Ghost

Ghost is an open-source publishing platform built specifically for newsletters and paid content. It handles posts, pages, email newsletters, and Stripe-powered memberships from a single clean interface. The editor stays out of the way — no blocks, no sidebars, just writing — and the subscriber management, open rate tracking, and email delivery are built in rather than bolted on via plugins.

The case for self-hosting comes down to revenue share. Substack takes 10% of paid subscriptions. Beehiiv and similar platforms have their own fees. On a self-hosted Ghost instance, Stripe’s standard processing fee is the only cut taken. For a newsletter with meaningful revenue, the difference adds up quickly.

Deployment requires Node.js and a MySQL-compatible database, which makes it more involved than a PHP-based CMS. The Ghost CLI handles most of the setup on a VPS, but you also need to configure an email delivery service — Mailgun or Postmark are the common choices — before memberships work correctly.

The theme ecosystem is smaller than WordPress, and Ghost does not have an equivalent plugin marketplace. Extending beyond what ships with Ghost requires writing Handlebars templates or using the REST API and webhooks to connect external tools. For straightforward publishing — a newsletter, a blog, a membership site — the built-in feature set covers the common cases without needing to evaluate and maintain third-party extensions.

Ghost Pro, the hosted version, starts at $23/month and handles infrastructure and updates for you.

Ghost: Pros & Cons