Syllabus
A calm, structured Ghost theme for online courses, with a lesson sidebar, chapters, progress tracking and quizzes.
// overview
About Syllabus
Syllabus turns Ghost into a calm course site. Each tag is a course, its posts are the lessons, and readers get a lesson sidebar, chapters, progress tracking and quick-check quizzes without a separate course platform.
Who it is for
- You teach a craft, a skill or a subject in short lessons
- You want courses without a separate course platform
- You sell membership access to some lessons
- Your readers like to track their progress
Probably not for you if
- You publish news — see Gazette
- You run a recipe site — see Saffron
- You need video hosting, certificates or graded exams
Pages and layouts
Page templates: Courses, Instructors, Membership, Signin, Signup, Account.
Getting set up
- Courses: in Tags, create one public tag per course with a description, a feature image and an accent colour. Give every lesson the course tag as its first tag.
- Lesson order: lessons are listed by publish date, oldest first. To reorder, change the publish dates.
- Upload the theme zip in Ghost Admin → Settings → Design, then fill in the theme settings.
- Import the sample content if you want to start from the demo and replace it with your own posts.
What you download
- The theme, ready for Ghost 6.0 or later (syllabus_1.0.0)
- Documentation in HTML
- Sample content you can import into Ghost
- 12 months of updates and support from the people who built it
Requirements
A Ghost 6 site: Ghost(Pro) on a plan that allows custom themes, or self-hosted Ghost. Memberships and paid tiers use Ghost's own members feature and its Stripe connection; the theme adds the pages and the paywall design. Demo photos are not included in the download.
// features
What's included
- Courses from tags: each public tag is a course, its posts are the lessons, oldest first
- Chapters from internal tags (#chapter Getting started): no plugin, no code
- Lesson page with a course outline sidebar, "Lesson 2 of 4", the chapter in the breadcrumb and an "On this page" list
- Mark as complete: readers tick off lessons and see a progress ring on every course, saved on their device with no account needed
- Continue learning: the homepage brings readers back to the last lesson they opened
- Quick checks: a list under a "Quick check" heading becomes a clickable quiz with a score and Try again
- Course page with a hero, facts (lessons, chapters, reading time), Start / Continue button, full curriculum and instructor card
- Locks on members-only and paid lessons for readers without access; members see them unlocked
- Homepage with a notebook-style syllabus card, course cards with progress, How it works steps, new lessons and instructors
- Courses and Instructors page templates
- Previous / next lesson links that stay inside the course, and an end-of-course link
- Mobile lesson bar with a slide-in course outline
- Membership page with tiers and a monthly/yearly switch; styled paywall for members and paid lessons
- Sign in, sign up and account pages
- Each course has its own colour (tag accent colour) for its cards, outline, progress and links
- Light, dark and system modes with a reader toggle
- Reading progress bar, image lightbox, galleries, tables and toggle cards
- Self-hosted, easy-to-read fonts (Lexend, Atkinson Hyperlegible Next)
- Fully translatable, 19 theme settings, no jQuery
Compatibility & tags
Changelog
v1.0.0 · 2026-09-30
- First release.
// faq
Questions about Syllabus
No. Syllabus is a theme for Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. It needs a Ghost 6 site, either on Ghost(Pro) with a plan that allows custom themes, or self-hosted Ghost.
No. You upload the zip in Ghost Admin and change colours, homepage sections and text in the theme settings (19 of them). The documentation walks through every setting. Custom CSS is optional.
Yes. The theme includes a membership page with your tiers and a monthly/yearly switch, a styled paywall for members-only and paid posts, and sign-in, sign-up and account pages. Payments run through Ghost's built-in Stripe connection, so you keep your subscribers and your revenue.
Yes. Every word the theme shows comes from a translation file, so you can translate it into your site's language.
The regular licence covers one website that you or your client run. The extended licence is for a single end product that you sell to others, for example a paid product where buyers receive a site built on the theme. If you are unsure which one you need, contact us before you buy.
Yes. Our Ghost theme install and setup service puts the theme on your Ghost site, sets your colours, navigation and homepage, connects memberships and imports your content. See the services page for the price.
Read more about Syllabus
How to Set Up Paid Memberships in Ghost with Stripe (2026 Guide)
Ghost has subscriptions built in, and it takes no cut of your revenue. Here is how to connect Stripe, design your tiers, lock the right posts and avoid the common mistakes.
How to Sell Online Courses with Ghost (No Course Platform Needed)
You may not need a separate course platform. With the right theme, Ghost can run courses from tags and posts, with chapters, progress and quick quizzes.
How to Install a Ghost Theme (and Set It Up Properly) in 2026
Uploading a Ghost theme takes a minute. Making your site look like the demo takes a little longer. Here is the full process, step by step.
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