
  • Smooth scrolling — includes smoothscroll.js for smooth anchor-link scrolling.
  • GitHub Pages deployment — the README provides exact commands: clone the repository, change the remote URL to your github.io repository, and push the master branch.
  • IPFS deployment — after building with bundle exec jekyll build, the static _site folder can be added to IPFS with ipfs add -r _site/.
  • Dual licensing — original MIT license from ultralight is preserved, and a new MIT LICENSE is added for the modified code.

Who is it for?

  • Bloggers who host on GitHub Pages — they can set up a personal blog by cloning the repository and pushing to their username.github.io repository, following the steps in the README.
  • Defenders of minimal static sites — users who want a small, fast Jekyll theme can start from this ultralight base and customize it.
  • IPFS publishers — the documentation includes explicit IPFS deployment steps, making it easy for people running their own IPFS nodes to publish a blog.

What can you do with it?

  • Launch a blog quickly — clone the theme, point the remote to your GitHub Pages repo, and push to deploy.
  • Publish a decentralized site — build the theme with Jekyll and add the generated _site folder to IPFS.
  • Show off your deployment — the project invites users to share their sites using the theme in its Issues section.

How does it work?

The theme is a standard Jekyll repository. You clone it, then either push it to your GitHub Pages remote for automatic building, or run bundle exec jekyll build locally to generate the static _site folder. Posts are written in Markdown in the usual Jekyll structure, and the theme's templates plus the included JavaScript are applied during the Jekyll build.

FAQ

Is Efficiency_jekyll_theme free?

Yes, the theme is open-source under the MIT License, so it is free to use and modify.

Is Efficiency_jekyll_theme compatible with GitHub Pages?

Yes. The README gives specific clone and push commands to deploy it to your own github.io repository.

What does 18% faster mean?

According to the author's testing, the theme loads or builds 18% faster than the official Jekyll theme. The README does not describe the test setup or metrics.

What JavaScript libraries are bundled?

The theme includes highlight.js for syntax highlighting, welcometitle.js for a welcome title effect, and smoothscroll.js for smooth scrolling.

screenshot of Efficiency_jekyll_theme on template0.com