With the launch of CMS Hub back in April 2020, we also rolled out the ability for users to create themes. Today, the ability to create child themes is now available for Marketing Hub Pro+ and CMS Hub customers.

What is a child theme?

Child themes are linked versions of an original (also known as “parent”) theme. They allow you to change or expand on the style and/or functionality of a theme without changing the codebase of the original parent theme in any way. 

How can I start creating child themes?

Child themes can be created through the Design Tools and HubSpot CLI. To learn more about how to start creating child themes, please view our documentation on child themes here.

When can I use a child theme?

Child themes can be used in many situations. Below are a couple of use-cases where using a child theme can be beneficial:

You’ve purchased a theme from the HubSpot Marketplace and want to make changes

Before, if you were to buy a theme from the HubSpot Marketplace and wanted to make changes to the theme you had to clone the whole theme. By creating a child theme from the marketplace theme you have the ability to make any changes to the files you need to in your child theme without having to clone the entire theme. This also allows you to also benefit from future updates to the parent theme by the provider. Updates to the parent theme will cascade down to the child theme unless you have overridden the parent theme functionality. In this scenario, the update will only apply to the parent theme.

Your business operates multiple brands and you want to use one theme with different branding

If your business operates multiple brands, you can use child themes to have one main parent theme with multiple child themes for each brand. Take the following example:

• Fake Widget Company Inc. (FWC) has two brands associated with their company.
• Super Cool Widgets
• Widgets for less

In our example, FWC would be able to create a theme for their main company brand and then create two child themes for each brand (Super Cool and Widgets for less). This will allow FWC to style each site with the respective brands colors, fonts, and imagery while keeping the structure of the sites consistent. 

Have questions or comments? Join the conversation over on the community forums here.