Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Ghost VS DevKinsta

Compare Ghost VS DevKinsta and see what are their differences

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.

DevKinsta logo DevKinsta

Design, develop, and deploy WordPress sites locally
  • Ghost Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-10-10
  • DevKinsta Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-29

Ghost

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

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.

DevKinsta features and specs

  • User-friendly Interface
    DevKinsta offers a simple and intuitive interface that makes it easy for developers to set up and manage local WordPress environments, even for those with limited technical skills.
  • One-click WordPress Installation
    It allows users to deploy WordPress with just one click, significantly speeding up the development process by eliminating manual setup tasks.
  • Integrated Development Tools
    DevKinsta includes essential development tools like email testing, database management, and site management, which are integrated into the platform for streamlined workflows.
  • Free of Charge
    It is available for free, making it an accessible option for developers and teams looking to reduce costs while maintaining productivity.
  • Seamless Kinsta Integration
    It allows for easy connection to Kinsta hosting accounts, enabling quick deployment of local projects to the live environment.

Possible disadvantages of DevKinsta

  • Limited to WordPress
    DevKinsta is specifically designed for WordPress development, which limits its utility for developers working with other platforms or frameworks.
  • Resource Intensive
    Running DevKinsta, especially with multiple instances, can consume a significant amount of system resources, potentially slowing down other processes.
  • Lacks Advanced Features
    While suitable for basic development needs, it may lack some advanced features required by experienced developers, like complex site configurations or custom server setups.
  • Dependency on Docker
    DevKinsta relies on Docker, which can introduce compatibility issues or additional learning curves for users not familiar with this technology.
  • Limited Community Support
    Compared to other development environments, DevKinsta has a smaller community, which might result in less available peer support and fewer shared resources or plugins.

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

Ghost videos

Why I Moved My Blog From WordPress to Ghost

More videos:

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

DevKinsta videos

DevKinsta Review: First Look at a New WordPress Local Environment

More videos:

  • Tutorial - How to Install WordPress Locally with DevKinsta (on Mac and Windows)
  • Demo - Crunchify DevKinsta Review and Demo

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Ghost and DevKinsta)
Blogging
100 100%
0% 0
Windows
0 0%
100% 100
CMS
98 98%
2% 2
Blogging Platform
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

Share your experience with using Ghost and DevKinsta. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Reviews

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

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

DevKinsta Reviews

8 Best MAMP Alternatives (Definitive List)
If youโ€™re a Kinsta user, youโ€™ll be happy to know that DevKinsta enables you to push websites to staging with a click. This means you can work on projects locally, push them to staging, and then to production without manually copying files. Moreover, DevKinsta can import copies of your Kinsta sites so you can work on them locally.
Source: kinsta.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Ghost seems to be a lot more popular than DevKinsta. While we know about 196 links to Ghost, we've tracked only 8 mentions of DevKinsta. 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.

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 / 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
View more

DevKinsta mentions (8)

  • WpEngine - yes / no or ...?
    More recently I've been working with Kinsta. Although they are more expensive, the platform is way more developer friendly. You can manage your own deployment pipeline through GIT or use their DevKinsta development tool. They also offer application hosting. The biggest attraction to me is their support and CDN which automatically optimises images and serves WebP. Source: over 3 years ago
  • Your favourite software to develop Wordpress locally on Ubuntu?
    Sorry, I thought Laragon was cross platform. DevKinsta runs on Linux. You might give it a try. It requires Docker. https://kinsta.com/devkinsta/. Source: over 3 years ago
  • Wordpress
    You can use local server for development (e.g. Local WP or DevKinsta...). When you create a new website, wizard will ask you for an address - simply provide domain of old website. It will work without any problems ๐Ÿ‘ Then when you finish new website all you need to do will be transferring files and database and update wp-config.php database connection settings ๐Ÿ˜‹. Source: almost 4 years ago
  • Dream Universal, Develop Local: A look at PHP Local Development Tools.
    I recently used Dev Kinsta to test some theme options for a project. I was quite happy with the results. - Source: dev.to / almost 4 years ago
  • How can I start learning WordPress without buying a domain?
    I wrote this script to run on my Macbook - https://github.com/systmweb/valetpress also have a look at DevKinsta which is great https://kinsta.com/devkinsta/. Source: almost 5 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

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

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.

Local by Flywheel - Provides a simple, local development environment with a friendly GUI.

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

BionicWP - WordPress hosting, come for the speed & stay for the support

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

EasyWP - Get a WordPress website online in under 60 seconds