Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Backdrop CMS VS Ghost

Compare Backdrop CMS VS Ghost and see what are their differences

Backdrop CMS logo Backdrop CMS

A free and Open Source CMS for small to medium sized businesses and non-profits.

Ghost logo Ghost

Ghost is a fully open source, adaptable platform for building and running a modern online publication. We power blogs, magazines and journalists from Zappos to Sky News.
  • Backdrop CMS Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-02-05
  • Ghost Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-10-10

Ghost

Website
ghost.org
$ Details
paid Free Trial $36.0 / Monthly (100k views/month, 2 users)
Startup details
Country
United Kingdom

Backdrop CMS features and specs

  • Affordability
    Backdrop CMS is a cost-effective solution for small to medium-sized businesses or individuals who need a comprehensive content management system without a hefty price tag.
  • Ease of Use
    It is designed to be user-friendly, making it accessible for users who may not have extensive technical knowledge, which simplifies website management.
  • Drupal Compatibility
    Backdrop CMS is a fork of Drupal, which means it has many of Drupalโ€™s features and benefits, but with a simplified and streamlined approach.
  • Active Community
    The Backdrop community is active and engaged, providing a variety of modules, themes, and a wealth of support resources for users.
  • Customizability
    Backdrop CMS allows for extensive customization with its numerous add-ons and modules, enabling developers to meet specific project requirements.
  • System Requirements
    Backdrop has lower system requirements than some other CMS platforms, allowing it to run on more cost-effective servers.

Possible disadvantages of Backdrop CMS

  • Smaller Community
    Compared to larger platforms like WordPress or Drupal, Backdrop has a smaller user base which could lead to fewer resources or third-party integrations.
  • Limited Modules
    While Backdrop has a fair number of modules, it doesn't compare to the vast library available in more established platforms like Drupal.
  • Less Suitable for Complex Projects
    Backdrop is well-suited for simple to moderately complex sites, but may not offer the depth and scalability needed for extremely large or complex web projects.
  • Migration Complexity
    Migrating to Backdrop CMS from other systems might require significant effort and technical expertise, particularly if coming from heavily customized Drupal sites.
  • Marketing and Awareness
    Backdrop CMS has less market recognition compared to giants like WordPress or Drupal, which might be a concern for stakeholders prioritizing mainstay solutions.

Ghost features and specs

  • User-Friendly Interface
    Ghost offers a clean and intuitive interface that makes content management straightforward, even for those without technical expertise.
  • Speed and Performance
    Ghost is built on modern technology like Node.js which makes it faster and more efficient compared to some traditional CMS platforms.
  • SEO Optimized
    Ghost comes built-in with SEO features like clean URLs, meta tags, and sitemaps which help in improving search engine rankings.
  • Customizable Themes
    Ghost supports a variety of themes that can be easily customized to fit the branding and functionality needs of a website.
  • Markdown Support
    Content creation in Ghost is made easy with Markdown support, allowing writers to focus on text rather than formatting.

Possible disadvantages of Ghost

  • Limited Plugin Ecosystem
    Compared to WordPress, Ghost has a more limited selection of plugins, which might restrict some functionalities users are looking for.
  • Higher Hosting Costs
    Ghost's official hosting is relatively expensive, making it less suitable for users on a tight budget.
  • Technical Knowledge Requirement
    While Ghost is user-friendly, setting it up on a custom server can require a higher level of technical knowledge compared to some other platforms.
  • Less Community Support
    The user community for Ghost is smaller compared to more established platforms like WordPress, which can make it harder to find support and resources.
  • Limited Ecommerce Capabilities
    Ghost is primarily a publishing platform and lacks the more advanced eCommerce functionalities that other CMS platforms might offer out of the box.

Analysis of Ghost

Overall verdict

  • Ghost is a highly regarded platform for serious bloggers and publishers who want a minimalistic yet powerful content management system. It is especially beneficial for those who prefer a distraction-free writing environment with the capability to scale and customize as their needs grow.

Why this product is good

  • Ghost is a popular open-source platform designed for professional bloggers and publishers. It is known for its clean design, speed, and ease of use. Ghost offers robust features for content creation, management, and distribution while focusing on providing an optimal writing experience. Additionally, Ghost is built on modern technology stacks and offers flexibility through themes and integrations. It also supports membership and subscription models, making it ideal for those looking to monetize their content.

Recommended for

  • Professional bloggers
  • Content creators looking for a minimalist interface
  • Publishers seeking to monetize their content
  • Developers looking for an open-source platform
  • Organizations that require a fast and reliable CMS
  • Writers who value a focused writing experience

Backdrop CMS videos

Moving to Backdrop CMS

More videos:

  • Review - Session: Moving from Drupal 7 to Backdrop CMS
  • Demo - The Drupal Fork: Backdrop CMS (live demo)

Ghost videos

Why I Moved My Blog From WordPress to Ghost

More videos:

  • Review - Ghost review - CMS for creators to build a membership

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Backdrop CMS and Ghost)
CMS
4 4%
96% 96
Blogging
3 3%
97% 97
Blogging Platform
3 3%
97% 97
Development
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Backdrop CMS and Ghost

