Ghost
Open-source publishing platform for websites, email newsletters and paid memberships, with Handlebars themes and a read-only content API.
ghost.orgrepositorydocspricingplugins
Ghost is a Node.js publishing platform for websites, newsletters and paid memberships, built on Express and Knex, with MySQL as the production database. Themes are written in Handlebars and rendered on the server. A read-only Content API serves other frontends, and a separate Admin API is also provided. The documented production setup is ghost-cli on an Ubuntu LTS server behind NGINX. The Ghost Foundation, a non-profit founded in 2013, maintains it. The hosting guide lists the server requirements.
Worth knowing
Ghost renders its own pages, so it runs as a server process rather than producing static files. The official Docker Compose setup is labeled preview, and self-hosting ActivityPub and Tinybird analytics requires it. Ghost(Pro) is the project’s hosted offering.
Identity
- Status
- Active
- Maintainer
- Ghost Foundation3
- Maintained by
- Foundation3
Rendering and deploy
- Runs as
- Always on10
- Rendering
- On a server9
- Install with
- ghost-cli (npm install ghost-cli@latest -g, ghost install), docker compose (preview)10
Releases
Adoption
Sources
- 2026-10-18: name, links, Categories
ghost.org/ - 2026-10-18: links, Written in, License, License model, GitHub stars
api.github.com/repos/TryGhost/Ghost - 2026-10-18: Maintainer, Maintained by
ghost.org/about/ - 2026-10-18: Built on, Minimum runtime, Databases, License
registry.npmjs.org/ghost/latest - 2026-10-18: Runtime, Content storage, Databases
docs.ghost.org/hosting/ - 2026-10-18: Minimum runtime
docs.ghost.org/faq/node-versions - 2026-10-18: Admin interface, Multilingual
docs.ghost.org/themes/helpers/utility/translate - 2026-10-18: Content API
docs.ghost.org/content-api - 2026-10-18: Templating, Rendering
docs.ghost.org/themes - 2026-10-18: Install with, Runs as
docs.ghost.org/install/ubuntu - 2026-10-18: links
ghost.org/pricing/ - 2026-10-18: Current major version, Last release
api.github.com/repos/TryGhost/Ghost/releases/latest - 2026-10-18: Contributors
api.github.com/repos/TryGhost/Ghost/contributors - 2026-10-18: npm downloads a week
api.npmjs.org/downloads/point/last-week/ghost - 2026-10-18: links
ghost.org/integrations/ - 2026-10-18: wikidata
www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:EntityData/Q16251204.json - 2026-10-25: Sites using it (HTTP Archive)
cdn.httparchive.org/v1/technologies - 2026-10-25: Dependent repositories, Dependent packages
packages.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/registries/npmjs.org/packages/ghost