Ghost CMS user review - Should you use it?
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- Опубликовано: 25 июл 2024
- In this video, I explain how has been my experience using Ghost CMS for my blog in the last 9 months. It has been a good experience since I moved away from WordPress. So, see what Ghost is a worthy tool for blogging.
👉 Start a site using Ghost (affiliate link): tiago.click/GhostPro
⛓ Related links⛓
Subscribe to my newsletter: www.thestackjunction.com/#/po...
Visit my blog: www.thestackjunction.com/
Follow me on Twitter: / tiagosilvahq
✅ To support Ghost Foundation ✅
Github: github.com/sponsors/TryGhost
Open Collective: opencollective.com/ghost
⏱ Timestamps ⏱
00:00 Intro
00:20 1. Backstory
01:22 2. Positives
01:53 2.1. Website Speed
02:08 2.2. No "management"
02:27 2.3. Great editor
02:46 2.4. No plugins
03:01 3. Struggles
03:06 3.1. No welcome emails
03:41 3.2. Weak as an Email Service Provider
04:13 3.3. No "perfect" theme
05:01 3.4. Small team
05:52 3.5. Too much content for devs
07:20 4. Rating my experience
#ghost #ghostcms
ghost cms,ghost cms review,ghost blog 
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Really interesting to see the opinion of a non-developer about Ghost. You made me think a bit about some stuff as a developer I am not thinking usually.
Thanks for your comment, Mădălin :)
10 months since self-hosting GHOST. Sometimes it's painful to setup everything, so it's needed really a lot of time to understand how it works. But thankfully it can be done with tutorials. But I have total control over settings, themes, adjustments, so saving $30 each month is pretty significant (paying just $4 for VPS hosting). And still if you're planning to make a blog, consider significant investments, unlimited source of content, and certainly time to organize it. Even 1000 words 1-post per week is much harder then it looks from the first time. I'm writing for myself, just to learn how to write. This platform is great for this.
Thanks for sharing your experience.
I agree with you on both it being painful to learn and set up. That was and is the main reason I prefer the managed hosting route.
Yes, there is a price difference, but over the long run I feel that my energy is better applied at creating rather than maintaining a site. It costs me money, but at least I have the energy to do what I want.
very good comprehensive video. thanks!
Thank you :)
is wordpress complex on purpous to forces you to get more human ressources and tool to achieves a same goal ? just wondering ^^
i used wordpress for 10 years and just moved to ghost yesterday. i feel lost, and massive lack of tools, only tags posts and page. no category, portfolio or subcategory. tags can only be ordered by alphabetical order, no solution to search post by date. this is a 10 years old service, they just releaed the comments section tool few months ago. and it's not cheap for a non profit solution. feels like they're lazy to implement features, but not to charge user. anyway it s easier to create post than wordpress and it s motvating me to make more posts... posts than my viewers can t search or find... cause huge lack of tools !!
I so resonate with you about the anxiety of maintaining wordpress. I tried to keep at it for almost 3 years but after a major security scare when my blog completely stopped working and took 2 me days to get it back. My anxiety got so major I completely stopped writing. For that reason alone i am now 100% sure I want to migrate my blog to ghost. Thank you.
I feel your pain. WP is good for so many use cases but causes more stress than it should, and I'm sure you will find Ghost peaceful.
In almost 2 years of using Ghost, I never had to worry about security :)
Let me know if you need any help setting up Ghost
@@thestackjunction hi, i am back! i finally took your advice. but not gonna lie slightly regretting it. I bought the base plan (9 usd one) for ghost which was in my budget and right fit for my current business and now that I want to change the theme it looks like I am not allowed to do that. I hate that there is no support where I can just ask these questions. I don't want to buy a theme and then find out that I had to have the higher 25 usd creator plan to use it. Since you also talked about your struggle with theme, can you please advise me on this? 1. Do I have to have higher plan to buy premium theme? 2. Should I have a higher plan?
1. You can buy a theme at any time. 2. But if you want to use your premium theme you have to upgrade to the $25 plan.
I say this because you first buy the theme, but only when you want to use it, Ghost will request you to upgrade.
Your plan allows to use any of the official themes: ghost.org/themes/?tag=Official. This should give you some options.
Also, as you are a Ghost Pro customer you can contact Ghost through support@ghost.org and ask all the questions related to your site. Support is included and the team is supportive :)
This thing about themes is a bit annoying, and something I've mentioned to Ghost in the past. Maybe if more people keep complaining, they might change this, so at least try.
My view about this: Ghost Pro has this thing with the themes, but as someone that I used other managed hosting services in the past, and is now using Ghost Pro, they all have some kind of trade off.
For example, some hosts take weeks to update the website, on others you'll have to configure Mailgun before you can send emails (not a fun process to be honest).
Imo, if you really hate how your site looks and can't stand it, look for an alternative. Otherwise, if you like Ghost keep using it until you can afford the subscription to use one of the premium themes. For example, other platforms might have other problems that annoy you more than this and hurts the growth of the site, but you might also find the perfect platform for your needs.
In the end of the day, pick what's best for you and makes you happier :)
@@thestackjunction Thank you so much for your advice. You are right about the trade off. Although wordpress gave me the freedom to make my website exactly how I wanted, I moved to ghost because the wordpress maintenance and security was giving me so much anxiety I stopped writing to avoid it. At least the trade off here is worth it.
@@krati. you're welcome!
Keep doing the best you can to create good stuff, and over time you might get the money to make your site look exactly as you want :)
Very cool. Thinking of moving to ghost, this is helpful.