Backdrop CMS Reviews

We have no reviews of Backdrop CMS yet.
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Ghost Reviews

Comparing 9 WordPress alternatives & competitors in 2024
Ghost specializes in creating a monetized blogging platform. Based on their subscription status, readers can create user profiles, sign up for newsletters, and browse your entire blogging calendar. The platformโ€™s singular focus on blogging makes it great for individuals and small teams, but it lacks features like real-time collaboration that are necessary for larger companies.
Source: webflow.com
19 Best WordPress Alternatives in 2025
Ghost is known for its simplicity and focus on content creation. It's a great option for writers and creators who want a clean and distraction-free environment to publish their work.
Source: www.pixpa.com
7 Best Buy Me a Coffee Alternatives
If you donโ€™t already have a website, Ghost may be an appealing option as a Patreon alternative. However, customizations are limited, and youโ€™ll need to choose a pre-built design from the theme library. There are a few themes available, but most are priced from around $80 to $150. The Ghost API also gives you a way to publish content you create on the platform to another...
Source: wpforms.com
Top 10 Web Content Management Systems
Ghost is here as one of the first entries that can be classified as a pure headless CMS. Ghost is not only one of the best headless CMS options, but it also does so while being focused primarily on the blogger community. So if you have or are thinking about starting a large blogging operation featuring many different presentation layers, then Ghost is definitely for you....
Source: cloudzy.com
25+ Medium Alternative Platforms for Publishing Articles
Ghost open-source blogging and the indirect medium alternative platform. Its interface makes blogging easy for users, but also offers SEO tools and other plugins that are built into the platform. This makes it simple for users to publish high-quality content without technical difficulties.
Source: forgefusion.io

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Ghost seems to be a lot more popular than Backdrop CMS. While we know about 196 links to Ghost, we've tracked only 14 mentions of Backdrop CMS. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Backdrop CMS mentions (14)

  • Jeffgeerling.com has been Migrated to Hugo
    > there is a Drupal 7 site that I need to migrate to something You may be interested in Backdrop, which is a maintained fork of Drupal 7. https://backdropcms.org/ (No experience with it personally. Only know about it from a friend who uses it.). - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago
  • So Long WordPress
    Have you checked out Backdrop CMS? https://backdropcms.org/. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Cold-Blooded Software
    Https://backdropcms.org/ ? D7 fork. If you want to stay there. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
  • Alternatives to Laravel?
    Https://backdropcms.org was a fork of Drupal before the rewrite. It was pretty decent when I tried it (admittedly several years ago). Source: about 3 years ago
  • The Magic of Small Databases
    I see you decided on Wordpress, if you were going to use a CMS I think Drupal 7 would have been a good choice. Drupal has concept of entities and views. An entity as the name suggests is essentially a table and you can add all sorts of different fields to it. From simple text and number fields to images and fields that lookup other entities thus creating relationships between entities. Views is another construct... - Source: Hacker News / over 3 years ago
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Ghost mentions (196)

  • Local Journalism Is How Democracy Shows Up Close to Home
    Digital production has lowered the cost, and the Ghost platform in particular is a great value for small publishers, bundling together the blog, newsletter and subscriptions in one package, even now including ActivityPub federation. And Ghost themselves a non-profit org that doesn't mark up the Stripe transaction fees! One local news outlet recently switched to that, saving about %5 on Patreon fees and a second is... - Source: Hacker News / 6 months ago
  • Bye Bye Big Tech: How I Migrated to an Almost All-EU Stack (and Saved 500โ‚ฌ/Year)
    Https://ghost.org โ€” Open-source run by a non-profit headquartered in Singapore. - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago
  • Ask HN: Looking for Headless CMS Recommendation
    If you're hell-bent on headless, I can personally recommend 11ty (https://www.11ty.dev/) and hugo (https://gohugo.io/). That said, for non-technical admins, you probably want a user interface. For that, Ghost (https://ghost.org/) and Grav (https://getgrav.org/). Or Wordpress! - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago
  • Typepad Is Shutting Down
    They should provide an option to move to https://ghost.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago
  • Build an analytics agent to analyze your Ghost blog traffic with the Vercel AI SDK and Tinybird
    In this post, I'll show you how to build an agent with sufficient contextual understanding of underlying analytics data - and the tools to query it - so that you can have a chat with your data (any data!). Specifically, I'll build a simple analytics agent for a blog - hosted on the open-source publishing platform Ghost. The agent will tell us which content is performing the best, and why. - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Backdrop CMS and Ghost, you can also consider the following products

Mastodon - Mastodon is a decentralized, open source social network. This is just one part of the network, run by the main developers of the project It is not focused on any particular niche interest - everyone is welcome!

WordPress - WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog. We like to say that WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.

Grav - The modern open source flat-file CMS

Medium - Welcome to Medium, a place to read, write, and interact with the stories that matter most to you.

Blogger - Publish your passions, your way. Create a unique and beautiful blog. Itโ€™s easy and free.

Drupal - Drupal - the leading open-source CMS for ambitious digital experiences that reach your audience across multiple channels. Because we all have different needs, Drupal allows you to create a unique space in a world of cookie-cutter solutions.