Hydejack

Hydejack is widely considered the most visually distinctive Jekyll theme available. Originally inspired by Hyde, it has evolved into something entirely its own — a carefully considered design that many developers describe as the best-looking personal site template in any static site ecosystem.

The theme’s defining feature is its sidebar: a fixed, full-height panel that holds your avatar, name, tagline, and navigation. As you scroll through posts, the sidebar stays present, turning your blog into something that feels more like a curated magazine than a standard website. The sidebar adapts beautifully on mobile, collapsing into a hamburger menu that slides in from the left.

Performance is treated as a first-class feature. Images load progressively with a blur-up technique, the Service Worker caches pages for instant repeat visits, and page transitions are handled client-side to avoid full reloads. The result is a site that feels dramatically faster than it has any right to be.

Hydejack ships in two versions: a free version available on GitHub covering all the core functionality, and a premium PRO version with additional features like a built-in resume page, project pages, a blog list layout, and a dark mode that applies to syntax highlighting. The free version is genuinely excellent and completely self-sufficient for most use cases.

Who is it for? Developers and designers who want the most visually striking Jekyll portfolio-blog hybrid available, and are willing to invest time in the setup for the payoff.