caniopen-sourceit

the catalog · 📰 Publishing

Ghost

★ 49k

Publishing platform with memberships and paid newsletters built in. The self-hosted answer to Substack taking 10% of your revenue.

Ghost does the job of Substack and Medium, self-hosted. It is MIT-licensed, so you can do essentially what you like with it, and setting it up is an afternoon, not a weekend. Substack bills $9+/mo for it. 49k stars on GitHub.

Open-source replacement for Substack, Medium.

Licence
MIT
Self-hosting
Medium
The paid one costs
$9+/mo
GitHub stars
49k
view the code →official site →

Is it actually a replacement?

We have written a verdict on what it replaces — what you lose, and why people still pay:

How Ghost runs

Where it runs

Ghost runs on your server.

What setup takes

not verified by us yet — check the repo README.

Ghost questions

Is Ghost open source?

Yes — it is released under MIT.

Can Ghost replace Substack?

Our verdict on Substack is YES. Ghost (55k stars), Listmonk (22k stars), Keila (2k stars) are mature open-source replacements for Substack — self-host with real ops work and stop paying.

Can I self-host Ghost?

Yes — we rate it medium to self-host, and it runs on your server.

More cms tools