Sustain

Sustain is a Hugo theme for personal blogs that adapts the Jekyll theme of the same name, built on Bootstrap and offering syntax highlighting, Disqus comments, and Google Analytics integration.

What is Sustain?

Sustain is a Hugo theme for personal blogs, ported from the Jekyll theme Sustain by Fábio Madeira. It takes a Hugo site's content — Markdown files for blog posts and projects — and renders it as a static website styled with Bootstrap. The theme is maintained in the GitHub repository nurlansu/hugo-sustain and is distributed under an MIT license. A live demo is available at demo.suyundukov.com/hugo-sustain/.

Key Features

• Bootstrap styling — uses the Bootstrap framework to provide a responsive layout and UI components without requiring an additional CSS framework.
• Syntax highlighting — enabled per post by setting highlight = true in the front matter; this loads highlight.js JavaScript and CSS files to colorize code blocks.
• Disqus comments — activate by uncommenting and filling in the disqusShortname parameter in config.toml to add comment threads to your posts.
• Google Analytics — add your tracking ID to the googleAnalytics parameter in config.toml to enable site statistics.
• Projects section — the exampleSite includes a projects.md content file and a projects.yml data file to display a list of projects on the site.
• Example site — ships with a complete exampleSite folder containing a sample config.toml, several blog posts, data files, and static assets to use as a starting point.
• MIT license — free to use, modify, and redistribute; the LICENSE.md file is included in the repository.

Who is it for?

• Personal bloggers — who want a clean, responsive blog built with Hugo and Bootstrap to publish posts and showcase projects.
• Hugo beginners — who can use the included exampleSite as a reference for configuring a Hugo site with a theme.
• Developers migrating from Jekyll — since it is a direct port of the Jekyll Sustain theme, users familiar with that theme can switch to Hugo with minimal changes to their content structure.

What can you do with Sustain?

• Publish blog posts — write Markdown files in the content/blog folder and they render as blog entries with optional syntax highlighting and Disqus comments.
• Showcase projects — edit projects.yml to display a list of projects on the homepage.
• Track visitors — plug in your Google Analytics ID to collect traffic data from your site.
• Customize appearance — because it uses Bootstrap and Hugo templates, you can edit styles and template files to match your personal brand.

How does Sustain work?

To install, clone the repository into themes/hugo-sustain or download and unzip the archive into your themes folder. Then copy the config.toml from exampleSite to your site root, add your content, and run hugo serve to develop locally at localhost:1313.

Pricing

Sustain is free and open source under the MIT license.

FAQ

How do I install Sustain?

To install, run git clone https://github.com/nurlansu/hugo-sustain.git themes/hugo-sustain from the root of your Hugo site. Alternatively, download the zip archive, unzip it, and move the hugo-sustain folder into your themes directory. The official Hugo setup guide provides additional details.

Does Sustain support syntax highlighting?

Yes, it uses highlight.js. For a single post, set highlight = true in the post's front matter to include the highlight.js JavaScript and CSS files. This colors code blocks in that post without affecting other pages.

Can I use Disqus comments with Sustain?

Yes. In your config.toml, uncomment the disqusShortname parameter and set it to your Disqus shortname. This enables comment threads on your blog posts, allowing readers to engage with your content.

How do I add Google Analytics to Sustain?

Sign up for Google Analytics to get a tracking ID, then add that ID to the googleAnalytics parameter in config.toml. The theme automatically includes the Google Analytics tracking snippet on every page when this parameter is set.

Is Sustain free?

Yes, Sustain is open source and distributed under the MIT license. This means you can freely use, modify, and distribute it, as long as you retain the copyright notice. The license file is included in the repository.