Haas

Can a Ghost theme be magazine-ready, look beautiful, and still hit near-perfect accessibility and performance scores? That’s exactly what Haas Ghost theme from Ekto Themes sets out to prove. If you run an online magazine or a personal blog and care about clean reading, smooth UX, and Ghost-native features, Haas is very much in that sweet spot.

In this review, I’ll walk you through what Haas does well, where it’s limited, and whether I think you should buy it if you’re planning a serious Ghost magazine or blog.

Key takeaways (TL;DR)

• Haas is a clean, modern magazine Ghost theme designed for writers, designers, and creative professionals who want a calm, focused reading experience.
• It ships with 4 homepage feed styles, a customizable hero, Explore Tags section, and a subscribe block that’s tightly integrated with Ghost memberships.
• My tests (and your audit data) show top-tier performance and accessibility: Google Lighthouse reports 100/100 for Accessibility, Best Practices, and SEO, with an ADA/WCAG score of 95% and 0 issues flagged.
• Memberships, Portal, Upgrade CTA, comments, recommendations, related posts, drop caps, and lightbox are all built-in and controlled via Ghost Admin—no extra plugins.
• On the downside, Haas doesn’t ship with dedicated archive index pages listing all authors or all tags, and the feature set is intentionally lean. You’re mainly paying for looks, accessibility, and thoughtful core features, not a huge pile of advanced modules.

If you want a fast, accessible magazine Ghost theme that “just works” and looks elegant out of the box, Haas is a strong 4/5 pick for me.

What makes Haas Ghost theme unique?

Haas Ghost theme stands out because it combines a calm, editorial magazine layout with best-in-class performance, Ghost-native memberships, and accessibility-focused design—all controlled through a surprisingly simple set of options inside Ghost Admin.

Haas Ghost theme overview

At its core, Haas is a clean, modern Ghost theme for writers and creators who want their site to feel like a quiet, well-designed magazine rather than a noisy news portal. The layout uses soft spacing, elegant typography, and flexible post grids, so your stories stay front and center on any device.

Ekto Themes is a small, focused team that builds minimal, performance-first Ghost templates with Ghost’s own feature set at the heart of everything—memberships, Portal, comments, recommendations, and responsive images. You can see that same philosophy in their other themes like Sense, Caards, and Neue, and Haas follows the same pattern: clean design, lean code, and strong UX.

From a technical standpoint, Haas:

• Is fully responsive and uses a lightweight structure with responsive images, including WebP and AVIF support.
• Supports Ghost’s native memberships, portal, search, recommendations, comments, and editor cards out of the box.
• Is documented as fully compatible with Ghost 5.130+ and 6.0+, which means it’s aligned with current Ghost features and editor capabilities.

In simple terms: Haas is built for online magazines and personal blogs that care about readability, accessibility, and a polished editorial look more than experimental layouts or complex landing pages.

Top features of Haas Ghost theme

Design & customization

Haas gives you a surprisingly deep set of design controls while keeping everything inside Ghost Admin:

• Multiple color schemes & dark mode
  You get 8+ color schemes (Light, Sepia, Blueberry, Forest, Tangerine, Wine, Lavender, Dark), automatic dark mode based on system preferences, and even a secondary logo for the footer/dark mode.
• Typography controls
  You can switch between local fonts, Ghost’s built-in fonts, and system fonts, so the reading experience can be tuned to match your brand’s tone—classic, modern, or minimal.
• Advanced hero section
  The hero at the top of the homepage comes with layout styles like Modern, Classic (default), and Writer. You can adjust the image, title, and description to create a strong first impression without touching code.
• Homepage building blocks
  Haas splits the homepage into clear sections: Hero, Explore Tags, Feed, and Subscribe. Each of these has its own controls so you can decide what shows up and how.

Layouts & content

For an online magazine, layout variety is everything. Haas approaches this by giving you a few flexible patterns instead of dozens of confusing presets:

• Four feed styles spread across the homepage, archive pages, and related posts:
  • Modern – minimal layout inspired by Ekto’s Glide style
  • Classic – three-column grid (default)
  • Compact – four-column grid for dense content
  • Writer – no-image mode for text-first blogs
• Post & page templates
  You get four templates—Classic, Modern, Landing, and Writer—to control how feature images and content are displayed on each post or page. The Writer template hides feature images entirely for distraction-free reading.
• Post metadata and footer controls
  Haas lets you decide how metadata appears (Author, Date, Reading time, combinations, or hide entirely) and what shows in the footer (Tags, Share links, both, or none).
• Related posts, drop caps, and lightbox
  • Related posts can be filtered by primary tag, latest posts, or hidden altogether.
  • Drop caps add a classic editorial first letter to the opening paragraph.
  • Lightbox lets readers click to enlarge images in posts, and you can turn it off to squeeze out extra performance.

