Ghost vs WordPress - A (hard?) Decision
If you are about to start your Blog, but you are not sure what tool to choose, then this article will help you to make a decision.
In the past weeks, I started building my first Website. It would be mainly a blog, but it would also grow to have different sections, such as resources and courses, in the future.
My background: I've good programming skills, but very little web development knowledge, and no experience in designing tools.
There is a lot of information on everything on the Internet. And many tools, platforms, and ways of achieving similar results. So, I decided to test just these 2 alternatives for some days and make my decision. I used Casper Theme for Ghost and Kadence for WordPress.
I knew that both would cover my needs, but just wanted to choose the one that was a better match for me.
My Final Choice: Ghost. Here are the reasons.
Overview
It's easy to define each of them with one word:
Ghost: Simplicity
- Very easy to install
- Light and minimalistic templates
- Few and intuitive customization options
- Limited components for post edition
- Clear and concise documentation
WordPress: Flexibility
- Many templates to choose from
- General-purpose tool, not only for blogging
- Great variety of plugins
- Advanced posts and page layouts can be created without programming
Common features
- Options for Paid (with Hosting) Service and Free (Self-Hosted) Service. I tested the self-hosted ones.
- Different Themes with their own characteristics. So you can adapt them to the nature of your site.
- Premium components and designs.
- Possibility of enhancing your site and the template using HTML/CSS.
Main differences
Learning curve
Right out of the box, I was able to create the first version of the site much faster and easier in Ghost than in WP.
After a few days of playing around, I "understood" WP and discovered many options to make my post and page layouts way more advanced than in Ghost. This is without coding or installing plugins.
After a certain point, you can only progress including coding and advanced features. That's why both lines end up going together.
No-Coding capabilities
The options in Ghost are pretty limited in this sense. The impossibility of creating columns on a page was really surprising to me.
On the other hand, WordPress has a large variety of configurations, options, and different components that you can insert in the page blocks.
The customizing and components for the pages depend on the theme that you choose, but this characteristic was a constant in every theme I checked.
Built-in functionalities
WordPress has a beautiful "Comments" section displayed by default in post pages, which is also integrated with a "Moderator" functionality. But you need to install some plugins in order to create a members area and a newsletter.
Another missing functionality is that you can't simply upload a photo for your Author profile. You need to use either Gravatar or some plugin.
Ghost has a nice, easy-to-configure "Subscriber" section by default, but you need to pay for a newsletter service at Mailgun. And it needs some development to include a "Comment" section in your posts.
Other characteristics
Navigation
- There are things that can be done in many different ways in WordPress (e.g. at least 4 ways to include a new block in your page and different menu paths for getting to the same configuration). This can be good for some people, but confusing for others (like me).
- Ghost has a clean, more intuitive interface.
Documentation
- WordPress has a lot of documentation available. Again, this is good because you can find the solution for almost anything, but it is also overwhelming, as it is unorganized.
- Ghost doesn't have so much documentation (it's also a simpler tool), but the official documents are concise and clear.
Redirection
- When installed, Ghost automatically redirects your connections. So if, before installing it, you had some page in <URL>/<DIRECTORY>, you just wouldn't be able to access it without some advanced configuration.
- WordPress prompts you for the installation directory, so you need to redirect the connection manually (if not, you would need to type <URL>/<DIRECTORY> to access your WP pages.
Summary
I found both tools great and good enough for most people. The highlighted differences will help you to decide which one is more suitable for you.
When to use each one
Ghost
- You are not that interested in the graphical design details of your web page.
- You don't mind learning to code and apply some HTML/CSS to enhance your layouts.
- You like clean interfaces to work with.
- Your page is mainly a blog.
Check out this article with a step-by-step guide for installing and configuring your first Ghost website.
Leandro
WordPress
- You are willing to invest some time in learning the tool.
- You would like to investigate different plugins and dive into the documentation.
- You prefer to avoid coding
- Your site is a general-purpose one, with different sections and layouts.
In this article, you have a walkthrough to build your first WordPress website.
Leandro