Ghost vs WordPress

Ghost and WordPress are the two publishing platforms most people consider when they want a blog on their own server instead of a hosted platform. Both are open source, both have official Docker images, and both run on MySQL. They are built for different jobs. Ghost is a Node.js platform for publications and paid newsletters, with members, email and Stripe subscriptions built in. WordPress is a general PHP content management system whose core stays small and gets extended with themes and plugins. The question is whether you want a publication with memberships already built, or a site builder you put together from plugins.

What each one is built to do

Ghost is a publication with an audience attached. Its members feature lets readers sign up with "passwordless JWT email-link based logins", and each post can be public, members only, paid-members only or limited to specific tiers. Paid subscriptions go through a "direct integration with Stripe" that connects your own Stripe account using Stripe Connect. Ghost's docs say "Ghost takes 0% of your revenue"; Stripe's own fees still apply. Stripe is "the only natively supported payment provider". Comments are built in but limited to logged-in members, free or paid, depending on a setting in Ghost Admin.

Ghost 6 added two more things. The social web feature lets people "discover, follow, like and reply to your posts across Bluesky, Flipboard, Threads, Mastodon, WordPress, Ghost" and other ActivityPub platforms. There is also a native analytics dashboard, but on a self-hosted install it needs a Tinybird account and API key.

WordPress keeps a short core feature list: themes, plugins, users and roles, comments, media management, custom content types and a REST API. Its features page says "For every feature that's not in WordPress core, there's a plugin directory with thousands of plugins." Newsletters and paid memberships are not on that core list, so on WordPress they come from plugins you choose, along with the payment provider those plugins support.

Newsletters and email

This is the main practical difference for a publication.

Ghost splits email in two. Transactional mail (invitations, password resets, member signups and login links) goes through any SMTP service you configure. Sending newsletters to members is different: Ghost's configuration docs say Mailgun is "an optional service for sending transactional emails, but it is required for bulk mail". If you want to email posts to subscribers from a self-hosted Ghost, budget for a Mailgun account. Ghost's docs also recommend getting transactional mail working before you set up bulk mail.

WordPress does not send newsletters from core. A newsletter plugin decides how mail is sent and which email services it supports. That gives you more choice, and it means one more component to evaluate and keep updated.

If your plan is a paid newsletter, Ghost already includes signups, gated posts, Stripe billing and sending. Budget for Mailgun. With WordPress you assemble the same result from plugins.

Themes, extensions and headless use

Ghost themes are written in Handlebars templates. There is no plugin directory like WordPress's. Ghost's Content API is read-only and "delivers published content to the world", so any client can render it in a website or app, and the README calls Ghost a "headless Node.js CMS".

WordPress has a theme and plugin ecosystem, a REST API and custom content types. It is the more flexible choice when the site is more than a blog: a shop, a directory or a documentation site, where Ghost's posts, pages and members are not the right shape. The cost is the usual plugin one. Every plugin is third-party code with its own update schedule and security record, and you choose and maintain each one.

Licences and hosting

Ghost is MIT-licensed. The Ghost Foundation also runs Ghost(Pro), the official managed service; its pricing page lists Starter at $18, Publisher at $29 and Business at $199 per month, billed yearly. Self-hosting costs you the server, MySQL and, for newsletters, Mailgun.

WordPress is released under "the GPLv2 (or later) from the Free Software Foundation".

Install and footprint

Ghost requires MySQL in production. Its FAQ says "MySQL 8 is the only supported database in production", and it recommends moving SQLite and MariaDB installs to MySQL 8. Ghost 6 supports Node.js 22 (^22.13.1). The official Ubuntu install asks for "at least 1GB memory", NGINX and MySQL 8.0 or 8.4, and uses Ghost-CLI. The ghost Docker image is maintained by the Ghost Foundation. It defaults to production mode, which needs an external MySQL server. Its docs say production also needs HTTPS and a reverse proxy that forwards the X-Forwarded-* headers. Set url to the public address readers use; the image's own Compose example warns its value "is likely wrong for your environment". Ghost also has a Docker Compose setup that bundles Caddy and MySQL, but its docs call it a preview. It needs a domain and an SMTP service.

WordPress recommends PHP 8.3 or newer, MySQL 8.0 or MariaDB 10.11 or newer, and Apache or Nginx with HTTPS. The wordpress Docker image is maintained by the Docker Community. With it and a MySQL container, the first visit opens the install screen, which asks for a site title and an admin account.

We install-tested WordPress's Docker Compose snippet on Ubuntu 26.04 on 2026-09-29. Ghost's snippet has not been install-tested on this site. WordPress measured ~394 MB of RAM idle on our GCP e2-standard-2 test box (2026-09-29). Ghost has no measurement here. Its upstream minimum is 1 GB, and our 1 GB figure for WordPress is an estimate. We rate WordPress 1 out of 5 to deploy and Ghost 2 out of 5, mostly for the MySQL 8 requirement, the url setting and the Mailgun account you need for newsletters.

Which to choose

Choose Ghost if the site is a publication: posts, a members list, a newsletter and possibly paid tiers. Signups, gated content, Stripe subscriptions, member comments and ActivityPub are built in, and Ghost takes no cut of revenue. Plan for MySQL 8, a correct url, SMTP for login emails and Mailgun for newsletters.

Choose WordPress if the site needs to do more than publish: custom content types, a shop, forms, or a specific theme. Pick it too if you want to choose each component yourself. It is the easier install. Newsletters and paid memberships come from plugins, so the work shifts from setup to picking and maintaining those plugins.

Choosing between WordPress and Ghost

Starting from WordPress, the usual reason to move to Ghost is a newsletter business held together by several plugins, where Ghost has the same features built in. Starting from Ghost, the usual reason to move is a site that has outgrown blog posts and pages and needs WordPress's plugins.

Both apps are listed on their own pages: Ghost and WordPress.