Substack vs October CMS
Compare Substack 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!
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What Users Say
See what users who have used Substack and October CMS have to say about their overall experience with the product.
Substack's Key Strengths
Read what users love about Substack.
October CMS's Key Strengths
Read what users love about October CMS.
Substack's Key Issues
Read what issues users have with Substack.
October CMS's Key Issues
Read what issues users have with October CMS.
What Marketers & Content Creators Say
Hear from the users who uses Substack and October CMS daily about their experience with the editors.
Substack's Editorial Experience Highlights
What marketers love about Substack's editor.
October CMS's Editorial Experience Highlights
What marketers love about October CMS's editor.
Substack's Editorial Experience Issues
What marketers dislike about Substack'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.
Substack has launched a mobile editor for creating posts directly on iOS and Android devices, offering essential functionalities.
October CMS supports mobile content creation through plugins, but the core editor isn't fully mobile-optimized.
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 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
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.
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
October CMS supports automated promo cards and their CTA links auto-populate with relevant products.
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 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
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."Source
"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.
Substack does not support multi-tenancy, focusing primarily on individual writers and content monetization.
October CMS supports limited multi-tenancy through multisite and MultiDB plugins, facilitating management of multiple client accounts.
What Developers Say
Hear from developers who've integrated and built on Substack and October CMS about their experiences.
Substack's DX Highlights
What developers love about building with Substack.
October CMS's DX Highlights
What developers love about building with October CMS.
Substack's DX Issues
What developers dislike about building with Substack.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
Substack's search functionality is weak, lacking full text search across all content and authors.
October CMS supports full text search through plugins like SiteSearch and Sphinx, covering multiple content types.
Starter Kits
Discover starter kits and templates to help you get started with the platform.
Substack offers various starter kits and templates for creators.
(Expand section to see a list of Substack templates and starter kits.)
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 Substack and October CMS.