Hello folks. I’m considering trying out self-hosting Ghost, but my main concern is the security and maintenance tasks involved. My knowledge of scripting is ZERO so what I want to know is, how important is it to install every single Ghost update, really? From what I read, I understand that Ghost is fairly secure, so are updates mainly really about performance improvements, or are they critical from a securite standpoint as well?
As a non-developer, how much time should I expect to spend on technical things like updates and maintenance, every month? (I’m looking to use Ghost for a news site with about 100 or so posts per month)
And lastly, if anybody has any hosting recommendations other than Digital Ocean, I would love to hear them. Thanks!
New releases are generally every one or two weeks and predominantly contain bug fixes and new features. Rarely are there security related updates. Major releases are typically once a year.
As a non-developer, how much time should I expect to spend on technical things like updates and maintenance, every month? (I’m looking to use Ghost for a news site with about 100 or so posts per month)
If you use Ghost-CLI then updates are one command: ghost update. That part shouldn’t take very long at all. You’ll likely spend more time on OS updates and maintenance to keep your server secure.
On DigitalOcean definitely because it’s not a managed service, you’re responsible for setting up, securing, and maintaining the server and any software installed on it.
If you don’t want the headache of managing a server and dealing with the upgrade cycle then Ghost(Pro) manages all of that for you plus you’ll be contributing to Ghost’s on-going development.