WordPress vs Ghost – Which Blogging Platform is Superior?

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WordPress vs. Ghost: An Overview

Before we delve into our detailed comparison of these two popular blogging platforms, it’s important to provide a brief overview of each platform.

WordPress is the most widely used website builder and content management system (CMS) globally, powering over 43% of websites on the internet. It has been around for over 18 years and can be used to create any type of website or blog. WordPress is utilized by some of the most successful blogs in the world. Starting a new WordPress blog requires a domain name and web hosting, which can be easily set up with many excellent WordPress hosting companies.

Ghost was launched in 2013 with the objective of creating a streamlined publishing platform for writers, publishers, and journalists. It boasts over 3 million installs and an active monthly user base of over 10,000. Ghost is a very clean and minimalist platform that has fast loading speeds. Those who want to start blogging as quickly as possible can get started in just a few minutes. Ghost is accessible as a hosted platform or software that you can install and host yourself. In our comparison, we’ll focus on the more popular hosted version of Ghost, as the self-hosted version is complicated to set up.

Cost Comparison: Ghost vs WordPress

For most users, the cost of building a blog is a key consideration in choosing a platform. To minimize costs, beginners may prefer to start with low investment and increase as they begin to make money from blogging.

WordPress, a free and open-source CMS software, requires purchasing a domain name and hosting to launch a website. The cost of a domain name is typically $14.99 per year, while website hosting starts at $7.99 per month with Bluehost, which offers a 69% discount to our readers, free domain name, and SSL certificate, starting at $2.75 per month.

WordPress offers a massive ecosystem of free plugins and themes. Although premium themes, plugins, and third-party services can raise costs, bloggers can start with free versions and later invest in premium versions as needed. Moreover, WordPress allows complete control over site modification and user/member addition without extra fees.

Ghost, on the other hand, charges a monthly fee based on audience size and the plan chosen, with the cheapest Starter plan at $11 per month. The Creator plan, for $33 per month, allows adding another user to the team and accessing custom themes and integrations. The cost of any plan multiplies if the number of members exceeds 500, and there are higher-priced plans for larger teams.

Ghost offers a 14-day free trial for testing the platform. However, WordPress provides the same features as Ghost at lower costs and allows creating an email newsletter and online store without extra charges. As such, it is the winner in terms of cost.

Simplified and polished version:

WordPress and Ghost are two blogging platforms compared for ease of use. Most users starting a blog are not programmers and need an easy-to-use platform to quickly build and publish content without learning how to code.

WordPress has a slight learning curve as it is open source software that requires self-installation and updates management. Once you learn WordPress terms, themes, and plugins, customizing your blog and creating content is easy with its block editor and drag-and-drop page builder. WordPress also offers a vast plugin library.

Ghost is beginner-friendly as it focuses on publishing and monetizing content. Its post dashboard is similar to the WordPress block editor, and users can add images, HTML, galleries, buttons, videos, and more. However, Ghost has fewer customization options and is mainly a content publishing platform.

In conclusion, both platforms have a point-and-click editor, customizable templates, and similar post editors. Ghost is easier to use, but WordPress offers more customization options once you learn its core concepts.

Translation into SCI paper style:

Ease of Use: WordPress and Ghost

Most individuals starting a blog do not possess programming or coding skills. Therefore, they require a user-friendly platform that enables them to quickly build and publish content without having to learn how to code.

In this comparison, we assess the ease of use of two popular blogging platforms, namely WordPress and Ghost. WordPress is an open source software that requires users to install and manage updates and backups. Although WordPress has a slight learning curve, once users are familiar with WordPress terms, themes, and plugins, they can easily customize their blog using its block editor and drag-and-drop page builder. WordPress also offers a massive plugin library.

On the other hand, Ghost is a beginner-friendly platform that focuses on publishing and monetizing content. Its post dashboard is similar to the WordPress block editor, and users can add images, HTML, galleries, buttons, videos, and more. However, Ghost has fewer customization options and is primarily a content publishing platform.

In conclusion, both WordPress and Ghost have a point-and-click editor, customizable templates, and similar post editors. Ghost is easier to use, but WordPress offers more customization options once users learn its core concepts.

Design and Templates: Ghost vs. WordPress

Creating a blog with a professional design is important for beginners. In this section, we will compare how Ghost and WordPress handle design, customizations, and website building.

WordPress – Design and Templates

WordPress offers thousands of free themes with many features that are mobile-friendly right out of the box. Users can easily switch their WordPress theme at any time and customize every aspect of the theme using the built-in WordPress theme customizer or a page builder plugin like SeedProd. WordPress keeps the design separate from the content, making it easy to change themes without losing content.

Ghost – Design and Templates

Ghost has a theme repository with just over 20 free themes and around 100 premium themes. Customizing the theme is done within the settings panel where users can control color scheme, fonts, icons, and site logo. There’s also an option to hire theme developers for a completely custom design.

Winner – WordPress

WordPress offers a greater selection of themes and plugins, giving users more flexibility to customize every aspect of their theme and create custom pages without writing any code. Separating content and functionality from the design is another advantage of WordPress.

Comparison of Ecommerce Functionality in WordPress and Ghost

Enabling ecommerce on your website is an effective way to sell your products, services, and subscriptions online. In this section, we will compare how Ghost and WordPress handle ecommerce functionality.

