# Ghost

> The open source publishing platform for newsletters and paid memberships

Category: Open source alternatives (https://aiarabicdev.com/alternatives)
Canonical page: https://aiarabicdev.com/alternatives/ghost
Tags: newsletter, blogging, publishing, memberships

Ghost is a blog, newsletter and membership platform in one, used in place of Substack or Medium by writers who want to own their audience. It is MIT licensed and self hostable, and the Ghost Foundation sells managed hosting as Ghost(Pro).

## Facts

- Licence: MIT
- Language: TypeScript
- Cost: Free core, paid tiers exist
- Self hostable: yes
- Added: 2026-10-25
- Last checked: 2026-10-25

## Links

- Website: https://ghost.org
- Source: https://github.com/TryGhost/Ghost
- Docs: https://ghost.org/docs/

## Your publication, your list, your revenue

Ghost combines a fast editor, a themeable website, email newsletters and paid memberships through Stripe. Readers subscribe on your domain, posts go out by email and on the web at once, and you can put some posts behind a free or paid tier.

The key difference from Substack and Medium is ownership. Substack takes a share of paid subscriptions and the reader relationship lives on its platform. With Ghost, the subscriber list is yours to export, the domain is yours, and Ghost takes no cut of your revenue beyond Stripe's own fees.

## What Substack did for free that you now handle

Substack brings discovery: recommendations, a reader app and a network effect that helps new writers find readers. Ghost gives you none of that by default, so growth depends on the audience you bring and build yourself.

Self hosting means a Node.js app with MySQL, a reverse proxy and a bulk email provider, since Ghost's newsletters are built around Mailgun. Updates, backups and deliverability are yours. Many writers find Ghost(Pro) worth paying for exactly to avoid that work, which is a fair trade to consider.

## Reach for it when

- you write a newsletter and want to own the subscriber list
- you want paid memberships without a platform taking a cut
- you want your blog and newsletter on your own domain

## Watch out for

- there is no built in discovery network like Substack's, so you bring your own readers
- self hosted newsletters depend on a bulk email provider such as Mailgun
- running MySQL, updates and email deliverability yourself is real ongoing work

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