Hi everyone,
I’ve been building a search and analytics tool for Ghost blogs and I’m excited to open it up for beta testing. It’s called Vellumine and it’s free to use until May 1st with all features unlocked!
What it does
Vellumine replaces Ghost’s native search with a full-text search powered by Typesense. Instead of matching only titles and excerpts, it searches the entire content of your posts and pages. It also gives you analytics on what your readers are searching for!
Search features:
- Full-text search across all post and page content
- Typo tolerance (e.g. “javscript” still finds JavaScript posts)
- You can add custom synonyms (e.g. “JS” = “JavaScript” = “ECMAScript”)
- Stopwords to filter noise
- Semantic/hybrid search using AI embeddings
- Full Unicode/UTF-8 support that works with any language including CJK, Arabic, Cyrillic and more
Members-only content
Vellumine indexes members-only and paid posts so they appear in search results, without exposing the full content. Readers see that a relevant gated post exists and may be motivated to subscribe. It turns your search bar into a lead conversion for paid subscriptions.
Analytics*:
- Popular search queries (with trends)
- No-hits queries: content your readers are searching with no results
- Click-through rates: ratio of searches to article clicks
- Geographic distribution
- Popular tags and most-clicked posts
- Weekly email summaries of your analytics
* All analytics are GDPR-compliant. No Personally Identifiable Information (PII), no cookies, no fingerprinting.
Customization:
- Two search bar templates: Native and Grid
- Full color customisation for light and dark modes
- Every label is customizable for internationalization
- Dynamic (analytics-based) or manual search suggestions
How Vellumine works
- Sign up at vellumine.com and create a collection with your Ghost Admin API URL and key.
- Vellumine indexes your content automatically.
- Paste a single script tag into Settings > Code injection.
That’s it. The script automatically replaces Ghost’s native search. The content stays in sync via webhooks whenever you publish, update or delete posts.
It works with any Ghost hosting setup, whether you self-host, use Ghost(Pro), or any other hosting provider like Magic Pages or Synaps Media. As long as your Ghost Admin API is accessible, Vellumine can connect to it.
On API key security: Your Admin API key is encrypted at rest and only used server-side in read-only mode. It’s never included in client-side code. Vellumine only reads your content for indexing. It never modifies anything on your site.
Beta details
The beta runs until May 1st, 2026. Everything is free during this period, no credit card required. After that, Vellumine will move to paid plans. Early adopters who share feedback will receive exclusive discounts as a thank-you!
Links
- Sign up: vellumine.com
- See it in action on the demo blog
I’m building this as a solo developer and I will be actively shaping the product based on feedback. I’d love to hear what you think (what works, what’s missing, what you’d want from a Ghost search tool).
Happy to answer any questions in this thread.
