Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

CakePHP VS Ghost

Compare CakePHP VS Ghost and see what are their differences

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CakePHP logo CakePHP

The Rapid Development Framework for PHP

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.
  • CakePHP Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-21
  • Ghost Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-10-10

Ghost

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

CakePHP features and specs

  • Structured MVC Framework
    CakePHP follows the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architectural pattern, which provides a clear separation of concerns, making the application more organized and maintainable.
  • Built-in ORM
    CakePHP includes a powerful Object-Relational Mapping (ORM) system which simplifies database interactions and promotes the use of PHP objects instead of writing raw SQL queries.
  • Convention Over Configuration
    CakePHP follows the 'convention over configuration' philosophy, which reduces the need for extensive configuration and allows developers to quickly set up new projects.
  • Security Features
    The framework comes with built-in security features like input validation, SQL injection prevention, and CSRF protection, which help in building safer applications.
  • Active Community
    CakePHP has an active and supportive community, which provides a wealth of plugins, tutorials, and help through forums and other online resources.

Possible disadvantages of CakePHP

  • Learning Curve
    For developers who are new to MVC frameworks or the conventions used by CakePHP, there can be a steep learning curve initially.
  • Performance Overhead
    Due to its extensive features and abstractions, CakePHP can sometimes have a higher performance overhead compared to lightweight frameworks, especially in high-traffic applications.
  • Limited Flexibility
    While conventions can be beneficial, they may also limit flexibility for developers who prefer to structure their projects differently or need to implement custom solutions.
  • Updates and Compatibility
    Major updates to the framework might introduce breaking changes, requiring existing projects to undergo significant modifications to stay up-to-date.

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.

CakePHP videos

CakePHP 3.7 Standards and MySQL Database Review

More videos:

  • Tutorial - CakePHP 3 Tutorial - part 1: Introduction & Installation

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 CakePHP and Ghost)
Web Frameworks
100 100%
0% 0
Blogging
0 0%
100% 100
Developer 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 CakePHP and Ghost

CakePHP Reviews

CakePHP vs CodeIgniter: Which PHP Framework is Best for Development?
CakePHP: CakePHP was released in April 2005 by Larry Masters. It is influenced by the concepts of Ruby on Rails and emphasizes convention over configuration, aiming to make web development fast and easy. CakePHP has undergone significant evolution, with the latest versions providing advanced features while maintaining backward compatibility.
Top 5 Laravel Alternatives
CakePHP is less complicated to work with than Laravel. CakePHP’s stated goal is to streamline the processes of developing, deploying, and maintaining Web Apps. The clean MVC layout makes it easy to pick up and use.
Top 10 Phoenix Framework Alternatives
CakePHP offers multiple features like code generation and app scaffolding that accelerates production speeds and saves development costs.
The Most Popular PHP Frameworks to Use in 2021
For example, the CakePHP framework has the Bake command-line tool which can quickly create any skeleton code that you need in your application.
Source: kinsta.com
Top 9 PHP Frameworks For Web Development In 2021
CakePHP is an open-source web development PHP framework. It’s ranked 6th in PHP Benchmarks, just above the Laravel web development framework. The newly released v4.0 comes with a renovated skeleton design and provides APIs to enable developers for rapid application development. On GitHub, it has 8.3k+ stars and 555 contributors. For commercial support, you have cakeDC....

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 platform’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 don’t already have a website, Ghost may be an appealing option as a Patreon alternative. However, customizations are limited, and you’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 CakePHP. While we know about 188 links to Ghost, we've tracked only 10 mentions of CakePHP. 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.

CakePHP mentions (10)

  • How to Use ServBay to Create and Run a CakePHP Project
    CakePHP is an open-source PHP web framework designed to help developers build web applications quickly. It is based on the MVC (Model-View-Controller) architecture and provides a powerful toolkit to simplify common development tasks such as database interactions, form handling, authentication, and session management. - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
  • Top 12 PHP Frameworks For Web Development in 2024
    CakePHP is an open-source PHP framework for web development with 8.7k stars and 3.5k forks on GitHub. It offers APIs that enable developers to develop applications quickly. It allows you to create highly secure and scalable web applications, including social networks, eCommerce, and online collaboration platforms. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Any suggestions for lighter frameworks than Laravel?
    Give https://cakephp.org/ a try. It also is one of the oldest ones out there, so quite mature and stable while being rather lightweight. Serving JSON API seems like a good fit. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Which PHP Framework Should You Use in 2023?
    You can download it and review the documentation here: https://cakephp.org/. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • My Workflow
    As the name of the service says it will work best with Laravel but it is not a problem to modify code from other frameworks to make it work the same way. I have several applications created this way in CakePHP. I have this set to manual after clicking the deploy button, but if you want you can turn on quick deploy and then it will publish the application after a push to the main branch (or another one, depending... - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
View more

Ghost mentions (188)

  • Save Hours Managing Ghost with These Python Scripts
    I run the blog at Developer-Service.blog with a self-hosted Ghost instance. - Source: dev.to / 14 days ago
  • Indie Hacking with Open Source Tools: Innovating on a Budget
    Modern publishing tools like Ghost accommodate sleek content presentation. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Indie Hacking Success Stories with Open Source Licenses
    Ghost: This open source blogging platform, available at Ghost, was kickstarted by a simple yet powerful idea—empowering writers with an elegant, customizable tool. The project’s MIT licensing has fostered a thriving community that collaborates to push the platform forward. Ghost’s journey demonstrates that when developers and users work together, innovation thrives. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Learning in public
    The other big option is to post blogs or notes. It's pretty simple to start a blog right here on Dev.to, or on Hashnode, two blogging platforms specifically for coding. There's also a great community platform on Codedex.io where you can write blog posts, although you do need to complete a few lessons to "unlock" the community features. In these cases, there's already an audience and community on the site, so it's... - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Using GitHub as a Free Content Management System
    Under a lot of other circumstances, I’d have simply used a hosted solution like Ghost, but I really wanted to embrace the file-over-app philosophy, especially After the recent controversies surrounding certain software products suddenly ceasing support. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

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

Laravel - A PHP Framework For Web Artisans

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.

CodeIgniter - A Fully Baked PHP Framework

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

Django - The Web framework for perfectionists with deadlines

SquareSpace - Squarespace is the easiest way for anyone to create an exceptional website. Pages, galleries, blogs, e-commerce, domains, hosting, analytics, 24/7 support - all included.