I am seriously IMPRESSED :)

Using Ghost
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Latest version (4.2.0). Dawn (modified version).
Back-up of my content and downloaded (FileZilla) my modified Dawn theme.

Was running 4.1.2 and ran into some issues with file permissions during the upgrade. Tried to fix them but started thinking, “Why not just remove it all and make a new droplet and start getting some practice…?”

So, I did.

Deleted the DNS record from namecheap and created a new droplet. Added the DNS records and waited a few minutes before I ran the install from my computer (terminal, ssh root@ip).

Once I was logged in I went to labs and deleted all the content (all the sample stuff) and after that, imported my json file to “get everything back”.

W O W :slight_smile: I am seriously impressed. Not only did my code injections come back, my tags, posts, settings, pages, Stripe payment plan options – EVERYTHING was back as it was.

That’s what I call IMPORT :slight_smile: Thanks Ghost Dev Team for making an awesome product. I’ll never leave you :slight_smile:

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@thebear.dev That’s Great to hear.

Long back I moved away from Ghost to WordPress. Since then I have a feeling everyday to move back to Ghost.

Hope it’ll happen soon. :heart:

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I was with WP for over ten years. I got tired of all the poor choices they made in terms functionality and design.

A few years back, I migrated over to CP (Classic Press) to get a more stable setup with a more intense focus on security.

I have been looking at Ghost for years but never taken the time to test it.

@mcnaveen I installed Ghost for the first time 10 days ago. There are things I miss coming from WP. There are, for me, basic features missing in Ghost.

That said, it is still far better than WP will ever be. Most importantly, it is blazing fast to use and to load.

Running my site on a $6 per month droplet and the site loads in under 500ms.

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It’s definitely a breath of fresh air.

One thing that doesn’t get enough attention is how easy it is to deploy as well. I knew little about node etc before coming onto Ghost, but it’s trivial compared to deploying WordPress, even with wp-cli. I like that it runs fine on FreeBSD as well, even though it doesn’t strictly target it as a platform.

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Hi @rubenerd,

I partly agree and at the same time, fully agree. I know, I make no sense :slight_smile:

When starting out with Ghost, which for me is more or less 10 days ago, I had a “hard” time understanding how to get it installed.

It took me a whole day before I figured out all the steps involved and why there was a difference between a local and a production environment.

Most hosts I’ve come across do not offer nginx as their main server platform, instead they offer / provide apache. Few of these hosts offer NodeJS app install.

I think, at least right now, that the main reason behind the “low user figure” is this. If it was easier to run, more would use it.

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I see where you’re coming from :slight_smile: . I’m pretty used to running nginx in VMs, so installing Ghost was a snap. But coming from traditional LAMP stacks it’s a bit of a mind bend.

The Local/Prod design is pretty entrenched now, IIRC Rails was among the first frameworks to codify it (might be wrong). I think it’s great once you understand, it makes upgrades much less brittle, and makes it easier to hack on.

Thesedays I don’t even use Ghost with nginx in the middle, I just pass it right to a Varnish proxy. Ghost is fast out of the box, but with even a basic Varnish service it screams.

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Yep, that is my next step as well. I’m currently hosting my site on a $6 per month droplet and it loads in under 500ms no matter if I check against the home / start page, a post where prismjs is available or a page with and without a contact form, and so forth.

It is, out of the box, already screaming in my opinion. WordPress doesn’t even come close. That said; varnish is next on my TODO.

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@rubenerd yep, I am thinking of doing speed tests based on different Linux distros, don’t know… maybe. I just find the overall experience so far amazing. Just take the simple fact that you can buy a domain, point it to a droplet and host a site that loads in less than 500ms for $5 per month AND on top of that, charge money for your content with memberships built in? I honestly do not know what to say…

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Hi @thebear.dev

The great thing about Ghost being open-source, is that we can also contribute to the docs. Since you started out recently, you’re in the privileged position of remembering what it’s like when we don’t know. This might be a great opportunity for you to look at the docs and spot where it could be improved.

You can then contribute to it, blog about it or, why not, do both. :wink:

Anyhow, welcome aboard. It’s nice to have you here.

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i enjoy every single day creating content with Ghost. Hope yours will too.

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Hi @maclm,

I agree with you and yes; I am blogging about it and sharing on Twitter and what not. I am not yet contributing, but I will.

Regarding the docs:
I believe they are in need of a re-write. At least so when looking at them with the eyes of newbie.
Even though I come from WP and WooCommerce and that I have many years of experience with those, I found the docs to be hard to understand.

Not until I googled around, read on Ghost blogs about Ghost, did I understand “it all”.

For me, which in my opinion is not a subjective perspective, Ghost lacks extremely basic functionality in a few areas, making it very time consuming to work in the system. These are, so far, my observations:

#1: no option to set links in editor to open in a new tab / window. Neither is there a align option.

#2: no selection of posts, enabling us to delete / add or remove tags for multiple posts
(as of right now, we have to edit each post individually)

#3: The entire email setup no matter the provider is a hard to get working (requires manual editing of the config.production.json file)

#4: What is the difference between a newsletter and sending a post by email to a member or paid subscriber? None I guess. The mailgun setup could be a lot more detailed with the addition of examples of how to configure it.

There’s more :slight_smile: Thanks to my understanding, coming from WP and WooCommerce, I picked up on most things quickly enough and have managed to create a custom version of Dawn, I’ve made templates and moved things around.

For users interested in getting started with Ghost, I think there’s a lot of work to be done in terms of “getting started”.

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I am now. It took some time altering a few things and what not, but as of right now - yes. I love Ghost either way for its speed and overall security. I just hope the dev team address certain basic things in the future.

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Fancy seeing you here brother! You should come back to Ghost. It’s so much better than WordPress :smiley:

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Hey again,

Today (a few minutes ago), I reviewed the source of the portal file. I am so glad that they (Ghost) decided to go with a png image instead of a hardcoded SVG version.

Now we can, with ease, change the “Publish with Ghost” text, link and image! Happy days :slight_smile: