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Tag Ghost

Ghost Pro alternative hosting platforms

A quick look at alternative Ghost CMS hosting services.
Berto

Berto

Ghost is a great all-in-one publishing platform that is fast becoming a favourite amongst bloggers.

Unfortunately, due to its technology, web hosting providers have been slow to adopt Ghost, so finding a web host that offers fully managed Ghost web hosting is not as straightforward as it is with WordPress.

Although Ghost offers a fully managed hosting service named Ghost Pro, it can be a little expensive for those just starting out. Luckily, thanks to some clever minds, there are alternative options available that could save you a little money.

Let’s take a look at Ghost Pro and alternative managed and unmanaged Ghost hosting options.

Ghost (Pro)Ghost(Pro) is the official managed host for Ghost.

Ghost(Pro) plans start from $11 a month or $9 if you pay for the entire year upfront. The starter plan includes 500 members, 1 admin (staff) user and access to free Ghost themes. You can not use custom themes or custom integrations with this plan, you will need to upgrade to the Creator plan which is $31 per month or $25 per month if you pay for the entire year.

DigitalPressDigitalPress is a Ghost platform that allows you to easily launch a Ghost blog for free. You can get started with 200 newsletter emails per month, unlimited members, and admin members and you also get access to free Ghost themes. The free plan is supported by adverts, however, I am yet to see one.

The next plan up is the Starter plan which includes 2000 newsletter emails a month and access to premium themes. The starter plan is 6 EUR per month.

FirePressFirePress is another Ghost platform that provides a fully managed solution. It’s not clear what their monthly limit on newsletter emails is per month but they offer unlimited members, unlimited staff, and 500 image uploads per month. FirePress only has two plans, a $19 monthly plan, and a $190 annual plan.

GloatGloat is a one-man Ghost hosting service run by Dan Rowden. Dan is well known within the Ghost community and he is also the man behind the popular Ghost commenting platform Cove.

Like FirePress, Gloat has a single plan that is priced at $19 per month or $189 per year and includes 20,000 newsletter emails per month, unlimited members, and unlimited staff members.

MidnightMidnight is another Ghost hosting platform that unlike others does not include newsletter emails on its Standard plan. The Standard plan is $15 per month and includes unlimited members and unlimited staff members. The Midnight Plus plan includes 10,000 newsletter emails per month.

Magic PagesMagic Pages provides hassle-free Ghost hosting without subscriptions. For a one-time payment of $349, you get unlimited team members, 10,000 monthly emails, unlimited storage, custom integrations, daily backups, prompt Ghost updates, and free SSL certificates.

FastCometFastComet is one of the very few mainstream web hosts that I am aware of that offers Ghost hosting. FastComet is a cPanel web host and offers plans from $9.95 per month. Unlike most of the other Ghost hosting platforms on this list, FastComet does not include monthly newsletter emails so you will need to configure Ghost yourself using Mailgun to send out newsletters to your subscribers.

Because FastComet is a cPanel-based web host, you will get additional perks such as email inboxes and one-click app installers.

A2 Hosting – Just like FastComet, A2 Hosting is another popular web host that offers Ghost hosting. However, they only offer unmanaged virtual servers which are not ideal if you have no sysadmin experience.

The A2 Hosting Runway plan starts at $6.99.

Self Hosting Ghost

Self-hosting Ghost can be a headache for non-techies. The installation process can be tricky and you also have to think about server configuration, server updates, backups, transactional emails, and so on.

You can launch virtual servers with Ghost pre-installed on Digital Ocean and Amazon Lighsail. Others such as Vultr and Linode provide detailed installation guides for Ghost.

So… in a nutshell.

A fully managed service for beginners has advantages over self-hosting as you avoid all of the technical difficulties that come with it, however, self-hosting, on the other hand, works out much, much cheaper.

What to look for in a fully managed Ghost solution:

  • Unlimited members
  • Unlimited staff members
  • At least 1000+ newsletter emails included
  • Decent amount of storage
  • Free SSL
  • Custom integrations
  • Daily backups
  • Ghost updates

If you have any questions or doubts about Ghost, feel free to comment below.

You may also be interested in reading:
Is Ghost better than WordPress for blogging?
Ghost CMS Review: Simply delightful