Ghost CMS

Ghost is a fantastic open-source, headless Node.js CMS and my go-to system for setting up content sites (e.g. my 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 including OpenAI, DigitalOcean, and Mozilla.

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.

Ghost admin dashboard

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)