Hexo Theme Starry
Hexo Theme Starry is a free, open-source Hexo blog theme built with Ejs templates and Less stylesheets; it converts Markdown posts into a responsive static site with code highlighting, MathJax math rendering, Gitalk comments, global search, and a Viewer.js image lightbox.
What is Hexo Theme Starry?
Starry is a Hexo theme developed and maintained by the GitHub user meethigher. It takes Hexo's Markdown content as input and produces a static blog website with pages for the home feed, tags, archives, about, and a 404 page. The theme was first released as Starry 1.0 in November 2019 and overhauled as Starry 2.0 in April 2020. The author writes that the code is intentionally simple and not standardized, created mainly for personal use rather than as a polished public product.
Key features
- Code block styling — Code blocks use a color scheme inspired by ChatGPT (updated 2024-09-30), include a copy button with an icon, and have the ordinal column disabled from selection; copied text has extra newlines removed.
- MathJax support — Mathematical formulas are rendered in posts and pages; support was added on 2022-08-28 with a reference to a Hexo MathJax integration guide.
- Global search — A site-wide search is accessible via keyboard shortcut; since 2024-09-30, shortcuts also toggle the left and right toolbars.
- Image viewer — Based on Viewer.js, images open fullscreen with zoom on both PC and mobile; this replaced an earlier fullscreen-image implementation from 2021.
- Comments — Gitalk integration (upgraded to version 1.7.2) is loaded with the defer attribute so it does not block HTML parsing; comment prompt text is customizable.
- Reading statistics — A custom page counter (replacing Busuanzi from July 2021) shows visitor counts; referer tracking was added in September 2021 for the author's own statistics tool.
- Responsive layout — Starry 2.0 replaced the original rem layout with a responsive design and fixed an iOS white-screen bug that occurred on rapid scrolling.
- Table of contents — The sidebar outline keeps the active heading visible in the viewport while scrolling.
- Sitemap — Sitemap support was added in October 2022.
Who should use Hexo Theme Starry?
- Hexo bloggers — Anyone running a personal blog on Hexo who wants a free theme with built-in search, comments, math rendering, and an image viewer can install Starry by cloning the repository into their themes directory and following the quick-start steps.
- Technical writers — Writers who publish code-heavy posts benefit from the code block styling, copy buttons, and the 2025 update that made inline code and code-block font styles consistent.
- Developers learning theme development — Because the author describes the code as simple, the theme can serve as a minimal example of an Ejs/Less Hexo theme, although it is not a model of best practices.
Use cases
- Personal tech blogs: Publish Markdown posts with code samples, math formulas, and images; visitors can search the site, leave Gitalk comments, and click images to enlarge them.
- Chinese-language blogs: The README and the theme's labels are in Chinese, and the author's own blog runs on this theme; tag clouds are sorted by name for easier browsing.
- Low-bandwidth hosting: Since February 2022, the theme serves local CSS and JS instead of jsDelivr CDN assets, and an October 2023 update moved style changes from JavaScript to CSS to reduce white-screen time on slow connections.
How does Hexo Theme Starry work?
Installation requires an older environment: Node 12.x and Hexo between 3.9.0 and 4.2.0. The quick-start steps are: install nvm and switch to Node 12.22.12, install hexo-cli globally, run 'hexo init' in a new blog directory, clone this repository into themes/starry, copy the provided _config.yml.root, package.json.root, and sitemap-mock.xml files over the generated ones, then run 'npm install' and 'hexo s'. The theme then renders Hexo's Markdown source files into static HTML pages.
Pros and cons
- Pros: Free and open source; actively updated from 2019 to 2025; includes many practical features rarely found together in minimal themes, such as search, MathJax, image zoom, and custom statistics.
- Cons: The author explicitly states the code is not standardized and lacks optimization; the recommended Node and Hexo versions are old, so the theme may not work with current Hexo releases without adjustments.
FAQ
Is Hexo Theme Starry free?
Yes, it is an open-source theme hosted on GitHub. The repository has 29 stars and provides full installation instructions in both Chinese and English.
What versions of Node and Hexo do I need?
The README recommends Node 12.x and Hexo 3.9.0 through 4.2.0. The quick-start example uses Node 12.22.12 and hexo-cli 4.3.1, and warns that the theme was developed on an older environment.
Does it support LaTeX math formulas?
Yes. MathJax support was added on 2022-08-28, allowing posts to render mathematical formulas. A link to a Hexo MathJax integration guide is included in the changelog.
Can I use it with modern Hexo versions?
Probably not without changes. The README specifically recommends Node 12.x and Hexo 3.9.0 to 4.2.0, and many dependencies installed during its setup are deprecated, suggesting it has not been adapted for newer Hexo releases.
What pages are included?
The theme includes a home page, tags page, archives page, about page, and a 404 page. These were the initial features of Starry 1.0, with additional pages and components added in later updates.
