Substack vs Ghost

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

Substack
Substack
Substack is a user-friendly publishing platform for writers, enabling them to create newsletters and build a subscriber base while retaining full ownership of their content and mailing lists.
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 Substack and Ghost have to say about their overall experience with the product.

Substack's Key Strengths

Read what users love about Substack.

Ghost's Key Strengths

Read what users love about Ghost.

Substack's Key Issues

Read what issues users have with Substack.

Ghost's Key Issues

Read what issues users have with Ghost.

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Wisp is the best solution for blogging. Try it free today!

What Marketers & Content Creators Say

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

Substack's Editorial Experience Highlights

What marketers love about Substack's editor.

Ghost's Editorial Experience Highlights

What marketers love about Ghost's editor.

Substack's Editorial Experience Issues

What marketers dislike about Substack'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.

Substack:
Mobile-First Experience

Substack has launched a mobile editor for creating posts directly on iOS and Android devices, offering essential functionalities.

"Today we’re launching a new mobile editor, which allows you to write and publish posts directly from the Substack app for iOS."
Source
"Publishing a new post is available on the Substack iOS and Android apps."
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.

Substack:
No Automatic Content Linking

Substack does not support automatic related blog linking features; manual linking is required.

"If you'd like to share certain parts of a post or allow readers to jump to a specific section of a long post, try adding anchor links."
Source
"Recommendations are a Substack super ... However, I couldn't find evidence of automatic related content linking."
Source
"I was wondering if it is a good idea to create a substack and post my content on there as well and even link the substack post back to my main blog."
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.

Substack:
No Automatic CTA Linking

Substack lacks built-in automatic CTA linking; users rely on external tools for automation features.

"Substack provides no automation tools at all; the author notes this is a primary reason users leave for competitors."
Source
"Substack lacks several critical features needed for effective email marketing, including automated email sequences."
Source
"Users discuss the absence of integrated automation features in Substack, noting their reliance on external tools."
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.

Substack:
Comments Supported

Substack supports commenting on posts from both subscribers and non-subscribers, with moderation options available.

"Navigate to your publication's Settings and click on Community. Slide the toggle to enable comments."
Source
"You can now enable comments on your posts for anyone on your mailing list, even if they’re not a paid subscriber."
Source
"Writers can choose whether to allow comments from everyone or only paid subscribers."
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.

Substack:
No Multi-tenancy

Substack does not support multi-tenancy, focusing primarily on individual writers and content monetization.

"Substack is designed for independent writers and does not offer multi-tenancy features."
Source
"Substack emphasizes individual monetization and audience ownership, lacking multi-tenant capabilities."
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 Substack and Ghost about their experiences.

Ease of Integrating Substack:
Medium
Integration with Substack is feasible but lacks robust features and direct integrations, leading to some workarounds.
Ease of Integrating Ghost:
Medium
Integration is achievable but requires technical knowledge and manual setup for optimal function.

Substack's DX Highlights

What developers love about building with Substack.

Ghost's DX Highlights

What developers love about building with Ghost.

Substack's DX Issues

What developers dislike about building with Substack.

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.

Substack:
No Customisable Content Types

Substack does not offer built-in content modelling features or custom content types.

"Substack offers limited customization, focusing more on content rather than design."
Source
"Directus allows you to create custom schemas, manage data, define roles & permissions for your organization."
Source
"Substack doesn’t allow customization for its newsletter formats, thus limiting content modelling."
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.

Substack:
No Custom React Components Supported

Substack does not support custom React components directly in the content editor.

"Over the years, I’ve written and reviewed hundreds of React components for a $1.7B GenAI startup."
Source
"I wanted to display my Substack posts on my website instead of a subscribe link, so I created my own Substack feed component!"
Source
"A customizable React component renders the login page based on the user's UI settings."
Source
"The new components are both fully customizable AND robust."
Source
"I have used substackapi to achieve this Custom Embed Substack Signup Form."
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.

Substack:
No Full Text Search

Substack's search functionality is weak, lacking full text search across all content and authors.

"From the Substack web inbox, readers can search keywords to find posts, publications, and people."
Source
"Substack search can’t find posts even when I know the exact title or URL. Search often can’t find people."
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.

Substack:
Available

Substack offers various starter kits and templates for creators.

(Expand section to see a list of Substack 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 Substack and Ghost.

Substack's Pricing
Monthly Subscription
$5 / month
- Includes all posts for paid subscribers only
- Recurring payments processed via Stripe
- 10% platform fee
- 2.9% + $0.30 transaction fees on Stripe
Annual Subscription
$50 / year
- Includes all posts for paid subscribers only
- Recurring payments processed via Stripe
- 10% platform fee
- 2.9% + $0.30 transaction fees on Stripe
Founding Member Plan
$20 / month
- Optional tier for additional support
- All posts for paid subscribers
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 Substack & Ghost? Try Wisp.
Wisp is the best solution for blogging. Try it free today!