Onassis

Onassis is a free, open-source Jekyll theme for building newspaper-style websites on GitHub Pages, created by Alvaro Duran and released under the MIT license.

What is Onassis?

Onassis is a Jekyll theme designed for newspaper and news-style websites. It runs on Jekyll, the static site generator, and is configured to work with GitHub Pages out of the box, as indicated by its GitHub topics. The theme is authored by Alvaro Duran, who also provides a live demo at alvaroduran.com/Onassis and hosts the source code on GitHub under the ohduran/Onassis repository. As input, it takes standard Jekyll site content—such as Markdown posts and configuration files—and produces a static HTML website with a newspaper-style layout. The theme is free to use and modify under the MIT license, and it has 26 stars on GitHub as shown in the repository metadata.

Key Features

• Jekyll-based — Built on Jekyll, the static site generator, so it works with the standard Jekyll directory structure and Liquid templates.
• GitHub Pages ready — The theme is listed with the "github-pages" topic, meaning it can be deployed directly to GitHub Pages without additional build configuration.
• Newspaper design — The theme is categorized as a "newspaper-theme," giving sites a clean, editorial layout suitable for news and magazine content.
• Free and open source — Released under the MIT license, so you can use, modify, and redistribute it freely.
• Live demo available — A live demo is provided at alvaroduran.com/Onassis to preview the theme before installation.
• Easy download — A direct download of the theme as a ZIP archive is available from the GitHub repository.
• Contribution-friendly — The project includes clear contribution guidelines: fork, clone, branch, commit, push, and open a pull request.

Who is it for?

Onassis is aimed at anyone who wants to launch a news-oriented website without building the front-end from scratch. This includes:

• Journalists and news bloggers who need an editorial layout to publish articles and reports.
• Online magazine editors looking for a clean, newspaper-style presentation for their content.
• Developers and Jekyll users who want a free, open-source theme as a starting point for a news site, with the ability to customize the code.
• Small media startups that want a low-cost, static website that can be hosted for free on GitHub Pages.

What can you do with Onassis?

• Launch a news website — Set up a newspaper-style site by downloading the theme, adding your content, and deploying it to GitHub Pages.
• Create an online magazine — Use the editorial layout to present articles, features, and stories in a format that prioritizes headlines and readability.
• Customize an open-source theme — Fork the repository on GitHub and modify the Jekyll templates to create a custom news site, with the option to contribute changes back to the project.

How does Onassis work?

Onassis works like any standard Jekyll theme. You download the theme files from the GitHub repository, place them in your Jekyll project, and then build the site locally with jekyll build or on GitHub Pages by pushing to a repository configured for it. The theme uses Jekyll's templating system to generate static HTML pages from your Markdown content and YAML front matter.

Pricing

Onassis is completely free, released under the MIT license. There are no paid tiers or premium features; the entire theme is open source and available for anyone to use.

FAQ

Is Onassis free?

Yes, Onassis is free to use and is distributed under the MIT license, which allows commercial use, modification, and redistribution with proper attribution.

What is Onassis built with?

Onassis is built on Jekyll, the popular static site generator written in Ruby. It uses Jekyll's Liquid templating and standard directory structure, and it is designed to work with GitHub Pages.

How do I install Onassis?

You can download the theme as a ZIP from the GitHub repository at github.com/ohduran/Onassis, or fork it on GitHub. Then, follow the standard Jekyll installation process: place the theme in your project, run jekyll serve locally, and push to GitHub Pages for deployment.

Is Onassis compatible with GitHub Pages?

Yes, the theme is explicitly listed with the "github-pages" topic, so it is intended to be compatible with GitHub Pages hosting. You can use it with the built-in Jekyll support on GitHub Pages.