Contentlayer vs Ghost

Compare Contentlayer and Ghost for your content needs. Find out what actual users are saying about each product and which one is best suited for you!

Contentlayer
Contentlayer
Content made easy for developers. Contentlayer is a content SDK that validates and transforms your content into type-safe JSON data you can easily import into your application.
Ghost
Ghost
Ghost is a powerful platform for professional publishers to create, share, and grow a business around their content. It integrates publishing, newsletters, memberships, and payments seamlessly.

What Users Say

See what users who have used Contentlayer and Ghost have to say about their overall experience with the product.

Contentlayer's Key Strengths

Read what users love about Contentlayer.

Ghost's Key Strengths

Read what users love about Ghost.

Contentlayer's Key Issues

Read what issues users have with Contentlayer.

Ghost's Key Issues

Read what issues users have with Ghost.

Looking for a better alternative to Contentlayer & Ghost? Try Wisp.
Wisp is the best solution for blogging. Try it free today!

What Marketers & Content Creators Say

Hear from the users who uses Contentlayer and Ghost daily about their experience with the editors.

Contentlayer's Editorial Experience Highlights

What marketers love about Contentlayer's editor.

Ghost's Editorial Experience Highlights

What marketers love about Ghost's editor.

Contentlayer's Editorial Experience Issues

What marketers dislike about Contentlayer's editor.

Ghost's Editorial Experience Issues

What marketers dislike about Ghost's editor.

Mobile Editing

Find out how the platforms handle the mobile-first experience for the new generation of workforce on the move.

Contentlayer:
Not Suitable for Mobile

Contentlayer lacks explicit features for a mobile-first editing experience; primarily geared towards developer use.

"Contentlayer is a content SDK that validates and transforms your content into type-safe JSON data you can easily import into your application."
Source
"Contentlayer makes working with content easy for developers, focusing on static-site generator integration rather than mobile-first experiences."
Source
"ContentLayer has been a popular choice for developers looking to manage content as data, especially in Next.js applications."
Source
Ghost:
Not Suitable for Mobile

Ghost CMS lacks a true mobile editor experience. Users report significant limitations while editing on mobile devices.

"I find it awkward that mobile Safari editing isn’t supported in Ghost admin... It would be tremendously useful to be able to write and edit blog posts on the go from mobile devices."
Source
"Though WP is great it is not just for blogging... But what could I win by switching to Ghost if WordPress worked out very well?"
Source
"Previewing, publishing and scheduling content is accessed from the top of the editor, with live previews for desktop, mobile, email and social."
Source
"Ghost is not mobile friendly... mobile devices are not fully supported."
Source

Automatic Content Linking

Find out if the platform supports automatic linking of related content to help user discover more content without additional manual effort from the marketer. This automatically create topical clusters of content and is essential for SEO.

Contentlayer:
AI-Powered Related Content

Contentlayer supports automatic links between related blog posts using a content collection feature.

"Contentlayer supports defining relations between content types, enabling automatic linking and related content generation."
Source
"Contentlayer allows for automatic generation of related posts based on defined relations in the content model."
Source
"Contentlayer provides a mechanism to create structured content and manage relationships including automatic internal linking."
Source
Ghost:
No Automatic Content Linking

Ghost CMS does not support automatic related blog linking; users must manually configure related posts in their themes.

"Ghost automatically creates and updates an XML sitemap for your website to help search engines understand the structure of your site and find all of its content."
Source
"To create a related posts section in Ghost, you'll need to make some modifications to your theme."
Source

Automatic CTA Linking

Find out if the platform supports automatic display of Call-to-Actions using AI to help users take actions that are relevant to the content they are reading.

Contentlayer:
No Automatic CTA Linking

Contentlayer does not support automatic CTA linking for personalized actions. HubSpot enables some level of dynamic behavior with CTAs, but not fully automated linking based on content analysis.

"The button CTA's link will be tied to the page ID and any changes in the page's URL will automatically update the button."
Source
"Calls to action (CTA) are another way to personalize the user experience by linking the functionality of marketing automation."
Source
"Using personalization tokens in CTAs is not built-in HubSpot functionality."
Source
Ghost:
No Automatic CTA Linking

Ghost CMS does not support automatic CTA linking features based on current information obtained from various sources.

"This is indeed a built-in feature in Ghost. It's called public ... How to Use the Public Preview & Custom Content CTA in Ghost CMS."
Source
"In Ghost 3.0 some Ghost themes had a hard coded (in most cases blurred) text when users did not have access to that post."
Source
"Wondering how we can add an in-line button to a blog post? We have a that we have a..."
Source

Comments

Find out if the platform supports comments from your users to improve user engagement. This is often a great way to collect feedback and user emails.

Contentlayer:
No Comments Supported

Contentlayer does not support built-in commenting features for users. Custom solutions may be created, but no native support exists.

"Updates will prioritize fixing pressing bugs and introducing new features."
Source
"Users to add comments, or applications supporting user-contributed content."
Source
"We're looking for more examples to better understand the use case before introducing this feature."
Source
Ghost:
Comments Supported

Ghost has a built-in commenting feature integrated with memberships, allowing users to comment if they are registered members.

"Member commenting can be enabled for either All members or Paid-members only from within Ghost Admin."
Source
"We built Ghost Comments with features that allow users to comment directly on your website."
Source
"Ghost's built-in comments feature is a part of the memberships feature - there is no way to use it without being a registered member on your site."
Source
"The complete guide to comments includes tutorials for using the built-in comment feature."
Source

Multi-tenancy

Find out if the platform supports managing multiple clients or projects within a single account. This is useful for agencies, multi-client or multi-project scenarios.

