The majority of the websites we build use WordPress.
The reason for this is very simple – WordPress is free, super-easy to customise and fantastically well supported.
With a WordPress site you can build practically anything such as:
- A fully fledged ecommerce store making £000’s a month
- An online directory of hundreds of businesses
- A quoting tool where customers can choose to hire a product or service
- A beautiful brochure style website which converts really well
- An online learning site where users can sign up and complete courses
In others words WordPress is a great option for many different kinds of website development.
However, as new technologies have come to the market we have started to look into alternatives to using WordPress.
In the age of Web 3.0 and SPA’s (single page applications) many users want speed, scalability and bespoke platforms.
For this reason we have started to move away from LAMP stack and more to MERN stack.
Whereas WordPress relies on PHP and MySQL, the new apps we have created use NodeJs and React.
The difference is stark – the new apps are super fast, with virtually no lag.
The backend APIs are completely customised to what our clients need and the frontends are designed with the users in mind.
So with this in mind we thought ‘is there a faster, more modern of WordPress available?‘.
This is what led us to NodeJS CMS’s.
So what is Ghost?
Ghost is an open source CMS built for NodeJS.
Due to this, it is super-fast and has a lovely backend design which looks clean, modern and uncluttered.
They have marketed themselves as a viable alternative to WordPress but there are some important differences.
Firstly, the team at Ghost.org are a much smaller team than the thousands of WordPress developers.
Therefore, using Ghost means a steeper learning curve if you want to customise it.
Following on from this, it does seem Ghost.org has been repositioned as a marketing tool for content creators.
Rather than the jack-of-all-trades approach of WordPress, Ghost seems to be looking to become a market leader for publishers and creators.
A key part of this is creating membership plans and getting people to subscribe and join you.
So which is better Ghost or WordPress?
They both serve different markets.
It’s true that whatever you can do with Ghost, you can replicate in WordPress.
However, Ghost looks very slick and fast, so with a very minimal amount of fuss you could be set up (at time of writing the basic plan is $9/month).
If you are content creator – a coach or artist, or a writer or publisher, then it could be worth looking more into Ghost.
WordPress has served us incredibly well, and still does, but we should also be open to new tech and platforms.
For this reason we think Ghost can really provide something a little bit different to clients.
Is Ghost right for me?
If you want to build up your tribe or community, and you post regular content to your website then look at Ghost.
The email subscription and membership plans feature is done very well and could help kickstart a lucrative business if done right.
Examples of people who may benefit from using Ghost would be artists, writers, personal trainers, consultants, therapists, coaches, and influencers.
If you need some advice on set up or whether Ghost would be the right choice for you get in touch with us today.