Ghost is a fantastic open-source, headless Node.js CMS and my go-to system for setting up content sites (e.g. my German consulting business site itpeters.com or my private travel logbook reisepedia.de. Essentially, it’s a customizable platform for running blogs, magazines, or journals. It’s fully open-source and runs blogs from OpenAI, DigitalOcean, Mozilla and many other big names.
The Ghost Foundation is offering a hosted version of Ghost, so it's accessible for non-technical content creators. This is really great and should be used by all means, if you don't want to deal with the technical aspects of running a web server. For me, however, it comes natural to set up a Ghost instance on my own server with the offical Docker image and Dokku.
There are also a ton of themes for purchase (and for free!) on Ghost’s official website. I personally like the themes from Bright Themes, which are very well designed and easy to customize. They offer a lifetime license for all themes, which I think is a fantastic deal.
Key features:
- Very fast and stable
- Open Source (MIT license)
- Paid subscription and membership support
- SEO and social media optimization
- Newsletter integration
- Native REST API in core
- Admin dashboard
- Hosted version available
- Self-hosting possible and well-documented
- Great themes available (paid and free)