Clone Themes in Hugo, don't use submodules

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 16:09:35 +0000

Both Hugo and Netlify will tell you to use submodules when using themes.

Hugo saying to use submodules

Netlify saying to use submodules

That might work for some people but it didn’t work well for me and caused me to stop blogging for years because I didn’t want to/couldn’t figure out the conflicts with Hugo and various themes. Hugo releases come at a relentless pace and is backwards compatible for what seems like only a few versions.

Now Running on Hugo 1.60

Sun, 19 Apr 2026 16:46:52 -0700

In Siriusventures.com now on Pelican 4.11.0 I talked about upgrading my version of Pelican, which went smoothly, and my concerns about Pelican. I really like the interface of Publii because it’s more like Google Docs, with the ability to easily insert images, refer to links especially internal ones, and just the speed and ease of working with it. I have concerns about Publii. I worked with ChatGPT to try and import my other site, running on Hugo, into Publii. It was no problem getting markdown into the right directory and the articles into the right table. I tried a few times to get other tables right and in the end I just entered the articles by hand. That was OK for 28 or so posts but not fun for more than that.

Hugo on Jim Deibele's Blog

Clone Themes in Hugo, don't use submodules

Now Running on Hugo 1.60