Ghost vs Joomla!
| Tagline | Modern open-source publishing platform for blogs and newsletters | Battle-tested open-source CMS powering millions of websites |
| Category | Blogging & CMS | Blogging & CMS |
| Replaces | Substack, Medium, WordPress.com | WordPress.com, Squarespace, Contentful |
| GitHub stars | 54k | 5.1k |
| Language | Nodejs | PHP |
| License | MIT | GPL-2.0 |
| Self-host difficulty | 3/5 Moderate | 3/5 Moderate |
| Deploy options | Docker Docker Compose Manual | Docker Docker Compose Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | today | today |
| View repo | View repo |
Where each falls short
The honest trade-offs — what you give up with each, versus the proprietary tools they replace.
Ghost
- Membership and newsletter features require Stripe integration for paid tiers
- Plugin/theme ecosystem is much smaller than WordPress
- No built-in e-commerce beyond memberships and paid newsletters
- Self-hosted email delivery needs a transactional email provider (Mailgun, Postmark) configured separately
Joomla!
- Admin UI is complex and dated compared to modern CMSes; steep learning curve for new users
- Extension quality is inconsistent; vetting third-party plugins for security requires effort
- Headless/API capabilities were added late and are less polished than dedicated headless CMSes
- Page builder and WYSIWYG experience falls behind Squarespace or WordPress.com in ease of use
Bottom line
Both are a similar lift to self-host; choose Ghost for the larger community and ecosystem. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.