In this discussion, Remo_van_de_Sande asks about the themes used by several Discourse forums including OpenAI, Solana, Atlassian, OpenSourceDesign, Blender Artists, and Unreal Engine. Most are custom-built, with some using minor tweaks to default Discourse layouts. Lilly notes that the split view seen on many sites (categories + latest topics) is a built-in setting under Admin > Site Settings > Desktop Category Page Style, though Bas confirms it can be overridden by themes. EricGT confirms OpenAI’s theme is custom and private, while chapoi recommends the Beginner’s Guide to Developing Discourse Themes as a starting point. Canapin suggests contacting bartv (Blender Artists admin) directly. Bas and awesomerobot clarify that Epic’s Unreal Engine forum is heavily customized with plugins and themes, likely built by Discourse partners or Enterprise teams. Canapin advises using browser DevTools to inspect CSS/JS for clues about customizations. Remo_van_de_Sande struggles to apply settings, and Bas suggests disabling themes via safe mode (though Remo finds it already enabled). Bas offers to help via PM. Later, Peekoh asks if Unreal Engine’s documentation is a custom plugin/theme — Bas confirms they’re a Discourse customer likely using custom work. Overall, while many sites resemble default Discourse, most are customized, and advanced features require plugins or professional development.
I am exploring Discourse and are wondering if the following websites use a specific theme or if they are custom made. If custom made what would be a good starting point to recreate them ?
I can only comment on the one by OpenAI as I was on the site when it was being created and transitioned to as the default theme.
Yes it is a custom theme and while I know who created it, won’t mention their name but perhaps they may find this and contact you or even respond here.
This is a heavily customised forum. Something like this will use plugins as well as theme modifications.
This is something that our partners can help you with; Discourse can help too of course, if you are on the Enterprise plans
As mentioned, most of the sites listed don’t deviate dramatically from the standard Discourse install (the exception being Epic, which has hundreds of hours of customization done at this point)…
There are a couple other off-the-shelf components that are similar to what’s used here:
I would gladly point you to the OpenAI theme, but unfortunately that’s a private theme so I can’t share it.
But as Lilly said, those aren’t terribly difficult to recreate, so a good starting point would be to familiarise yourself with this excellent guide if you haven’t yet.
Hi there Lilly, thank you for the pointers but Im having trouble finding those components you mentioned. Are they found on GitHub or Im I overlooking something hm
It takes a bit of technical knowledge, but you can grasp useful information about customizations with the browser’s developer tools. In Chrome, F12 → Sources.
You have the list of the loaded files and can find stylesheets, themes and components javascript. Looking at the CSS and JS code here can sometimes give you clues, as well as looking directly at the page’s HTML code.
Hi Bas. As a techie I’m feeling like an idiot that I can’t set this up proper ha.Whatever setting I change doesn’t actually get applied to my forum. Might I be overlooking something ?
welcome to Meta 
