Massively

Massively is a free, open-source Ghost theme for text-heavy, article-oriented blogs, built around a huge background image and scroll effects powered by Scrollex. Originally created by @ajlkn for HTML5 UP and ported to the Ghost platform, it renders Ghost content as an editorial-style site with a strong visual anchor. A live demo is available at massively.ghost.io.

What is Massively?

Massively is a Ghost theme that takes posts, pages, tags, and authors from a Ghost publication and outputs a text-first, magazine-like layout. It is implemented in Handlebars, Ghost's templating language, with the main template files being default.hbs, index.hbs, post.hbs, page.hbs, tag.hbs, and author.hbs. The theme preserves the original HTML5 UP design while adapting it to Ghost's required asset structure, moving files under /assets/main and /assets/images.

Key Features

• Huge background image design — The layout centers on a large background image, with content overlaid and scroll animations from Scrollex.
• Handlebars template set — Includes default, index, post, page, tag, and author templates, each with commented code.
• Custom slug-based templates — You can add a custom template for a specific page, tag archive, or author archive by naming the file with a slug, such as page-about.hbs or tag-news.hbs.
• Sass customization layer — An extra Sass file at /assets/main/sass/layout/ghost.sass is included at the bottom of main.sass for minor modifications.
• pnpm build workflow — Offers pnpm install, pnpm dev for watching changes, pnpm zip to create a production-ready zip in /dist, and pnpm test for compatibility testing against the latest Ghost version.
• Dual open-source license — Released under both the MIT and Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licenses, with a note that footer attribution must be maintained for free use.

Who is it for?

Massively suits bloggers and editors who want a text-focused, article-heavy design for a Ghost publication. Developers who want to build a custom Ghost theme can use its commented Handlebars templates and Sass structure as a starting point. It also fits publishers who want a free theme that sticks close to the original HTML5 UP aesthetic without heavy modification.

What can you do with it?

• Long-form bloggers: publish articles with a clean, editorial layout that lets a single background image anchor the whole page.
• Ghost developers: customize the theme by editing the Handlebars templates or adding slug-specific templates for pages, tags, and authors.
• Theme maintainers: use pnpm zip to package the theme for upload to Ghost, and pnpm test to check compatibility with the latest Ghost version.

How does the theme work?

After cloning the repository, you install dependencies with pnpm. The pnpm dev command builds files locally and watches for changes, while pnpm zip outputs a production zip to the dist directory. The original template files are kept unmodified except for relocating assets and adding one extra Sass file.

FAQ

Is Massively free?

Yes, Massively is free and open source. It is dual-licensed under the MIT and Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licenses. To use it freely you must maintain the footer attribution, per the Creative Commons terms.

What platform does Massively run on?

Massively runs on Ghost, the open source publishing platform. It uses Ghost's Handlebars templating system and is structured according to Ghost theme requirements, with all assets nested under a top-level assets directory.

Can I create custom templates for individual pages?

Yes. The theme supports one-off templates by adding a page slug to the template filename, such as page-about.hbs for the about page, tag-news.hbs for a tag archive, and author-ali.hbs for an author archive.

How do I build the theme for production?

Use pnpm to install dependencies, then run pnpm dev to build locally and watch for changes, or pnpm zip to create a production zip in the dist folder. Run pnpm test to execute compatibility tests against the latest Ghost version.