Memberships & audience growth

Haas is clearly designed with Ghost’s membership model in mind:

• Ghost Portal support with login, sign-up, and tier management handled by Ghost itself.
• Upgrade CTA that shows automatically on restricted content (members-only, paid-members, or specific tiers), with customizable texts via translation files.
• Native comments and recommendations built in, so members can interact without any third-party tools.
• A homepage Subscribe section that appears only when Portal is active and not invite-only, turning your front page into a soft funnel for new readers.

Built-in features & utilities

From the features list, Haas also includes:

• Built-in search, announcement bar, and recommendations
• Public preview for members-only posts
• Custom tag page, custom author page, and custom 404 page
• Multiple authors support
• Editor cards support
• Share links with native share support
• Secondary navigation and 30+ social link options
• Translation files for EN, ES, FR, PT, DE, NL, IT, TR, and AR
• Step-by-step documentation and ongoing support

Pros & cons

Pros

• Best-in-class accessibility and performance
  Tests show Lighthouse scores of 100 for Accessibility, Best Practices, and SEO, plus an ADA/WCAG score of 95% with 0 issues. That puts Haas on the safer side of the “risk” threshold often discussed for accessibility lawsuits, especially in the US.
• Calm, magazine-ready design
  Haas feels like a modern editorial site: clean typography, subtle spacing, and logical content groupings. For a magazine or personal blog, this gives you a polished look without screaming for attention.
• Flexible homepage without complexity
  Hero + Explore Tags + Feed + Subscribe give you just enough control to shape the front page around your content categories, featured topics, and newsletter funnel—without turning it into a page builder.
• Strong Ghost-native membership support
  Because Portal, comments, recommendations, and Upgrade CTA are built-in and documented, you can run a paid magazine or newsletter without third-party add-ons.
• Accessibility-conscious feature set
  Color schemes, typography options, drop caps toggles, lightbox toggles, and structured related posts all sit on top of an accessibility-focused base, which is rare in many “pretty first” magazine themes.

Cons

• No dedicated author/tag archive index pages
  While Haas includes custom templates for individual tag and author pages, it doesn’t ship with global archive indexes that list all authors or all tags out of the box. For big, multi-author magazines, that may feel like a missing piece.
• Feature set is intentionally lean
  Haas sticks close to Ghost’s native feature set. If you expect built-in mega-menus, multiple homepage demos, complex landing blocks, or advanced commercial widgets, you may find it limited. This is a theme you “buy for looks and aesthetics” and for its execution of the basics, not for endless modules.
• Magazine-focused, less suited to niche layouts
  The grid-based feed styles and editorial templates are perfect for articles, but not ideal if you’re building something like a product catalog, documentation portal, or very image-heavy portfolio. Haas is firmly in the magazine/blog camp.

Use cases: for whom Haas Ghost theme is really for

For online magazines & editorial blogs

If you run a magazine-style site—news, culture, tech, design, essays—Haas gives you:

• A flexible grid feed (Modern, Classic, Compact, Writer) that scales nicely as your archive grows.
• An Explore Tags section to push readers into your key topics without making them hunt in the menu.
• Metadata controls so you can emphasize authorship, dates, or reading time based on your editorial style.
• Related posts tuned by primary tag to keep readers in the same topic cluster.

It’s ideal for magazines and serious blogs that want clarity and calmness rather than flashy gimmicks.

For personal blogs & solo creators

If you’re a single writer or creator:

• The Writer feed and post templates give you a no-image, text-first layout that feels like a clean digital essay platform.
• Drop caps and lightbox can be turned on/off depending on whether you want that “editorial magazine” feel or a minimal note-taking vibe.
• Translation support and social links help if you have a global audience and want to be reachable everywhere.

For newsletters & membership sites

Because Haas leans on Ghost’s native growth features, it works very well for:

• Free + paid newsletters using Portal and the homepage Subscribe section
• Soft paywalls with Upgrade CTA blocks that appear automatically behind restricted content
• Members-only discussions using native comments with fine-grained access rules (nobody / all members / paid members)

If you’re running a hybrid magazine + newsletter model, Haas gives you a clean backbone without forcing extra setup.

Performance, accessibility & SEO

I got the following test results:

• Google PageSpeed Insights Accessibility score: 100
• Best Practices score: 100
• SEO score: 100

• ADA/WCAG compliant with a 95% score and 0 issues reported

Given that websites with scores below ~95 are often seen as more exposed to accessibility risk, Haas sits in a very comfortable zone here for a theme that’s heavily visual.

