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Andrew Armstrong
Andrew Armstrong

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NeoDark: a free, fast dark-mode WordPress theme for tech guides and reviews

Hi DEV! I built NeoDark because most "tech blog" WordPress themes fall into one of two camps: bloated with a page builder and a dozen bundled plugins, or generic enough that they don't feel purpose-built for guides, tutorials and reviews. NeoDark is a free, lightweight, dark-mode-first theme built specifically for that kind of content.

What it does out of the box:

  • Dark-mode-first design with a consistent, accessible color system
  • Customizer-driven homepage — pick which six categories get their own homepage section, no code required
  • Automatic table of contents on long-form posts, generated straight from your headings
  • Related posts based on shared categories
  • Breadcrumbs on every archive, single post, and page
  • Site-wide social links menu with automatic icon detection for common networks (Twitter/X, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, GitHub, YouTube, etc.)
  • Mobile-friendly navigation with a properly focus-trapped menu and search overlay (keyboard users won't get stuck)
  • WooCommerce-compatible out of the box
  • No page builder, no bundled plugins, no tracking

Runs on WordPress 6.4+ and PHP 7.4+.

Why I built it

A lot of tech-guide sites end up looking the same because they're all running the same page-builder-plus-plugin-stack combo, which drags load times down and adds a maintenance burden nobody asked for. NeoDark skips all of that: it's just a theme, styled dark-mode-first (because most of us are reading guides at 11pm with the lights off), with the specific content structures a guides/reviews site actually needs — automatic TOC, related posts, breadcrumbs — built directly into the theme rather than bolted on.

Tech notes

No remote/CDN-loaded scripts, styles, or fonts — everything's self-hosted, and NeoDark doesn't store any personal data beyond what WordPress core already provides. All social icons are original SVG artwork, not an icon-font library. There's also a premium version, NeoDark Pro, with additional homepage layouts, dedicated review content blocks (Quick Facts, Pros & Cons, Comparison Tables, Verdict Boxes), and a mega menu — but the free version is a complete, standalone theme on its own, not a crippled trial.

Links

Homepage: https://techygeekshome.info/
Currently going through the WordPress.org Theme Directory review queue — automated Theme Check already passed, awaiting final human review.

Happy to answer questions about the Customizer setup, the focus-trap implementation, or anything else. Feedback very welcome, especially if you try it on your own guides/review site.

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