Aurora: A Glowing, Glassmorphic Theme for Flarum
If you run a Flarum forum and you're tired of the default flat
look, ernestdefoe/aurora is worth a look.
It's a free, MIT-licensed theme that pushes Flarum into modern dashboard territory:
drifting aurora-style gradients, frosted glass panels, glowing accents, and a deep
night-sky palette.
Screenshots
Forum index
Animated aurora backdrop, glassmorphic discussion cards, gradient text on unread
titles, a glowing pill for unread counts, stat widgets inside the welcome hero, and
the user-facing palette picker popover (shown open).
Discussion view
Glassy posts with gradient usernames, accent-bordered blockquotes, themed inline
code and code blocks, and gradient-glow avatars.
Admin settings
Live color swatches, a gradient preview, and toggles for glassmorphism, glow, and
background animation.
What makes it different
Most Flarum themes recolor the existing surfaces and stop there. Aurora rebuilds the
feel of the forum:
- Animated aurora backdrop — drifting radial gradients in violet, cyan, teal,
pink, and magenta on a dark base. It moves slowly enough to feel ambient rather
than distracting.
- User-facing palette picker — a gradient button in the header opens a popover
with six presets. The choice is saved per visitor in localStorage, so each user
can pick the vibe they want without admin intervention.
- Hero stat widgets — Members, Discussions, Posts, and Online-now tiles live
inside the welcome hero with little trend lines.
- Glassmorphic surfaces everywhere — header, sidebar, discussion cards,
composer, modals, and dropdowns all get the frosted-blur treatment.
- Gradient text and scrollbars — headings, usernames, and even the scrollbar
thumb get a gradient clip.
- Glow on hover and focus — soft cyan/pink halos around avatars and focus rings.
It also respects prefers-reduced-motion and keeps visible focus rings, which is
nice to see in a theme that leans this heavily on motion and effects.
The palette presets
Six presets ship by default:
| Preset | Gradient |
|---|
| Aurora (default) | #7c3aed → #4f46e5 → #22d3ee → #14b8a6 |
| Sunset | #f97316 → #f43f5e → #d946ef → #7c3aed |
| Ocean | #1e40af → #3b82f6 → #06b6d4 → #22d3ee |
| Forest | #15803d → #10b981 → #22d3ee → #0ea5e9 |
| Nebula | #a855f7 → #d946ef → #6366f1 → #3b82f6 |
| Ember | #b91c1c → #ea580c → #f59e0b → #fbbf24 |
Want your own? Extend the PALETTES object in js/src/forum/palettes.js and
rebuild.
Installing it
It's a normal Composer-installed Flarum extension:
composer require ernestdefoe/aurora
Then flip it on under Admin → Extensions and head to its settings panel to tune:
- Primary gradient start and end colors
- Accent color (used for hover halos)
- Toggles for glassmorphism, glow, and the animated background
If you want all the bells but a calmer experience, turning off background animation
gets you the glass and glow without the motion.
Hacking on it
The build is small and standard:
git clone https://github.com/ernestdefoe/aurora.git
cd aurora/js
npm install
npm run build # production
npm run dev # watch mode
Less powers the styling — variables, mixins, and animations live in
less/variables.less, less/mixins.less, and less/animations.less. The frontend
JS is split into focused modules (palette-picker.js, hero-widgets.js, etc.) so
you can pull pieces out if you only want one feature.
Compatibility
Aurora's main branch targets Flarum 2.0 (built against 2.0.0-rc.1) and PHP
^8.3. If you're still on Flarum 1.8.x, switch to the
1.x branch, which targets
flarum/core ^1.8.0 and uses the legacy settings API.
Browsers without backdrop-filter support gracefully degrade to solid dark
surfaces, so you don't end up with a broken-looking forum on older clients.
Verdict
Aurora is one of the more visually ambitious Flarum themes out there, and the
per-visitor palette picker is a genuinely clever touch — it lets your forum feel
custom to each user without you having to maintain multiple themes. If your
community would enjoy a more atmospheric, dashboard-style forum, it's worth
installing on a staging instance and clicking around.
Repo: github.com/ernestdefoe/aurora
License: MIT