Thanks for you kind words :)
I've been loving using Ghost for my site
Any particular reason you went with midnight over Ghost Pro? Are you using features with midnight that aren't available on the Ghost pro starter plan?
TL;DR
Ghost Pro starter plan doesn't have custom integrations and custom themes. Midnight has both at $15.
I started with the Ghost Pro starter plan, but I wanted to explore custom integrations and themes. On Ghost Pro, that costs $25/month and $15 on Midnight, so I picked the latter.
For 90% of users, Ghost Pro will be better because they don't need custom integrations (Zapier is included in the Starter Plan).
I love Midnight customer support, but there are drawbacks compared to Ghost Pro, as I mentioned in my video about Ghost's best managed hosting.
One of the drawbacks of not using Ghost Pro is that you need to connect Mailgun to Ghost yourself. That process was tedious and took me some time.
@@thestackjunction Thanks for your thoughts. I'm currently testing Ghost Pro Starter and Midnight standard. Just trying to decide if the extra cost for Midnight Standard is worth being able to customize themes and the extra integrations. Or if I should just accept the limitations of Ghost Pro Starter and pay the lower price.
My 2 cents:
1. See what themes you are allowed to use with the Ghost starter plan (test them)
2. See the Zapier integrations you can use with Ghost (Google: Ghost Zapier integration)
If you are sure you will want a custom theme or integration in the next 6 months, go for Midnight. It saves the hassle of migrating in a short time.
But if you aren't sure you will need one, stick with Ghost Pro. It will be more than enough, and you will save $6 per month.
Another thing to consider with Midnight is that you have to pay for Mailgun emails.
thank you for your objectivity.
Thanks for the kind words :)
That was amazing. Liked and sub’d. Thanks for sharing! How do you feel about Ghost vs. Beehiv?
Thank you :D
Ghost vs beehiiv is an article I'll be releasing soon on the blog and my current opinion is this:
- Ghost is superior if you care more about having a blog/ website.
- beehiiv is better if your priority is having a newsletter and blog combined (using only one platform to both)
beehiiv improved a lot in the past months and now has superior newsletter capabilities to Ghost like email sequences and more customization.
On the other hand, Ghost is more developed in blogging capabilities and from what I know beehiiv focus will stay on newsletters, so they might not develop to be as good as Ghost for blogging.
Personally, I care more about the blog and that's why I'm still happy with Ghost and use it. For my newsletter, I might try new stuff in the next months and use a different platform to send the newsletter, and this is NOT a problem for me. Actually, this will allow me to use the best tool for each job without trouble or compromises.
Hope this helps you and let me know if you have other questions :)
@@thestackjunction I really appreciate your succinct yet detailed response. At the moment, I’m more concerned about creating a newsletter, where I’ll offer 3 free and the 4th for paying subs. I (mostly) organically built my FB page to over 110k subs, only to have it basically evaporate overnight when hackers took my page over and FB has been less than helpful in resolving my issues. So, I want more control over my subs and future-proof my ability to reach my followers. I helped build some of the biggest influencers online, but I’m more interested in a smaller, deeply engaged and connected following. Thanks again for your reply!
You're welcome :D
beehiiv can be a good place for what you are looking for. Also, it's important to mention that some of their best features aren't available on the free plan. Like the custom domain, enabling paid newsletters, etc.
So, for someone looking to build a newsletter for professional use, it needs at least the Grow plan ($40/month). This is in line with competition and is a good price.
But if you were to only create a free newsletter or just starting out (not your case), I don't think beehiiv would be the best platform
@@thestackjunction Thank you, I appreciate the clarification. I'm good starting with the 'grow' plan. Looking forward t o checking out more of your content. Keep up the good work!
Thank you René :)
By the way consider signing up to beehiiv using my affiliate link, it will help me with costing anything extra
tiago.click/beehiiv-vid
If one just want to use Ghost Pro to host a Ghost site and don’t use its full fledged newsletter feature, one stucks with its very basic themes , can’t even use a purchased custom theme if you don’t upgrade to Creator + plan. On that front, it sucks.
I agree that the cheaper plan could be better by not limiting themes available
How about seo? How do you do it without plugins? Is your content ranking?
Edit: as I mistakenly deleted the previous screen share replying to this comment.
Yes, my site ranks well on Google for several keywords I care about.
For anyone concerned, Ghost is well optimized for SEO.
4:34 I have all of those except table of contents, and honestly that may just be a simple css fix on the theme for posts.
What theme are you using?
I've been using anchor links working as ToC
@@thestackjunction I had to mod mine but I went thru all 3000 listings on GitHub and found Simply which was what I used.
That theme is cool. Thanks for sharing it!
I like how the footer looks with the tags :D
I'm using the starter plan of Ghost and can't use a custom theme for now, but getting a custom theme is a thing that's still on my wishlist
you can create post pages and menus but for sidebar and footer widget you have to edit the template code. COME ON.
What's your Ghost site?
Hi Ryan, my site thestackjunction.com
Good stuff. Right in the middle of deciding to switch from Medium.
I've looked at hiring a ghost dev/designer and the issue is that they don't have many devs and designers that understand or use ghost so the ones that exist charge huge fees.
Yes, Ghost devs are more expensive than with other CMSs for example. But on the other hand, I have thought of Ghost as having fewer expenses with recurring payments on themes and plugins.
@@strangethingshappen what kind of website you want to build? I'm considering doing a review between Ghost and Medium
0:00 stop doing this.