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Websites & hosting

Ghost (self-hosted)

Free softwareOpen sourceLocal

Publish articles, manage memberships and send newsletters from your own server.

Open Ghost (self-hosted) Compare alternatives →

What you can use it for

Publish articles, manage memberships and send newsletters from your own server.

  • Covers the core use case of Ghost(Pro), WordPress.com, Beehiiv and ConvertKit without a platform subscription: publishing, memberships and newsletters.
  • 55.5k GitHub stars, MIT, last commit 2026-10-15. Creators report running Ghost for years on a small AWS instance and starting self-hosted Ghost in 2024 for its CMS and templates.
Workflow coverage and comparison notes

Publish posts, run memberships and send newsletters from a self-hosted Ghost install instead of Ghost(Pro) or a site/newsletter platform subscription. You still pay for the server, domain and email deliverability; managed hosting and platform growth features need separate evaluation.

Before you switch

You run the server, upgrades and backups. Drop-in newsletter sending is Mailgun-only per Ghost docs (flagged as a caveat by a long-term self-hoster); self-hosted SMTP is possible but discouraged. Payments and deliverability setup are yours.

Alternatives to these paid apps

Each comparison covers the workflow described above, rather than every paid feature.

More for the same workflow

See alternatives →