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!

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.
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 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.

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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:
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
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.

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
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.

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
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.

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
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."
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:
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
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 Substack and October CMS 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 October CMS:
Medium
Integration is generally straightforward but can present challenges due to specific plugin compatibility.

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:
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
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.

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
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.

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
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.

Substack:
Available

Substack offers various starter kits and templates for creators.

(Expand section to see a list of Substack 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 Substack and October CMS.

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
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 Substack & October CMS? Try Wisp.
Wisp is the best solution for blogging. Try it free today!