Contentlayer:
No Multi-tenancy

Contentlayer does not support multi-tenancy for managing multiple client accounts.

"Contentlayer is a content SDK that validates and transforms your content into type-safe JSON data you can easily import into your application."
Source
Ghost:
No Multi-tenancy

Ghost CMS does not support multi-tenancy; each site needs a separate Ghost account.

"Ghost is not multi-tenant, and does not have the ability to run multiple sites off a single instance."
Source
"No, it is not possible (currently) to run many blogs under many domains, served by one installation of Ghost."
Source
"If you need to create multiple sites each with their own domain, you would need to create separate Ghost(Pro) accounts."
Source

What Developers Say

Hear from developers who've integrated and built on Contentlayer and Ghost about their experiences.

Ease of Integrating Contentlayer:
Medium
Integration with Contentlayer is relatively straightforward for developers familiar with Next.js but presents challenges with version compatibility.
Ease of Integrating Ghost:
Medium
Integration is achievable but requires technical knowledge and manual setup for optimal function.

Contentlayer's DX Highlights

What developers love about building with Contentlayer.

Ghost's DX Highlights

What developers love about building with Ghost.

Contentlayer's DX Issues

What developers dislike about building with Contentlayer.

Ghost's DX Issues

What developers dislike about building with Ghost.

Content Modelling

Find out how developers model and manage their content with the platform with key highlights and limitations.

Contentlayer:
Customisable Content Types

Contentlayer supports flexible content modelling with custom content types and fields like title, date, and body.

"Flexible content modelling through its configuration file."
Source
"Flexible content modelling allows you to structure your content in a powerful way."
Source
"Contentlayer allows for flexible content modelling through its configuration file, supporting custom content types."
Source
Ghost:
Limited Customisation

Ghost CMS allows custom content types via collections and tags, but has inherent limitations compared to fully customizable CMS.

"Posts are created within Ghost-Admin using the editor to determine your site’s main content. Within them are all the fields which you might expect such as title, description, slug, metadata, authors, tags and so on."
Source
"Using custom routing, it's possible to create content collections just like this. You can define a content collection with tags, allowing a post to live in only one collection at a time."
Source
"The Content API provides access to Posts, Pages, Tags, Authors, Tiers, and Settings. All endpoints return JSON and are considered stable."
Source

Custom React Components

Find out if the platform supports custom React components to go beyond the basic HTML components for content.

Contentlayer:
Custom React Components Supported

Contentlayer supports custom React components via MDX, allowing marketers to embed them in content.

"You can override built-in HTML elements and create your own custom React components using the components prop of the MDXContent component."
Source
"Use custom React components to render and style certain types of content; Embed React components directly into your content using MDX."
Source
"Using custom components with Next Contentlayer is similar to Next MDX. You can define a components object and pass it to your MDX content."
Source
Ghost:
No Custom React Components Supported

Ghost CMS does not support inserting custom React components directly in the content editor.

"Is there a way to insert a React component inside Ghost cms? I know I can consume the content API, but what I need is to be able to insert a React component from the admin panel."
Source
"Ghost's RESTful Content API delivers published content to the world and can be accessed in a read-only manner by any client to render in a website."
Source
"Manage content via Ghost's Admin API, with secure role-based authentication."
Source
"Using the Content API means that attribute data, such as tags and authors, will be included in the post object data."
Source

Full Text Search

Find out if the platform supports full text search across multiple fields to help users find content quickly.

Contentlayer:
Full Text Search Supported

Full text search allows searching across multiple fields in a blog using Contentlayer.

"Full text search enables searching through content data efficiently."
Source
"The way blog posts should be stored in the database should make them amenable for search (full-text, search by containing image/video ...)."
Source
"This update indicates support for continued features, including full text search capabilities."
Source
Ghost:
Limited Search

Ghost CMS supports native search, but it's limited to titles, excerpts, authors, and tags, not full post content.

"The search feature indexes post titles, excerpts, authors and tags - but it does not search across post content."
Source
"Ghost Search works out-of-the-box with any theme, and allows your readers to search across all published posts, tags and authors."
Source
"The post title and excerpt are used to search post content from the most recent 10,000 posts."
Source
"For full-text search capabilities, using a third-party solution like OpenSearch is recommended."
Source
"Starting with Ghost v5.3.0 a native search function was added, but it’s limited in scope."
Source

Starter Kits

Discover starter kits and templates to help you get started with the platform.

Contentlayer:
Available

Multiple starter kits and templates are available for Contentlayer.

(Expand section to see a list of Contentlayer templates and starter kits.)

Ghost:
Available

Ghost CMS provides a starter theme for custom development.

(Expand section to see a list of Ghost templates and starter kits.)

Pricing & Plans

Compare the prices of Contentlayer and Ghost.

Contentlayer's Pricing
Ghost's Pricing
Starter
$9 / month
- 500 Members
- 1 staff user
- 18 free official themes
Creator
$25 / month
- 1,000 Members
- 2 staff users
- Unlimited custom themes
- 1,000+ integrations
- Build custom integrations
Team
$50 / month
- 1,000 Members
- 5 staff users
- Priority support
- Higher usage limits
Business
$199 / month
- 10,000 Members
- Unlimited staff users
- Advanced configuration
- 99.9% uptime SLA

Compare with other technologies

Looking for a better alternative to Contentlayer & Ghost? Try Wisp.
Wisp is the best solution for blogging. Try it free today!