WordPress – Ecommerce

To add ecommerce capabilities to WordPress, you can use the popular WooCommerce plugin, which supports millions of online stores worldwide, both large and small. WooCommerce provides a wide range of features to sell physical and digital products, and comes with addons and plugins to add new functionalities. It also offers hundreds of ecommerce themes to create a professional-looking online store. Additionally, you can choose from various payment gateways, such as PayPal, Authorize.net, Stripe, and many more. With WordPress, you can sell anything you want, including online courses, paid newsletters, digital and physical products, and much more.

Ghost – Ecommerce

Unlike WordPress, Ghost’s ecommerce feature is focused on selling memberships to access premium content, similar to Substack. With Ghost, you can put content behind a paywall for your subscribers, allowing you to manage members and create paid newsletters with ease.

Winner – WordPress

WordPress provides a more flexible platform to sell your products and services, offering a broad range of payment options, addons, and various types of products. Although Ghost provides built-in ecommerce functionality, it is limited to selling premium content and paid newsletters, while WordPress supports a wide range of ecommerce functionalities.

SEO: WordPress vs Ghost

To increase website traffic and rank high in search engines, it’s essential to use a search engine friendly platform. However, some platforms are more SEO-friendly than others, making it challenging to rank high. In this regard, WordPress and Ghost are compared to see which is better.

WordPress – SEO

WordPress is SEO-friendly, with built-in settings that can be configured to optimize website ranking. It’s built with SEO best practices in mind, enabling you to easily increase your website traffic and rankings.

WordPress has various built-in settings, such as creating SEO-friendly URLs, organizing content, adding tags, editing image alt text, among others. Additionally, there are WordPress SEO plugins, like All in One SEO (AIOSEO), that can be used to optimize a site, without complex SEO terms or hiring an expert.

With AIOSEO, it’s possible to add title tags and meta descriptions, choose a focus keyword, get page analytics with recommendations, and generate XML sitemaps, among others. It’s also possible to control how your site appears on social media, connect to Google Search Console, and add breadcrumbs to help visitors navigate the website.

Ghost – SEO

Ghost has a few built-in features to optimize posts and pages for search engines, including complete control over URLs, permalinks, page titles, and meta descriptions. Additionally, there are built-in settings to automatically create a website sitemap, assign canonical tags, and integrate your website with Google Search Console.

Ghost also has a feature to add multiple authors to post bylines, highlighting each author. However, most website content on Ghost is protected and for members only, which means that the content won’t rank in search engines. Additional content must be published free to rank in search results.

Winner – WordPress

WordPress is the winner when it comes to optimizing websites for search engines. It offers more options, flexibility, and SEO features. Although Ghost has solid built-in SEO settings, it doesn’t get to the level of depth and flexibility that WordPress offers.

Addons and Integrations: Comparing Ghost and WordPress

No blogging platform can provide all the features you need out-of-the-box. To expand your site’s capabilities and sync with external services, you can use addons and integrations. This section compares how Ghost and WordPress handle addons and integrations.

WordPress – Addons and Integrations

WordPress plugins provide an extensive range of additional features and functions, akin to apps for your WordPress site. You can easily install and activate plugins to add new functionality from the WordPress plugin repository, which has over 59,000 free plugins, and countless more premium plugins. WordPress also integrates well with other popular tools and services, including email marketing, market research, live chat, CRM, and business phone services, among others.

Ghost – Addons and Integrations

Ghost doesn’t provide addons for additional features. Instead, all the functionality is built directly into the platform. Ghost offers various built-in integrations to link your site with third-party services like Stripe, Google Analytics, Zapier, and ConvertKit, among others. There are detailed instructions on how to add integrations to your blog.

Winner – WordPress

WordPress wins this category due to its vast collection of plugins and ability to integrate with numerous third-party services, allowing users to add any necessary functionality to their blog.

Support: WordPress vs. Ghost Assistance is sometimes needed in building a blog, adding new features, or troubleshooting errors. Let’s compare the support options provided by Ghost and WordPress.

WordPress – Support WordPress boasts a helpful online community with a wealth of free resources such as the official WordPress support forums, tutorial sites like WPBeginner, Facebook groups like WPBeginner Engage, among others. Most WordPress themes and plugins have their own support forums too. WordPress tutorials can also provide step-by-step instructions on extending the platform’s functionality. If more assistance is required, hiring an affordable WordPress developer is an option.

Ghost – Support Ghost’s online help center offers several detailed guides on getting started with the platform. It includes tutorials on editing websites, publishing content, setting up memberships, connecting to social media, and more. Ghost also provides email support and an active resource section with useful articles on website building, growth, and monetization.

Winner – WordPress As the world’s largest website building platform, WordPress offers more support options, including plugin and theme developers, multi-lingual support, and numerous free resources. Ghost, on the other hand, only offers a single support channel and a limited library of how-to articles.

Comparing WordPress and Ghost based on the above criteria, WordPress is the superior choice for starting a new blog. It provides more flexibility, design options and themes, eCommerce features, and at a lower cost. Users have complete control over the amount they spend on building their blog. While Ghost offers a fast and straightforward blogging and monetization platform, it is restricted by limited customization options, revenue streams, and overall flexibility.