Why I Built 7 Niche Ghost Themes Instead of One Multipurpose Theme

The obvious play was one theme with 40 demos. That's what sells. I went the other direction.

Why not

15 years of building products taught me the pattern: tools that try to do everything do nothing well. A SaaS landing page and a docs site share a CMS. They share nothing else.

The navigation is different. The typography is different. The content structure is different. A pricing table belongs on a SaaS site. A sidebar TOC belongs on a docs site. Cramming both into one theme means both are optional, both need configuration, and neither works well by default.

Multipurpose themes sell because they promise everything. They deliver a starting point that requires hours of tweaking to look like anything specific. I've set up enough of them to know.

What niche means in practice

Codex ships sidebar navigation because docs need it. Launchpad ships a pricing table because SaaS sites need it. Neither ships what the other needs. Less code. Fewer things to break. Better defaults.

When you install Codex, the demo content is technical documentation. When you install Launchpad, the demo content is a SaaS product page. You're not deleting 30 demo pages to find the one that fits. You're adding your content to a structure that already matches your use case.

Every design decision in each theme was made for one specific type of site. GameDock has pixel typography and neon accents because gaming communities expect that. Meridian has clean authority signals because consulting firms need credibility. These aren't style variations of the same layout. They're different products.

The tradeoff

Seven themes means seven things to maintain. Seven update cycles when Ghost pushes a release. Seven sets of documentation. More work.

But one bloated theme where every feature is optional and nothing works perfectly is worse. I'd rather maintain seven focused products than one product that tries to be everything and nails nothing.

The maintenance overhead is real. When Ghost 6 shipped, I updated seven themes. That took time. But each update was straightforward because each theme has a clear scope. No conditional logic for features that might or might not be enabled. No "if SaaS mode, show pricing table; if docs mode, show sidebar." Just the code each theme needs.

Who this is for

If you know what you're building, you don't need 40 demos. You need one theme that nails your use case.

If you're building a documentation site, you want a theme that was designed as a documentation site from the first line of code. Not a blog theme with a sidebar bolted on.

If you're launching a SaaS product, you want a theme with a pricing table, feature sections, and a conversion-focused layout. Not a magazine theme with a custom page template that sort of works.

That's the bet. Fewer customers who need exactly what I built, instead of more customers who need to customize everything.

See all seven themes on the themes page.