Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Submittable VS Ghost

Compare Submittable 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.

Submittable logo Submittable

Submittable is an easy-to-use online submission manager.

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.
  • Submittable Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-13
  • 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

Submittable features and specs

  • User-Friendly Interface
    Submittable offers an intuitive and easy-to-use interface for both submitters and reviewers, which simplifies the submission and review process.
  • Streamlined Workflow
    The platform supports a streamlined workflow with automated email notifications, task assignments, and status tracking, improving efficiency in managing submissions.
  • Customizable Forms
    Users can create fully customizable submission forms tailored to their specific needs, allowing for more precise data collection.
  • Collaboration Tools
    Submittable provides robust collaboration tools, allowing multiple reviewers to provide feedback, discuss submissions, and make collective decisions.
  • Analytics and Reporting
    The platform offers detailed analytics and reporting features, enabling users to track submission trends, reviewer activity, and overall performance.

Possible disadvantages of Submittable

  • Pricing
    Submittable can be expensive, especially for smaller organizations or individuals, as pricing scales with the volume of submissions and additional features.
  • Limited Free Plan
    The free plan offered by Submittable is quite limited in terms of features and submission volume, necessitating an upgrade for more robust needs.
  • Learning Curve
    While the interface is user-friendly, there can be a learning curve for new users to fully utilize all the advanced features and functionalities.
  • Customization Limitations
    Although forms are customizable, some users may find limitations in customizing the broader workflow and integration aspects to fit their unique requirements.
  • Dependency on Internet
    As a cloud-based platform, Submittable requires a reliable internet connection for access, which can be a drawback in areas with poor connectivity.

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 Submittable

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Submittable is considered a good platform.

Why this product is good

  • Submittable is a widely-used submission management platform known for its user-friendly interface, comprehensive features, and flexibility in handling a range of submission types. It is praised for streamlining the process of collecting and reviewing submissions, offering customization options for forms, and facilitating effective communication between submitters and administrators. Users appreciate its robust reporting tools and integrations with other services.

Recommended for

    Submittable is recommended for organizations and individuals who need an efficient way to manage and review submissions, such as literary journals, film festivals, grant programs, and scholarship providers. It's well-suited for teams that require collaboration in the decision-making process and for those seeking to enhance their submission workflows with automated tools.

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

Submittable videos

Submittable: Accept and review any digital content

More videos:

  • Review - What is Submittable?
  • Review - Submittable: Submissions made simple

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 Submittable and Ghost)
ERP
100 100%
0% 0
Blogging
0 0%
100% 100
Event Management
100 100%
0% 0
CMS
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using Submittable and Ghost. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Reviews

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

Submittable Reviews

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

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 Submittable. While we know about 196 links to Ghost, we've tracked only 5 mentions of Submittable. 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.

Submittable mentions (5)

  • Looking for art zines
    Try checking out Submittable https://submittable.com/ and Chillsubs https://chillsubs.com/ to look for journals, zines and other publications that are seeking art :) Good luck! Source: almost 4 years ago
  • [HELP] How to publish as a new poet.
    You send them into literary magazines & journals. chillsubs.com + submittable.com + duotrope.com are good places to start. Source: about 4 years ago
  • [help]
    You'll need a Submittable account for most mainstream submissions these days. Source: over 4 years ago
  • Can I get paid by writing poems?
    Another place to search is submittable.com --I think you can even search by paid vs non-paid. Source: over 4 years ago
  • Where to publish short stories in this day and age?
    Check out duotrope. It's a searchable database of all available publications. You can also use the Discover tab on Submittable. Good luck! Source: almost 5 years ago

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
View more

What are some alternatives?

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

SurveyMonkey Apply - SurveyMonkey Apply enables organizations to streamline the process of collecting and reviewing applications.

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.

Award Force - Award Force is recognised as the worldโ€™s #1 awards management software, trusted by organisations across the globe to recognise excellence in their field.

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

OpenWater - OpenWater is an awards management software platform that automates, manages, and grows awards programs big and small.

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.