Where to host Ghost Blog reliably From free self-hosting to Managed Pro options in 2024
Ghost has become a popular alternative, open-source CMS for blogs. And yes, setting up a blog with Ghost is much easier than you think. There are a few good options in the market for reliably host ghost blogs and here is my list of how and where you can host your Ghost blog. You can self-host it in different ways, or go with different managed hosting options out there. Don’t worry I will walk you through all the options out there to host Ghost blogs easily and reliably. If you don’t want to self-host go to managed hosting options. Managed options give you a readymade blog with all setup.
Self-hosting (Host Ghost Yourself)
I love, hosting stuff myself, and Ghost being an open-source software, you can easily self-host one yourself. This is the cheaper route. But you have to do a little bit of manual work, which can be a fun experience for some people, but some people should avoid it. You get to manage your
server and manage your site backup. But you are going to save a lot of money too. Also, you have to bring your own mailgun account and CDN. Which are free to start too. With self-hosting you always get unlimited subscribers.
1. Get your Own VPS
(Recommended)
In this method, you can get a VPS from Oracle, Google, AWS, or other cloud providers, and set up your ghost blog yourself. I used to do it on Oracle Cloud before my WordPress migration. And you can get a really powerful hosting to host your ghost blog for free. Below are the two guides you need for that. And don’t misjudge the zero dollar, this setup can serve thousands of page views in minutes, yes thousands in minutes, I tested it.
- Host a Ghost Blog for free easily
- Best CDN for Self-Hosted Ghost Blog: Caching Ghost HTML in bunny CDN with proper Full Page Caching
- Make your Ghost Blog Super fast and secure with Cloudflare
2. Pikapods
(Recommended)
Pikapods recently caught my eye for their ease of use. They offer managed self-hosting. You choose your plan, they install Ghost for you. Then you have to just keep your ghost backup. Which is very easy. This setup costs you only 2 dollars/month.
Lunch a Ghost blog on Pikapods
3. DigitalOcean one-click
(Not highly Recommended, because above two are cheaper option. But definitely not bad)
DigitalOcean offers one-click ghost deployment. Almost like Pikapods, but more expensive to start with, and takes a little more effort than Pikapods. The plan starts from 6 dollars/month.
Lunch a Ghost Blog on digital ocean
Managed options To Host Ghost
Now if you do not want to deal with anything and just want to write your blogs and publish, you are looking at managed hostings. They will set up your blog hosting, CDN etc, integrate email and subscription, etc for you. Just remember these things before you go with any plans.
- Page views (visitors who are not logged in or subscribed) are always unlimited.
- Subscriber count can be limited as per your plan size (i.e who subscribed to your email newsletter)
- If the subscriber count is not limited then definitely the number of email newsletters you can send will be limited.
Oh, and also all managed hosting plans come with customer support. And based on the above parameters, here are my suggestions.
1. Ghost Pro (Offical managed option to host ghost)
(Recommended but not for all)
If you want to have the absolute best performance out of your blog, then it is Ghost Pro. They created Ghost, so they know exactly what they are doing. And that is why it is the most expensive option for bigger websites. If you send daily emails, then you should choose Ghost Pro only. Otherwise, there are better options.
- They charge based on the subscriber count
- You get unlimited newsletters.
- The plan starts from 11 dollars/month (9 billed yearly) but you cannot use any custom themes.
- To use your own theme (custom theme) the price starts from 31 dollars/month or 25 billed yearly. You can modify the pre-installed themes.
If you send a lot of newsletters or have a huge audience then Ghost Pro should be your go-to place. But remember, you can not use any pro themes, even if you purchased them with the 11-dollar plan.
2. Magicpages (Pay once and host ghost for life)
(Recommended for all) (top choice among all managed hosting options)
Magicpages is another interesting option for hosting ghost blogs. Their USP was to “pay once-in-a-lifetime” (349 dollars) and use the site as long as you want. But they have added monthly and yearly options. Monthly options start from 12 dollars/month. They also have a yearly plan and based on your location you may get an additional 5-10% discount with local currencies. If you have an established blog, the one-time plan is very attractive.
- 12 dollars/month or 349 dollars for a lifetime
- 10,000 emails/month included and $5 per 10,000 emails after that.
- Unlimited subscribers and unlimited page views
- You can bring your own theme. No restrictions there.
3. Gloat (Personalized Ghost Hosting)
(Recommended)
Gloat is quite an unconventional yet beautiful managed hosting for Ghost. It is not an automated system and each site is created personally and manually. Yes, they do all of your job, you just have to write and publish. And for that reason, you will be paying a premium to Magicpages. But both of them are good, your choice will depend on your needs.
- 19 dollars/month or 189 dollars/year is the price
- Unlimited page views and subscribers
- 20,000 newsletter emails every month are included. If you start to send more than 20,000 emails in a month, you will be charged $10 per 10,000 email block.
- You can bring your own theme here.
4. Midnight
(Not Highly Recommended)
Midnight is another managed Ghost hosting. Offering unlimited subscribers, limiting the newsletter count. Here is their beginning price. It is not highly recommended because, you are getting lower value paying higher than some other options.
- 16 dollars/month
- 6000 email newsletter
- Unlimited subscriber, unlimited pageviews.
5. Digital press
( NOT Recommended)
DigitalPress offers free managed Ghost hostings. They place their ads on your site to pay the bills. and the hosting is pretty limited. They do offer paid subscriptions from 7Euro/month, with 2000 newsletters but I don’t find the offering very attractive. So if you are not serious about your publication and just want something for free, you can go with it, but I cannot recommend it for production deployment. DigitalPress
6. Firepress
(NOT Recommended)
Firepress offers ghost hosting for 19 dollars/month. They set up the ghost blog for you, with Cloudflare setup. But I couldn’t find anything about email newsletters on their site. So you can basically get the same setup for 2 dollars/month from Pikapods and another 10 minutes setting up Cloudflare. I don’t find it value for money considering other available options. FirePress
Conclusion
I listed the popular options for Ghost Hostings here. But there is not much to choose from. I mainly focused on Good Price to Performance for my list, and Now it depends on you to choose which route you want to take. But to give you a general idea, if you can afford managed plans, they offer a general peace of mind. Self-hosting is fun but a lot of things depend on you, I myself self-host, and it is fun for me. But the final choice depends on you and your needs, and hopefully, I was able to give you a general idea about the options available to you. Thanks for reading this far. Happy publishing.
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