Ghost is an open-source publishing platform built for professional creators, bloggers, and independent publishers. It combines a website builder, newsletter tool, and paid membership system into one platform, connecting directly to your Stripe account with 0% platform fees. Writers, journalists, and creators use Ghost to publish content, grow email subscribers, and monetize their audience through free and paid tiers. You can self-host it for free or use Ghost(Pro) managed hosting.

• Clean Writing Editor: A minimal, distraction-free editor with rich media cards for images, galleries, videos, embeds, and downloadable files. Focused on writing without plugin clutter.
• Built-in Newsletters: Send any post as an email newsletter to free or paid subscribers with audience segmentation and multiple newsletter support.
• Memberships and Paid Subscriptions: Let visitors become members, create paid subscription tiers, and accept payments through Stripe. Ghost charges 0% platform transaction fees on payments.
• Native SEO Tools: Automatic sitemaps, meta tag settings, structured data, and clean URLs without needing extra plugins.
• Headless CMS Support: Content APIs let developers build custom frontends or integrate Ghost content into other apps and frameworks.
• Built-in Image Editor: Native image editing powered by Pintura for cropping, annotations, arrows, and adjustments directly in the editor.
• Themes and Customization: Official and third-party themes with full code access for developers who want to customize the design.
• Open Source and Self-Hostable: MIT-licensed software you can self-host on your own server for full control and ownership.

• Zero Platform Fees: Ghost takes 0% of subscription revenue, unlike Substack's 10% cut. Only standard Stripe processing fees apply.
• Fast and Lightweight: Sites load quickly with strong built-in SEO, helping content rank without extra optimization work.
• All-in-One System: Combines publishing, newsletters, and memberships in one place, reducing the need for multiple tools.
• Content and Audience Ownership: Ghost gives publishers access to their content and member data. Members can be exported, while subscription billing is connected to the publisher's own Stripe account.
• Simple Writing Experience: Users consistently praise the clean editor as a refreshing alternative to WordPress complexity.

• Limited Themes and Plugins: Fewer design options and extensions compared to WordPress, and advanced customization often requires coding.
• WordPress Migrations May Need Cleanup: Ghost has built-in WordPress import tools and offers migration support, but complex sites may still need manual adjustments after moving content.
• Self-Hosting Requires Technical Work: Running Ghost yourself means managing your own hosting environment and technical setup. Ghost is also moving toward Docker Compose as the official self-hosting method with Ghost 7.0.

• Independent Newsletter Business: Writers moving off Substack use Ghost to run paid newsletters without giving up 10% of revenue. Exponential View by Azeem Azhar migrated from Substack for this reason.
• Personal Brand Blog: Creators like Ali Abdaal use Ghost as a central hub for guides, courses, newsletters, and video content under one brand.
• Membership Publications: Independent magazines like DESK Magazine and creators like Creator Science build recurring revenue by offering paid tiers to thousands of members.
• Company Blog with Headless CMS: Development teams use Ghost as a headless CMS for company blogs, giving writers a friendly interface while developers build custom frontends.
• Niche Content Communities: SEO experts like Kevin Indig use Ghost to publish focused content to a subscriber base with clean design and no distractions.
• Multi-tier Content Delivery: Publishers send daily newsletters to paid members and weekly issues to free subscribers using built-in segmentation.