I’m looking for some guidance as to which themes are the most reliable (i.e. likely to maintain support and be good for years to come) out there for Ghost.
I blog.
I love the Ghost themes I have seen so far. They look 2018, compared to most of the WordPress themes I have used, which look so 2000. But the functionality of Ghost themes compared to WordPress seems very 2000.
I see there are a lot of themes displayed in the Ghost Marketplace, but when I read the comments for the themes, a lot of people are asking if they can do basic stuff (stuff that the WordPress Customizer handles out of the box) and the developer is asking them to fire over a DM. It seems all very new, and reliant on either being a developer yourself or being in dialogue with the theme developer.
For example, I can’t even add Instagram to the Casper theme. Unless I go into the code, but I’m a designer and not a developer, so that’s not going to happen.
I’m really torn. Ghost themes, to me, leap out more than WordPress themes. They load faster. I love the Markdown. But WordPress is way more intuitive to use for a non-developer and so much more expandable. I get that Ghost is fixed on blogging, but the functionality I have added to my WordPress blogs is immense, with a Subscribe box below each entry and at the pre-header, recent post listings etc.
I also use Flywheel, which is managed hosting and simply sublime. It’s $15 per month (billed monthly) so Ghost is going to cost me big time if I switch (looking at Ghost Pro).
Moved to Ghost in part to support the open source side, and because Medium is prone to having its moderation policies hijacked for harassment.
The support at Ghost is helpful and patient.
It is costly, and that monthly affords a single publication(last I checked)
There seems to be more focus on devs/more expansive orgs using ghost on their own servers.
You can download ghost and host it on your own hosting, that would be cheaper no?
As a whole, Ghost needs more development, and push, community, themes etc wise. But I’m not sure that’s a negative criticism.
If hosted on Ghost, work appears stable, and not prone to brigading. Which is a huge positive.
While I am deeply frustrated with parts of Ghost, I am generally happy at its stability. And for some reason that has left an odd affection for the platform, to the point where, I keep trying to find a way not to leave Ghost.
I pretty much share the same opinions as people above, but I have made the switch from WordPress to Ghost for a few very small blogs I have or manage for some friends. I run them on my own hosting (AWS currently, but planning to move it to DO in the near future) and I edit the themes here and there where I need to add a social network link/icon, Disqus comments or something similar.
I would also wish Ghost were closer to WP in terms of non technical user functionalities, but I also get it that it’s hard to get there with a small team and limited resources. I would like to be able to update themes and not have to redo theme edits or make the little theme edits and customizations within the admin interface.
However, I have great hopes as it seems Ghost is moving into the right direction technology and philosophy wise and I hope that in the near future it will be that fullly fledged modern CMS that will allow you to create and manage custom content types in the admin interface, while also allowing you to flexibly play with the theme in order to make tweaks needed for everyday website users.