Best Dark VS Code themes

3 min readMar 16, 2020

Visual Studio Code has won the hearts of many developers in recent years. Ease of use, customization and light weight makes it everyone’s editor of choice. Let’s take a look at some of the best VSCode themes available in the market which is being used by some of the famous devs from the community.

To Apply the theme, Launch VS Code Quick Open (Ctrl+P), paste the command below each theme, and press enter.

1. Ayu

ayu is a simple theme with bright colors and comes in three versions — dark, mirage and light for all day long comfortable work.

npm install — save ayu

Links: GitHub | Marketplace

2. Tokyo Night

A clean, dark Visual Studio Code theme that celebrates the lights of Downtown Tokyo at night.

Links: GitHub | Marketplace

3. Cold Horizon Theme

Inspired by the wonderful Horizon Theme for VS Code, Cold Horizon turns the temperature down with an identical color palette, but dominated by shades of blue and green.

LInks: Marketplace

4. Primal

Simple dark theme based on Ayu Mirage, Space Grey Neue and City Lights.

Links: GitHub | Marketplace

5. morgan.codes-theme

A bright, modern, contrasting dark theme. If you like most of theme, but not every color choice, feel free to fork this theme and create a variation of your own 🦄

Links: GitHub | Marketplace

6. Field Lights

Field Lights is a dark Visual Studio Theme inspired by the great Ayu (Mirage) theme but adding some personal taste customizations.

Links: GitHub | Marketplace

7. Overnight

A soft, yet vibrant theme based on Sarah Drasner’s Night Owl and Dan Abramov’s fork on overreacted.io.

ext install cev.overnight

Links: GitHub | Marketplace

8. Outrun Theme

Outrun is a fully custom theme for VS Code inspired by the colors, style, and culture of the synthwave music scene.

Links: GitHub | Marketplace

9. SynthWave ‘84

Do you remember that endless summer back in ‘84? Cruising down the ocean-highway with the top down, the wind in our hair and heads buzzing with neon dreams?