Ghost CMS is a blogging and content management platform built on node.js that promises to be the great killer and rival of WordPress. Can this platform really replace WordPress and its infinite range of plugins and themes?
When I heard about Ghost CMS a few years ago, I was very interested, but I noticed that it was quite limited in relation to WordPress. Nowadays Ghost has evolved a lot, is it now worth using Ghost in 2019?
How did Ghost CMS come about?
Ghost CMS was launched on October 14, 2013 with the promise of being a great content and blog management platform. Currently Ghost CMS is the only rival to WordPress, it is always mentioned as the first alternative.
Ghost emerged in November 2012 as a project suggested by one of the former members of the WordPress interface design development team, John O’Nolan. He questioned the complexity of the platform that had abandoned its core function of being a blog.
He created a campaign on Kickstarter that raised over 300,000 dollars, kicking off the great project. The open source began to be made available the following year, and in 2014 the official website ghost.org offered a managed and hosted version, which is a bit pricey.
What are the main advantages of Ghost CMS?
One of the things that attracted me to Ghost CMS is its node.js language entirely in javascript. Many programmers strongly criticize the mess that exists in PHP, so node.js turns out to be a very viable option.
The main advantage of Ghost using node.js is that it can become 1,000% faster than a WordPress site. It was one of the few sites that managed to reach 100 on PageSpeed. The node.js language accepts many more requests than PHP, in addition to being purely lightweight.
Another great advantage of Ghost is that it is super easy to handle, it has an editor similar to WordPress Gutenberg, it is optimized for SEO automatically, it offers everything a website needs to offer natively without the need for plugins.
If you know javascript and node.js, Ghost will not be lacking in regards to WordPress. You can do just about anything with the platform, which is an Open Source that offers API, JSON API, own CLI and other facilities.
Ghost even has a native app for you to manage your website through your computer and Android phone. Natively it offers multi-languages, AMP, redirects, Unsplash images, integration with Zapier, email capture and others.
What are the disadvantages of Ghost CMS?
I honestly don't see many disadvantages, but there are disadvantages that end up weighing a lot when migrating to Ghost. One is their main focus on blogging and content, while many use WordPress for different purposes.
The worst disadvantage I found is the fact that I don't have a native media manager like WordPress. The development team doesn't think about doing something like that. I believe it is horrible not to be able to reuse the images already sent to your server in a kind of gallery. Of course, there must be ways to get around this.
Of course, another major disadvantage is that in WordPress you have a huge range of plugins that can do anything, in addition to a huge community that gives you support and invents practical solutions to certain problems. In Ghost, although strong, things are more limited.
We can compare Ghost as a closed version of iOS and WordPress as an Android. It seems to be infinitely superior in its creation, but closed to the point that it ends up losing badly to the 99% of users who use WordPress.
Ghost Hosting
Another disadvantage is simply the fact that people are used to hosting and websites in PHP. Node.js is not difficult, but it is different. Sometimes you need to have some basic knowledge of programming and command lines in SSH.
With Ghost you cannot use hosting managers like Runcloud. There are indeed friendly ways to manage and install node.js on a cloud server, but honestly, I haven't found any that take care of both.
There is a simple way to use managed hosting from Ghost itself. Unfortunately, the prices in dollars are totally unrealistic and limit the site to a certain number of visits. It's much better to hire a cloud service from Digital Ocean.
There are other managed hosting options in Node.js like Umbler, if you live in Europe, we have tsohost. The site Themeix.com also offers managed Ghost hosting at a great annual price.
In any case, you can easily use node.js on system panels alongside PHP like Plesk and Cyberpanel. There is also cloudron, which installs Ghost and other apps from different languages in just one click, isolated within your cloud.
The only disadvantage is that Cloudrun limits access, preventing even manual editing of the DB. The goal of cloudron is to be a platform for those who don't want to get involved with programming.
Sites using Ghost CMS
Below I will list some famous sites that use Ghost CMS for you to take a peek and understand how it works and how they are.
- digitalocean;
- webmotors;
- toyota.com;
- cloudflare.com;
- crypto;
- tinder;
- duckduckgo;
- mozilla;
- airtable;
- revolut;
- codecademy;
- tunnelbear;
- horror coding;
- onbrand;
- okcupid;
- square;
- code combat;
- circle;
- playground;
- troy hunt;
- emojipedia;
- wealthsimple;
- speed test;
- gusto;
- napster;
- bitpay;
- realmac;
- transferwise;
- fullstory;
There are many other sites that use Ghost. Many sites that don't have a blog focus also use a .blog subdomain with Ghost Installed. This shows that Ghost is one of the most famous blogging platforms after WordPress.
Do I intend to migrate to Ghost?
Migrating to Ghost was something I want to do a lot, but I don't know if it's still possible. I've gotten used to Gutenberg a lot, I'm using WordPress with Nginx and its performance is very high.
Currently with Guenberg I have the ability to manually create indexes of articles more easily. I would probably lose that in Ghost. Another thing that would be greatly missed is the plugin Content Egg, where I add my affiliate products.
I have spent days thinking of a way to install Ghost on my server without having to use the terminal. Unfortunately, I didn’t find a better solution than cloudron, but I didn't want to sacrifice the remote connection to the DB.
The lack of managing media files within Ghost was also a key factor in why I gave up on the migration. Not to mention that I would have to redo over 2,000 articles within WordPress that are encoded with Gutenberg.
The migration tools available for Ghost are old and have not been updated in years. I didn't get to test it, so I can't say if they do the job correctly. If your site is still new, I recommend the migration!
Should you use Ghost?
I recommend Ghost for those who do not want problems with PHP, for those who prefer a simple and direct interface, do not want to have problems with a plugin, want to use a cheap hosting and have a super fast website.
I personally find Ghost superior to WordPress, for those who know how to program and enrich the platform. Since it currently doesn't offer anything much like WordPress, but it has full potential to perform any function without fail.
Remembering that Ghost is a platform for content. Some manage to make One Page sites, integrations with stores, but WordPress manages to be superior when it comes to making a site that does not focus on articles.
If your site has little content, Ghost can also be better, since it consumes almost nothing of the system. If you make websites for customers, Ghost can be a new alternative to avoid problems and streamline your service.
I still intend to do long tests on Ghost. Who knows kevinbk.com might not be running it soon? What did you think of this wonderful platform? Will we have more articles talking about him? Who knows how to grow the user community and reach WordPress?