Choosing the right Jekyll theme can shape how readers experience your personal blog. When comparing Mediumish with other Jekyll themes for personal blogging, many creators wonder whether it still stands out as the best option. This article explores the visual style, customization options, and performance differences between Mediumish and alternative themes, helping you decide which suits your long-term blogging goals best.
Complete Overview for Choosing the Right Jekyll Theme
- Why Mediumish Became Popular Among Personal Bloggers
- Design and User Experience Comparison
- Ease of Customization and Flexibility
- Performance and SEO Impact
- Community Support and Updates
- Practical Recommendations Before Choosing
- Final Thoughts and Next Steps
Why Mediumish Became Popular Among Personal Bloggers
Mediumish gained attention for bringing the familiar, minimalistic feel of Medium.com into the Jekyll ecosystem. For bloggers who wanted a sleek, typography-focused design without distractions, Mediumish offered exactly that. It simplified setup and eliminated the need for heavy customization, making it beginner-friendly while retaining professional appeal.
The theme’s readability-focused layout uses generous white space, large font sizes, and subtle accent colors that enhance the reader’s focus. It quickly became the go-to choice for writers, developers, and designers who wanted to express ideas rather than spend hours adjusting design elements.
Visual Consistency and Reader Comfort
One of Mediumish’s strengths is its consistent, predictable interface. Navigation is clean, the content hierarchy is clear, and every element feels purpose-driven. Readers stay focused on what matters — your writing. Compared to many other Jekyll themes that try to do too much visually, Mediumish stands out for its elegant restraint.
Perfect for Content-First Creators
Mediumish is ideal if your main goal is to share stories, tutorials, or opinions. It’s less suitable for portfolio-heavy or e-commerce sites because it intentionally limits design distractions. That focus makes it timeless for long-form bloggers who care about clean presentation and easy maintenance.
Design and User Experience Comparison
When comparing Mediumish with other themes such as Minimal Mistakes, Chirpy, and TeXt, the differences become clearer. Each has its target audience and design philosophy.
| Theme | Design Style | Best For | Learning Curve |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mediumish | Minimal, content-focused | Personal blogs, essays, thought pieces | Easy |
| Minimal Mistakes | Flexible, multipurpose | Documentation, portfolios, mixed content | Moderate |
| Chirpy | Modern and technical | Developers, tech blogs | Moderate |
| TeXt | Typography-oriented | Writers, minimalist blogs | Easy |
Comparing Readability and Navigation
Mediumish delivers one of the most fluid reading experiences among Jekyll themes. It mimics the scrolling behavior and line spacing of Medium.com, which makes it familiar and comfortable. Minimal Mistakes, though feature-rich, sometimes overwhelms with widgets and multiple sidebar options. Chirpy caters to developers who value code snippet formatting over pure text aesthetics, while TeXt focuses on typography but lacks the same polish Mediumish achieves.
Responsive Design and Mobile View
All these themes perform decently on mobile, but Mediumish often loads faster due to fewer interactive scripts. Its responsive layout adapts naturally, ensuring smooth transitions on small screens without unnecessary navigation menus or animations.
Ease of Customization and Flexibility
One major advantage of Mediumish is its simplicity. You can change colors, adjust layouts, or modify typography with minimal front-end skills. However, other themes like Minimal Mistakes provide greater flexibility if you want advanced configurations such as sidebars, featured categories, or collections.
How Beginners Benefit from Mediumish
If you’re new to Jekyll, Mediumish saves time. It requires only basic configuration — title, description, author, and logo. Its structure encourages a clean workflow: write, push, and publish. You don’t have to dig into Liquid templates or SCSS partials unless you want to.
Advanced Users and Code Customization
More advanced users may find Mediumish limited. For example, adding custom post types, portfolio sections, or content filters may require code adjustments. In contrast, Minimal Mistakes and Chirpy support these natively. Therefore, Mediumish is best suited for pure bloggers rather than developers seeking multi-purpose use.
Performance and SEO Impact
Performance and SEO are vital for personal blogs. Mediumish excels in both because of its lightweight nature. Its clean HTML structure and minimal dependency on external JavaScript improve load times, which directly impacts SEO ranking and user experience.
Speed Comparison
In a performance test using Google Lighthouse, Mediumish typically scores higher than feature-heavy themes. This is because its pages rely mostly on static HTML and limited client-side scripts. Minimal Mistakes, for example, can drop in performance if multiple widgets are enabled. Chirpy and TeXt remain efficient but may include more dependencies due to syntax highlighting or analytics integration.
SEO Structure and Metadata
Mediumish includes well-structured metadata and semantic HTML tags, which help search engines understand the content hierarchy. While all modern Jekyll themes support SEO metadata, Mediumish stands out by offering simplicity — fewer configurations but effective defaults. For instance, canonical URLs and Open Graph support are ready out of the box.
Community Support and Updates
Since Mediumish was inspired by the popular Ghost and Medium layouts, it enjoys steady community attention. However, unlike Minimal Mistakes — which is maintained by a large group of contributors — Mediumish updates less frequently. This can be a minor concern if you expect frequent improvements or compatibility patches.
Documentation and Learning Curve
The documentation for Mediumish is straightforward. It covers installation, configuration, and customization clearly. Beginners can get a blog running in minutes. Minimal Mistakes offers more advanced documentation, while Chirpy targets technical audiences, often assuming prior experience with Jekyll and Ruby environments.
Practical Recommendations Before Choosing
When deciding whether Mediumish is still your best choice, consider your long-term goals. Are you primarily a writer or someone who wants to experiment with web features? Below is a quick checklist to guide your decision.
Checklist for Choosing Between Mediumish and Other Jekyll Themes
- Choose Mediumish if your goal is storytelling, essays, or minimal design.
- Choose Minimal Mistakes if you need versatility and multiple layouts.
- Choose Chirpy if your blog includes code-heavy or technical posts.
- Choose TeXt if typography is your main aesthetic preference.
Always test the theme locally before final deployment. A simple bundle exec jekyll serve command lets you preview and evaluate performance. Experiment with your actual content rather than sample data to make an informed judgment.
Final Thoughts and Next Steps
Mediumish continues to hold its place among the top Jekyll themes for personal blogging. Its minimalism, performance efficiency, and easy setup make it timeless for writers who prioritize content over complexity. While other themes may offer greater flexibility, they also bring additional layers of configuration that may not suit everyone.
Ultimately, your ideal Jekyll theme depends on what you value most: simplicity, design control, or extensibility. If you want a blog that looks polished from day one with minimal effort, Mediumish remains an excellent starting point.
Call to Action
If you’re ready to build your personal blog, try installing Mediumish locally and compare it with another theme from Jekyll’s showcase. You’ll quickly discover which environment feels more natural for your writing flow. Start with clarity — and let your words, not your layout, take center stage.