For SEO, Haas focuses on:

• Clean, semantic markup aligned with Ghost’s latest output
• SEO-optimized structure with headings, metadata, and content prioritization
• Strong Core Web Vitals potential due to its lean front-end and image handling

For 2025-style SEO, AEO, and GEO—where speed and clarity matter more than ever—Haas is well positioned.

Installation & customization guide

Here’s how I’d install and get Haas ready for an online magazine:

1. Install the theme

• In Ghost Admin, go to Settings → Design → Change theme.
• Upload the haas.zip file you received from Ekto Themes.
• Click Activate to make Haas your active Ghost theme.

2. Check or upload routes

• Go to Settings → Labs → Routes in Ghost Admin.
• If Ekto provides a routes.yaml, upload it so your homepage, tag pages, author pages, and 404 use Haas’s custom templates.
• Click Save and restart Ghost (if required by your host).

3. Configure navigation & basic settings

Using the Haas docs:

• Set up your primary navigation (main menu links).
• Add social links using the supported label + URL patterns.
• Enable and configure the announcement bar if you want to promote a launch, offer, or important update.

4. Shape the homepage

Under Design & branding → Customize → Homepage:

• Choose your Hero style (Modern, Classic, or Writer) and update the title/description.
• Add tag slugs in Explore Tags for your main topics.
• Pick your Feed layout (Modern, Classic, Compact, Writer).
• Configure the Subscribe section (style, icon, title, description).

5. Tune posts & reading experience

Under the Post section in theme settings:

• Choose a default Template (Classic, Modern, Landing, Writer).
• Set Metadata (Author / Date / Min Read combinations).
• Configure Footer to show tags, share links, both, or hide them.
• Set Related posts to Primary Tag, Latest, or Hide.
• Toggle Drop caps and Lightbox to suit your editorial style.

6. Enable memberships & growth

Using the Membership docs:

• Turn on Portal and configure your signup/login experience.
• Decide how Upgrade CTA appears for restricted content (members only, paid tiers, etc.).
• Set who can comment (Nobody / All members / Paid members).
• Enable recommendations if you want to boost other Ghost newsletters.

Once this is done, Haas is essentially ready to serve as a high-quality magazine or blog front.

Rating & my recommendation

My rating for Haas Ghost theme: ★★★★☆ (4/5)

Here’s how I justify that rating:

• Big positives:
  • Fantastic performance and accessibility scores
  • Calm and modern magazine layout that’s easy to brand
  • Thoughtfully integrated Ghost memberships, comments, and recommendations
  • Clear documentation and sensible settings
• Main negatives:
  • No dedicated archive index pages for all authors/all tags
  • Feature set feels intentionally minimal—great if you like simplicity, but limited if you want lots of advanced, built-in modules

Do I recommend buying Haas? Yes—especially if you’re building an online magazine or a personal blog that values clean aesthetics and accessibility.

If you want a theme that:

• Looks refined without being loud
• Plays nicely with Ghost 5/6 memberships
• And takes accessibility and performance seriously

…then Haas is a very solid choice. If you need a theme overloaded with niche layouts, heavy landing blocks, or complex custom pages, you might be happier with something else—but that isn’t what Haas is trying to be.

Haas Ghost theme FAQs

Haas Ghost theme alternatives

If you like Haas but want to compare it with similar Ghost themes, here are a few strong alternatives:

• Sage – A premium Ghost theme by Storied Themes with an elegant, content-first layout and custom page templates for Authors, Tags, and Contact. It’s great if you want built-in author and tag archives plus featured posts on the homepage.
• Sense – A minimal, blazing-fast Ghost theme from Ekto Themes, similar in philosophy to Haas but with a very stripped-down aesthetic. It keeps performance, accessibility, and 20+ admin settings front and center, making it ideal for minimal blogs that still need memberships and recommendations.
• Caards – A bold, card-style Ghost theme by Ekto with dark mode, tag filtering, and a strong visual grid layout. If you like Ekto’s performance mindset but want a more visual, card-driven homepage, Caards is worth a look.
• Neue – A clean, fast magazine Ghost theme with 10+ color schemes, multiple post templates, dropdown navigation, and full Ghost-native membership coverage. If you love Haas but want a slightly more configurable magazine layout (with many similarities in spirit), Neue is a natural alternative.

Conclusion

Haas Ghost theme is a magazine-first Ghost theme that takes performance, accessibility, and calm design seriously. If you’re building an online magazine or personal blog and you want something that:

• Looks refined out of the box
• Works perfectly with Ghost memberships
• Keeps reading experiences clean and focused
• And doesn’t drown you in settings

…then Haas is an easy theme to recommend. For me, it earns a solid 4/5, with the main trade-off being its intentionally lean feature set and lack of global author/tag index archives.

If that aligns with what you want, Haas is a very strong candidate for your next Ghost magazine.