Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Ghost VS What CMS

Compare Ghost VS What CMS 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.

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.

What CMS logo What CMS

WhatCMS.org looks at a variety of factors within a webpage to determine what CMS a website is using.
  • Ghost Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-10-10
  • What CMS Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-26

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.

What CMS features and specs

  • Extensive Database
    WhatCMS provides a comprehensive database of content management systems and their usage on websites, allowing users to identify which CMS a particular site is using. This can be valuable for market research and competitor analysis.
  • User Friendly Interface
    The platform offers an intuitive and easy-to-use interface for users to input website URLs and quickly get results on the CMS being used. This ease of use makes it accessible for both technical and non-technical users.
  • Free Access
    WhatCMS provides free access to its basic services, which allows users to explore and benefit from the platform without any initial financial investment.
  • API Access
    WhatCMS offers an API for developers to integrate CMS detection into their own applications, which can enhance the functionality of software and web services.

Possible disadvantages of What CMS

  • Accuracy Limitations
    The accuracy of CMS detection may vary based on the techniques used by different websites to obscure or modify CMS footprints, leading to potential false positives or negatives.
  • Limited In-depth Analysis
    While WhatCMS identifies which CMS is being used, it doesn't provide in-depth analysis or insights into the site's implementation or customization of the CMS.
  • Premium Features
    Although basic access is free, some advanced features or higher usage quotas require a paid subscription, which may not be ideal for all users, especially those on a tight budget.
  • Dependency on Public Data
    WhatCMS relies on publicly available data to analyze websites, which may limit its ability to detect content management systems in more complex or obfuscated environments.

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

Analysis of What CMS

Overall verdict

  • Overall, WhatCMS.org is a reliable and effective service for identifying CMS technologies. It's a great solution for those needing quick insights into site technologies, and it stands out for its comprehensive CMS database and frequent updates.

Why this product is good

  • WhatCMS.org is a useful tool for identifying the content management system (CMS) used by a website. It helps web developers, digital marketers, and researchers understand the technological framework behind a site, enabling competitive analysis, security assessments, and technology adoption studies. The tool is appreciated for its ease of use and accuracy in detection.

Recommended for

  • Web developers seeking to understand competitors' or clients' CMS choices.
  • Digital marketers conducting technology analysis for strategic planning.
  • Security professionals evaluating website security by understanding technology stacks.
  • Researchers conducting market studies on the adoption of various CMS platforms.

Ghost videos

Why I Moved My Blog From WordPress to Ghost

More videos:

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

What CMS videos

No What CMS videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

Add video

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Ghost and What CMS)
Blogging
100 100%
0% 0
Market Research
0 0%
100% 100
CMS
100 100%
0% 0
Sales Automation
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 Ghost and What CMS

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

What CMS Reviews

We have no reviews of What CMS yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Ghost seems to be a lot more popular than What CMS. While we know about 196 links to Ghost, we've tracked only 11 mentions of What 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.

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 / 6 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 / 10 months ago
  • Typepad Is Shutting Down
    They should provide an option to move to https://ghost.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 10 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 / 11 months ago
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What CMS mentions (11)

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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Ghost and What CMS, 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.

BuiltWith - Find out the technology behind websites

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

Wappalyzer - Wappalyzer is a technology profilers and leads data provider. Create lists of websites and contacts that use certain technologies.

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.

WhatRuns - Extension that helps you identify technologies used on any website at the click of a button.