Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Backlinko VS Ghost

Compare Backlinko VS Ghost and see what are their differences

Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

Backlinko logo Backlinko

Backlinko is the place for next-level SEO training and link building strategies.

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.
  • Backlinko Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-03-15
  • Ghost Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-10-10

Ghost

Website
ghost.org
$ Details
paid Free Trial $36 / Monthly (100k views/month, 2 users)
Startup details
Country
United Kingdom

Backlinko features and specs

  • High-Quality Content
    Backlinko is known for its high-quality, in-depth content focused on SEO and digital marketing strategies, which can be valuable for both beginners and experienced marketers.
  • Actionable Tips
    The platform provides actionable tips and strategies that can be practically implemented to improve SEO performance.
  • Industry Expertise
    Created by Brian Dean, a respected figure in the SEO community, ensuring the advice and insights are based on extensive experience.
  • Comprehensive Guides
    Offers comprehensive guides and case studies that cover a wide range of SEO topics in detail.
  • Regular Updates
    Content is updated regularly to reflect changes in the SEO industry, ensuring the information is current and relevant.

Possible disadvantages of Backlinko

  • Limited Range of Topics
    Primarily focused on SEO and may not cover a broader range of digital marketing topics such as social media, email marketing, or PPC advertising.
  • Premium Content Costs
    Some content and resources require payment or subscription, which may not be suitable for users looking for free resources.
  • High-Level Terminology
    Content can be complex and may include high-level terminology, which might be challenging for complete beginners without any SEO background.
  • Information Overload
    Due to the depth and comprehensiveness of the guides, users might feel overwhelmed by the amount of information presented at once.
  • Limited Interaction
    The platform does not provide as much opportunity for interaction, discussion, or feedback compared to forums or community-based platforms.

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

Backlinko videos

SEO in 2020 and beyond with Brian Dean of Backlinko

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 Backlinko and Ghost)
SEO
100 100%
0% 0
Blogging
0 0%
100% 100
SEO Tools
100 100%
0% 0
CMS
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

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

Backlinko Reviews

We have no reviews of Backlinko 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 Backlinko. While we know about 196 links to Ghost, we've tracked only 16 mentions of Backlinko. 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.

Backlinko mentions (16)

  • SEO business meets Jamstack ๐Ÿ‘‰ Backlinko Case Study
    Since 2013, Backlinko has become one of the biggest blogs and brands in the SEO industry. It's the right place if you're looking for next-level SEO training and link-building strategies. Source: about 3 years ago
  • Best way to learn digital marketing fast?
    For sources - Udemy, YouTube, tons of blog posts. E. G. https://www.digitalmarketer.com/digital-marketing/ for SEO - https://backlinko.com/. Source: over 3 years ago
  • What SEO books/websites and other learning resources do you use for your blog?
    Brian Dean's Backlinko, Neil Patel's Quicksprout, Google and Bing Webmaster Tools, SEO Book, and SEO Chat are some of the resources I utilize to understand SEO. Aside from that, I read SEO blogs and forums because they are usually full of new information. Source: over 4 years ago
  • Google Chrome 101.0.4951.64 released
    Backlinko.com says "Chrome is currently the primary browser of more than 2.65 billion internet users.". Source: over 4 years ago
  • Any recommendations on sites to learn from?
    How do users get to your site? SEO, Paid ads, social media. Already mentioned, but I like backlinko.com. Source: over 4 years ago
View more

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 / 7 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 / 8 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 / 12 months ago
  • Typepad Is Shutting Down
    They should provide an option to move to https://ghost.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 12 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 / about 1 year ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

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

Ahrefs - Ahrefs is a toolset for SEO and marketing. We have tools for backlink research, organic traffic research, keyword research, content marketing & more. Give Ahrefs a try!

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.

Moz - Backed by industry-leading data and the largest community of SEOs on the planet, Moz builds tools that make inbound marketing easy.

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

SEMRush - All-in-one Marketing Toolkit for digital marketing professionals.

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