What is Ghost Open source
Publishing software that stays out of your way
Ghost is a full online publication platform: website, newsletter, memberships and payments in one open-source application. No plugin stack to assemble, no settings maze to learn. You open the editor and write.
Simple by design
Nothing to assemble first
Most publishing stacks ask you to pick a CMS, then a newsletter tool, then a payments plugin, then a caching plugin, then the plugin that fixes the other plugins. Ghost is one application with a small admin and sensible defaults.
Get started for freeA small admin, not a control panel
Posts, pages, members, newsletters, settings. You can read the whole sidebar in one glance.
No plugin dependency chain
Core features are maintained by the people who maintain Ghost, so an update cannot break a stack you assembled.
Fast because it is small
Server-rendered pages with no plugin overhead. Ghost sites are quick without a performance project.
Ghost 6 Social web
Your site is now a social account
Ghost 6 connects your publication to the open social web through ActivityPub. People on Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads, Flipboard, WordPress and other Ghost sites can follow, like and reply to your posts from wherever they already are, and you keep the relationship.
Followed from anywhere
One handle, many networks
Notes and replies
Long posts and short ones
A reader, built in
Follow other publications too
No algorithm
Links are not suppressed
Ghost 6 Web analytics
Reporting in the platform itself
Ghost 6 collects and reports its own data, so traffic, email engagement and member revenue sit in one place instead of three dashboards. Built on a new analytics database with Tinybird and ClickHouse, and updated in real time.
Web traffic
Visitors and views per post
Email reports
Opens and clicks per send
Member engagement
Signup events and sources
Conversion events
Which posts drive upgrades
Want bots, RSS readers and email clients too? That is Advanced Web Analytics, our server-side layer on top.
AI ready
Legible to machines, on your terms
Assistants and agents are becoming a real way readers find writing. Ghost is text-first and API-first, so your publication is already easy for them to read, and you decide how much of it they get.
Optional llms.txt support
Publish a clean, machine-readable index of your content for language models that look for one. It is opt-in: turn it on when you want assistants to cite you accurately, leave it off when you do not.
ghst, the official CLI
Ghost's command line tool drives the Admin API from a terminal, which also makes it a clean surface for coding agents. Draft, publish and manage content as scriptable commands instead of clicks. See ghst on GitHub
Ownership
Built to outlast us
Ghost is MIT-licensed software owned by a non-profit foundation with no investors and no exit to plan for. If your publication is going to be around in ten years, the software under it should be too.
Open source, MIT
The whole platform is public on GitHub. Read it, fork it, self-host it, or move your data out whenever you like.
Non-profit stewardship
The Ghost Foundation cannot be sold or take investment. Revenue funds development rather than a valuation.
A healthy ecosystem
Hundreds of themes, an integrations directory, certified experts, active docs and a busy community forum.
The rest of it
Everything else that ships with Ghost
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Multi-staff editorial managementOwner, admin, editor and contributor roles with draft review before anything goes live.
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Comments and reader repliesThreaded discussion for members, with sorting and moderation controls.
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Scheduling and email-only postsQueue posts ahead, or send something to subscribers without publishing it on the site.
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Tiers, offers, tips and donationsMultiple paid tiers, discount offers, and one-off payments with no membership required.
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Contextual content visibilityShow specific blocks to specific segments, for sponsorships, offers and paywalls.
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Branded newsletters and custom fontsYour own email template and typography, so the inbox matches the site.
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InternationalisationPublishing and member-facing text in more than 60 languages.
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Signup spam protectionControl who can create an account and keep automated signups off your member list.
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SEO, sitemaps and feedsStructured data, canonical URLs, sitemaps, clean markup and RSS, all handled by default.
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Content and Admin APIsBuild a custom front end, sync content elsewhere, or automate editorial work with webhooks.
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Import and export, any timeBring content in from other platforms and take everything with you in an open format.
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Multiple newslettersRun separate lists from one publication and let readers choose what they receive.
Where we come in Synaps Media
Ghost, running properly, without the server work
Ghost is the software. Everything around it — the server, the mail delivery, the CDN, the backups, the upgrades — is the part that quietly eats your evenings. That is the part we run.
Live in minutes
Pick a name, pick a plan, and your Ghost site is up on a working domain with TLS before you have finished your coffee. No VPS, no command line.
Everything already wired
Newsletter delivery, Social Web, analytics, global CDN, daily backups and version upgrades are configured and monitored on your behalf.
We support Ghost
Synaps Media is -and committed to be- part of Ghost Community. We support Ghost development with code contributions and support ecosystem with sponsorships.
Simple pricing that scales with you
Two simple plans, with flexible billing and clear pricing. No hidden costs, no unexpected limits.
Key Features:
- Up to 3,000 members
- 6,000 emails/month included
- Custom Themes
- Global CDN
- Social Web
- Ghost Web Analytics
- Manage multiple sites from one account
- Daily backups, full-site export
- Automatic updates and maintenance
- Compare all features
Everything in Basic, Plus:
- Unlimited members
- 12,000 emails/month included
- Premium CDN
- Email inboxes Exclusive
- Advanced Web Analytics Exclusive
- Domain manager
- Custom Sending Domain
- Custom Integrations
- Compare all features
Running more than one site?
Get 10% off starting from your second site, automatically applied as you grow.
Learn more about hosting multiple sites on Synaps Media
Need more newsletter credits?
Each plan includes a monthly newsletter sending limit. You can always add extra credits separately whenever you need them.
Extra credits: 10K for or 100K for
I love Ghost but I was feeling restrained by the limits of Ghost(Pro), especially for a small, one person hobby operation. Synaps has been an absolute delight. Transfer was simple, support has been proactive, and I haven't missed Ghost(Pro) since switching. I look forward to being a Synaps customer for many years to come.
wellyclimatenerd.net
FAQ
Ghost and Synaps Media
Is Synaps Media the same thing as Ghost?
No. Ghost is open-source publishing software made by the Ghost Foundation. Synaps Media is an independent hosting company that runs Ghost for you. We are not affiliated with the Ghost Foundation, and we do not speak for them.
Do I get standard Ghost, or a modified version?
Standard Ghost. We do not fork it or patch the application, so every feature works the way the documentation says it does and your themes and integrations behave normally. Our additions sit in the infrastructure around Ghost and in our own panel.
Who handles Ghost version upgrades?
We do. New Ghost releases are tested and rolled out for you, including major versions like Ghost 6. You do not need to touch a server to get new features.
Are Social Web and Web Analytics available on my plan?
Yes. Both are Ghost 6 features, so every Synaps Media site running Ghost 6 has them. Advanced Web Analytics, our own server-side reporting layer, is part of the Premium plan.
Can I leave and take my site with me?
Any time. Because it is standard Ghost, you can export your content, members and theme and move to your own server or another host. Open source means the exit is real, not a policy we could change.
Why not just self-host it myself?
You can, and Ghost documents how. Once you add a VPS, transactional email, a CDN, object storage and the hours spent on upgrades and backups, the cost lands close to ours. We wrote up the numbers in Self-hosting Ghost vs Synaps Media.
Does Ghost take a cut of my subscription revenue?
No, and neither do we. Payments run through your own Stripe account, so what your members pay goes to you minus Stripe's fees.
Start publishing on Ghost today
We will have your site running in minutes. You can spend the rest of the day writing.
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