Ghost vs October CMS

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

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.
October CMS
October CMS
Experience the simplicity of October CMS, an award-winning self-hosted CMS based on the Laravel PHP framework, designed by developers for ease of use and rapid deployment.

What Users Say

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

Ghost's Key Strengths

Read what users love about Ghost.

October CMS's Key Strengths

Read what users love about October CMS.

Ghost's Key Issues

Read what issues users have with Ghost.

October CMS's Key Issues

Read what issues users have with October CMS.

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What Marketers & Content Creators Say

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

Ghost's Editorial Experience Highlights

What marketers love about Ghost's editor.

October CMS's Editorial Experience Highlights

What marketers love about October CMS's editor.

Ghost's Editorial Experience Issues

What marketers dislike about Ghost's editor.

October CMS's Editorial Experience Issues

What marketers dislike about October CMS's editor.

Mobile Editing

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

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
October CMS:
Limited Mobile Experience

October CMS supports mobile content creation through plugins, but the core editor isn't fully mobile-optimized.

"This plugin enables EditorJS to be used as a form widget for your backend panel."
Source
"When using the Editor in the admin panel, we've introduced code completion capabilities."
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.

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
October CMS:
No Automatic Content Linking

Automatic linking of related blog posts is not supported in October CMS; manual linking is required.

"Dec 6, 2022 ... It seems that the reverse relation is not made automatically."
Source
"reverse relation is not made automatically, so my question is, how can I access all posts associated to a categories?"
Source
"for example, imagine a blog system in which a User model has many associated Post models: ... automatically, but you may want to use this feature in other places."
Source
"Mighty SEO. Adds SEO tasks automation. 244 projects."
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.

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
October CMS:
Automatic CTA Linking

October CMS supports automated promo cards and their CTA links auto-populate with relevant products.

"Automated promo cards — Promo cards and their CTA button will automatically populate with the same link to relevant products, without the need to input a CTA link manually."
Source
"October CMS provides tools to automate content and ensure seamless integration with marketing efforts."
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.

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."
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"The complete guide to comments includes tutorials for using the built-in comment feature."
Source
October CMS:
Comments Supported

Comments are supported via plugins with moderation, email notifications, and spam protection.

"The Commentable plugin for October CMS provides a flexible and seamless commenting framework for your October CMS site. Comments are fully moderateable."
Source
"Comments is an OctoberCMS plugin meant for enabling the users to comment on a particular page, blog, video, podcast, et al."
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"You can find the plugins on Github or via the Plugins section."
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.

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
October CMS:
Limited Multi-tenancy

October CMS supports limited multi-tenancy through multisite and MultiDB plugins, facilitating management of multiple client accounts.

"The multisite feature lets you manage multiple websites from a single October CMS installation and assign content dependent on the domain name."
Source
"Plugin to create SaaS applications in different databases, making it easier to manage multiple clients."
Source

What Developers Say

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

Ease of Integrating Ghost:
Medium
Integration is achievable but requires technical knowledge and manual setup for optimal function.
Ease of Integrating October CMS:
Medium
Integration is generally straightforward but can present challenges due to specific plugin compatibility.

Ghost's DX Highlights

What developers love about building with Ghost.

October CMS's DX Highlights

What developers love about building with October CMS.

Ghost's DX Issues

What developers dislike about building with Ghost.

October CMS's DX Issues

What developers dislike about building with October CMS.

Content Modelling

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

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
October CMS:
Customisable Content Types

October CMS supports content modeling through Tailor, enabling easy creation of custom content types.

"Builder makes it even easier to create custom content types and user interfaces."
Source
"Powerful organization features for your content; Draft and publishing features for pages."
Source
"October CMS is already known for its ease of use, and Tailor makes it even easier to create custom content types."
Source

Custom React Components

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

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
October CMS:
No Custom React Components Supported

October CMS does not support custom React components in the content editor, only server-side APIs can be built.

"When working with client-side frameworks such as Vue.js or React, it will be necessary to consume server-side APIs."
Source
"Components must be registered in the Plugin registration class with the `registerComponents` method."
Source
"Components must be registered by overriding the `registerComponents` method inside the Plugin registration class."
Source

Full Text Search

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

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
October CMS:
Full Text Search Supported

October CMS supports full text search through plugins like SiteSearch and Sphinx, covering multiple content types.

"This plugin adds global search capabilities to October CMS."
Source
"Sphinx for Shopaholic adds supreme search capabilities to your project powered by Sphinx search engine."
Source

Starter Kits

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

Ghost:
Available

Ghost CMS provides a starter theme for custom development.

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

October CMS:
Available

October CMS provides various starter kits including a Bootstrap 5 Starter Kit.

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

Pricing & Plans

Compare the prices of Ghost and October CMS.

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
October CMS's Pricing
One Free License
$0 / lifetime
- Perfect for beginners
- Suitable for non-commercial and commercial projects
- One year of system updates included
- Extendable for $29/year afterwards
Single License
$29 / lifetime
- Great for freelance developers or Marketplace authors
- One year of system updates included
- Extendable for $29/year afterwards
Unlimited Licenses (Monthly)
$26 / month
- Bill monthly
- Ideal for agencies or organizations that work on many projects
Unlimited Licenses (Annually)
$312 / year
- Bill annually
- Ideal for agencies or organizations that work on many projects
Unlimited Licenses (Alternate Monthly)
$32 / month
- Bill monthly
- Ideal for agencies or organizations that work on many projects
Unlimited Licenses (Alternate Annually)
$384 / year
- Bill annually
- Ideal for agencies or organizations that work on many projects

Compare with other technologies

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