Hi Ghost community,
I’ve made a small app called Ghost Friend Link Gateway that lets you share individual paid articles from Ghost via secret links.
I started this project for myself, as I wanted a way to share and potentially sell individual paywalled posts, even though I know Ghost doesn’t natively support this (likely because it could be quite complex, may not be fully secure, and might not fit the product direction).
I know “secret link“ would never be a “perfectly secure” solution for this, but I wanted to try building something that could work for creators who just need flexible link sharing.
To generate a secret link with this app, you need to combine the slug of the target article and the referer (the name or email of the person or group you want to share it with). The generated link is personalised, so each name always appears in the top right corner of the article. As long as the link includes their name, it’s not easy to share it widely or pass it around.
The app uses template tags compatible with Ghost, so you can design the theme if you’re familiar with Ghost theming. Another feature is the ability to revoke personalised links at any time. Once revoked, the recipient can no longer view the article.
I’m new-ish to coding, and I patched things together with vibe coding - it’s kind of stable and works, but still in early development!
If you want this feature, or are curious, I’d love to keep growing the app for people like me who need it.
Feedback is very welcome. I’m an avid Ghost user focusing on usability checks, which are especially important for non-tech users. I’m also looking for tech-savvy people who can advise on security, architecture, and other areas I’m not familiar with yet.
Development may be slow as I have other commitments, but I am happy to update and improve it!
If you spot anything that could be improved, or want to help out, please let me know or open issues/suggestions on GitHub.
Thanks for reading & happy writing 