Ghost has this built in.
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Exactly, but even before that one could asl for donations via i.e. Stripe or PayPal. Probably through other payment platforms too, but the above are the ones I know, and normally also work with 
I have Ghost hosted on my server and I find it simpler to install than WordPress.
Ghost requires node, a database and the rest is almost optional.
WordPress requires a database, PHP, Redis, Nginx, countless add-ons and themes (most of which are paid for) to fulfill something that Ghost already has natively.
I know there are more tutorials explaining WordPress, and thatās normal, given how long itās been on the market.
But Iāve always found WordPress more complex for me. Ghost came as a relief. Iāve been using Ghost for 3 years now and I see how engaged the community is. I see how Ghost is getting stronger and better.
And Iām Brazilian, I like my language.
Platforms like Medium and others have been on the market for years, charge for their services and so far havenāt shown the slightest interest in translating the entries into my language.
Ghost is there, working on an incredible project to translate the most important parts.
I have no reason to complain, only to say thank you, and if I can, Iāll continue to learn how to use Ghost and respond here.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
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- Slow and little open-source code support.
- Super expensive themes leading their dev community to sell them instead to improve the code base.
- Lack of simple tools from the very beginning (search, then search on pages, 2FA, SSO).
- Their commercial agreements with Zapier, Webglot and all of them.
Hi @satonotdead,
Iām probably not the right person here to get involved with looking over your comment of:
Slow and little open-source code support.
However, it did get me thinkingāwhat are some popular CMSs doing within their community in terms of commits, updates, etc. So, of course, I took a look.
Over the last 30 days, and I know the Christmas and New Year holidays are during this time, so things could be a little off. However, thatās all Iāve got for now.
December 26, 2024 ā January 26, 2025
| CMS | Authors | Active Pull Requests | Active Issues | Merged Pull Requests | Open Pull Requests | Closed Issues | New Issues | Commits (All Branches) | Files Changed | Additions | Deletions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drupal | 7 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 232 | 1,035 | 9,108 | 6,387 |
| Joomla | 32 | 109 | 48 | 23 | 37 | 11 | 0 | 83 | 201 | 1,202 | 790 |
| Ghost | 20 | 94 | 14 | 25 | 8 | 6 | 0 | 170 | 400 | 7,886 | 10,852 |
| Strapi | 19 | 82 | 162 | 31 | 96 | 66 | 0 | 77 | 186 | 4,633 | 2,528 |
| Sanity | 21 | 223 | 33 | 18 | 20 | 13 | 0 | 385 | 766 | 31,669 | 32,439 |
From this data, Ghost shows a robust level of activity comparable to other popular CMS platforms. With 94 active pull requests and 25 merged pull requests, Ghost demonstrates a healthy pace of development and community engagement. Additionally, the number of commits and files changed indicates ongoing improvements and maintenance.
Also, Ghost has 20 authors contributing to its codebase over the last month, which is on par with other CMS platforms like Strapi (19 authors ) and Sanity (21 authors) ā for a non dev like me, I feel that this is very good and shows the long term strength of the platform. (NB: clearly this is only 1 metric and we shouldnāt get hung up on just 1).
2. Super Expensive Themes
I agree that the cost of themes can be a barrier for some users. However, Ghost offers a variety of themes developed both by their team and the community. While premium themes may come at a higher price point, they often include great documentation and support and regular updates, ensuring long-term value. Moreover, the active Ghost community contributes to a growing library of free themes, providing more options for users without significant costs.
3. Lack of Simple Tools
If you have specific suggestions, please share themāI and others here would certainly support great ideas.
Further thoughts
While there are lots of areas for improvement, Ghost remains committed (as at seems to me) to providing a robust, flexible and developer-friendly platform. This is why I went all in on Ghost 2 years ago.
Cheers,
Shawn @ Trizone
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Cherry-picks are always funny and expectable for those who are shilling. People really loves them (:
I shared my experience after getting involved a few years here but on Strapi, Directus and Hashnode as well.
They are different products and probably have a different target, but they work for their users and respect the fundamentals of open-source.
The difference is like night and day.
Marketing on Ghost is the best. But there was no updates, stills without a good search, SSO, 2FA.
No translations, harded strings on every JS file. Linked and forced javascript on every template.
Their webmention implementation is a bad joke taste. No webmention at all, just an internal BS.
They picked up their bags (6M) and moved on. No one says nothing because there is no real community here.
Just a punch of devs trying to sell their themes or customizations. They are being replaced by Sonnet.
Capital flowed trough the best marketed platform around and then everything gets stuck.
Ghost could be great but because their management grediness is actually dead.
Hey @satonotdead, as always, I really appreciate your reply on this.
I genuinely tried to pick a two relatively new entrants (Iām sure there are newer ones out there) and two fairly established.
If you feel that I did cherry-pick, what are the ones you feel are ones we should take a look at?
Looking at Directus (Iāve learned something today as Iāve never heard of it before now), they are;
| CMS | Authors | Active Pull Requests | Active Issues | Merged Pull Requests | Open Pull Requests | Closed Issues | New Issues | Commits (All Branches) | Files Changed | Additions | Deletions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Directus | 17 | 73 | 136 | 68 | 5 | 99 | 37 | 155 | 303 | 8,968 | 8,296 |
Digging a little bit deeper, I would suggest that this looks fairly average comparing to the previous (cheery-picked) platforms.
From what I can tell, you are spot on. They are aimed at completely different audiences which is fairly obvious (to me anyway).
Also, from what I can tell with Hashnode, you still need an account to run the platform (happy to be corrected). Not really Open Source in the way I would expect it.
Again, couldnāt agree with you more.
Search: for my use-case, I will probably have to use Algolia or something similar - I have over 4,000 articles and just searching within the headline & tag is fairly useless.
Iām probably not the right person to try and understand this at a deeper technical level however wouldnāt the Fediverse work that the Ghost team are doing now supersede that?
You are going to have to give me more info than that. Are you suggesting capital was raised or something similar?
Assuming this is a flow on from the previous, Iām not actually understanding your point here. Capital from?
Ghostās Creator ARR shows exponential growth, particularly between 2021 and 2022, significantly outpacing Ghostās own ARR, reflecting a successful strategy of prioritising creator success. Meanwhile, Ghostās ARR demonstrates consistent, steady growth over the years, showing sustainable platform development.
Before I step into this one, I want you to know that I have no business or personal relationship with Ghost. Iām only a user of the platform (not via Ghost(Pro)).
From the interactions I have had with Ghost directly, which I could count on one hand, they have all be professional and friendly. Sure, Iām not working there and canāt provide any insight as to what the internal workings are like.
I can however provide my opinion ('cause I do have one or two of them - just ask me 
), and from what I have seen/watched from many interviews of Ghostās CEO, John, I came away thinking that this is a company founded great principals.
Looking at LinkedIn, Ghost has had a 9% headcount growth over the last 6 months and a 1.2 years median tenure (not too longā¦). Take from that as you will.
My final thoughts. (yes, I have a habit of doing this).
First and foremost, I always appreciate the discussion, as these kinds of exchanges often bring valuable perspectives to the table - and I sometimes learn a thing or two. However, in this case, I feel that some of the criticisms raised lack factual basis or fail to recognise the broader context of Ghostās position in the CMS landscape.
- Several statementsāsuch as āmanagement greedinessā and āno real communityāāare sweeping claims that require evidence to substantiate. Without specific examples or data, these criticisms appear more speculative than insightful.
- Ghostās Proven Growth and Focus. The data speaks for itself. Ghostās exponential growth in Creator ARR, especially between 2021 and 2022, demonstrates its ability to deliver value to creatorsāa key audience for the platform. This aligns directly with its stated mission of prioritising creator success over self-serving goals.
- Community Misconception of Sorts. Your claims about a lack of community are unfounded. Ghostās open-source nature and active development (evidenced by consistent pull requests and commits) contradict the notion that the platform is stagnant or disconnected from its users. Many Ghost employees comment here (most I donāt really understand).
Final, final thought. Iām always open to constructive criticism and I believe every product has room for improvement. However, criticism must be rooted in facts and provide actionable suggestions. This discussion would benefit from a deeper understanding of Ghostās development ethos and product trajectory.
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Hey man, feel free to contribute free themes, code, and work yourself if you feel like its lacking. Iāve learned plenty and I wont make a free theme either as people demand support (see yourself) which is a draw on me and my personal time and resources.
This place is thriving, you really are just speaking out your rear at this point calling them āgreedyā you should look in the mirror.
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Can you define super expensive themes? The official ones are free and way more versatile than i.e. anything Wordpressā¦
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I just published a blog article on this.
Ghostās slice of the pie is small because it chooses a small pie.
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Iām a Ghost user, and try to be an advocate for it, and recommend it to other people. They make it hard to keep recommending it though. The Ghost team is mind-bogglingly slow to release updates and improvements (and a majority of the updates are for things people donāt care about; They tend to just ignore most feature requests from users). Alternatives like Beehiiv releases more useful features each month than Ghost releases every couple years.
I love the simplicity of the Ghost UI, but not having basic functionality like a media library, and autoresponders, etc. makes it a bit challenging. Also, as others have said, it would be better to build for non-technical users, and not developers.
What I also donāt get is the Ghostās team lack of communication about updates. If theyāre working on a Version 6, build in public, and tell people about it! It will create hype, and reduce churn.
I really like most things about Ghost, but they seem to really need a legit product manager to move things forward. The Ghost leadership team doesnāt give the impression that they care about continuing to grow the platform at this point.
Iām trying to remain hopeful though.
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Thereās definitely some building in public going on:
Other bits are less user-friendly, but definitely still happening in public:
https://github.com/TryGhost/Ghost/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Aclosed
I, too, would enjoy a human-readable (not Github PR list) of whatās being worked on, but that would require someoneās time to write it, and Iāve been told that the team has had some experiences of announcing an upcoming feature before it was done, and then getting lots of asking when itāll be available, and people who arenāt satisfied with āwhen itās doneā, so theyāve mostly stopped announcing what theyāre hoping to release in the future. (ActivityPub is clearly an exception.)
So, while Iād enjoy having it, Iām not going to demand five bullet points about what the Ghost team did each week. (Itās a bad look. And this concludes my brief foray into US-based political commentary.)
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Thanks for the info! ActivityPub looks promising. Iām currently getting a message of āErrorā in the ghost backend when trying to use it, but itās in Beta.
If youāre on Ghost Pro, you could reach out to them. If you arenāt, what youāre probably missing is that AP needs a whole separate docker setup to run in, the provisioning of which is not fully documented yet (because itās still changing). Iām not aware of anyone successfully running it in self-hosting, although I know jannis got close!
This is more personal and not an actual fact, ActivityPub is gigantic and for those who want to donate their coding skills you could always join and help.
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Same thing happened to me, which persisted for a couple of days. I wrote in to Support, gave them permission to try it from their end, it mysteriously worked fine for them, and when I then re-tried it from my end it mysteriously worked fine as well.
Iād say give that a shot if the āErrorā message doesnāt go away on its own.
Fair enough. My apologies.
I do think more communication about the roadmap would be useful, and would help alleviate the perception that things arenāt being worked on (as there are some very long gaps without meaningful updates).
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