Ghost vs Payload CMS
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted content management systems options
— licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one
replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Compare Ghost with
choose an app… Hugo Astro Gatsby Jekyll Hexo Halo Docsify WordPress Wagtail Eleventy Zola Grav Tina CMS Pelican Quartz Typecho October CMS django CMS Keystone Gridsome Orchard Core Metalsmith Publii Middleman Plasmic Pagekit Umbraco WriteFreely Joomla Statamic Mezzanine ApostropheCMS Drupal Pico Pimcore Craft CMS Microweber Anchor CMS Nikola Squidex Keystatic Plume Piranha CMS PublicCMS Publify Kirby Winter CMS Bludit MODX Revolution Sulu TYPO3 Fork CMS Vvveb ProcessWire Backdrop CMS OJS Cowyo Automad Marmite ClassicPress Concrete CMS Superdesk Cockpit Next WonderCMS Silverstripe CMS Typemill Wiki-Go Bolt ActivityPub for WordPress Omeka WikiDocs Omeka S ImpressPages Datenstrom Yellow Expressa Contao GetSimple CMS Monstra CouchCMS Indexhibit Mataroa REDAXO Subrion CMS GoBlog Phile PageCord Razuna Pytition Formwork Localess Noosfero WBCE CMS PHPBoost Sphido 299Ko CMS Made Simple Pepettes Scovie Lionwiki FastAPI Gemserv DotClear 2 Faircamp my_capsule Neos Petites Annonces PureBlog SPIP ZwiiCMS
Compare Payload CMS with
choose an app… Strapi Directus Docsify WordPress Wagtail Grav Tina CMS October CMS django CMS Keystone Orchard Core Plasmic Pagekit Umbraco Joomla Statamic Mezzanine ApostropheCMS Drupal Pico Pimcore Craft CMS Microweber Anchor CMS Squidex Keystatic Piranha CMS PublicCMS Publify Kirby Winter CMS Bludit MODX Revolution Sulu TYPO3 Fork CMS Vvveb ProcessWire Backdrop CMS OJS Cowyo Automad ClassicPress Concrete CMS Superdesk Cockpit Next WonderCMS Silverstripe CMS Typemill Wiki-Go Bolt Omeka WikiDocs Omeka S ImpressPages Datenstrom Yellow Expressa Contao GetSimple CMS Monstra CouchCMS Indexhibit REDAXO Subrion CMS Phile Razuna Pytition Formwork Localess Noosfero WBCE CMS PHPBoost Sphido 299Ko CMS Made Simple Pepettes Scovie Lionwiki FastAPI Gemserv DotClear 2 Faircamp my_capsule Neos Petites Annonces PureBlog SPIP ZwiiCMS
Feature Ghost Payload CMS Category Content Management Systems Content Management Systems License MIT MIT Language JavaScript TypeScript Setup difficulty Medium Medium Min. RAM 1,024 MB 512 MB Deployment docker, bare-metal, source docker, bare-metal, source GitHub stars ★ 54,707 ★ 44,043 First released 2013 2021 Replaces WordPress, Substack, Medium Contentful, Sanity
Why pick each one
Choose Ghost if… Excellent for newsletters and memberships Clean, fast publishing experience Ghost details Choose Payload CMS if… Excellent TypeScript developer experience No vendor lock-in Payload CMS details
Frequently asked questions Is Ghost or Payload CMS better? Neither is universally better. Ghost has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Ghost and Payload CMS free and open-source? Yes. Ghost is licensed under MIT and Payload CMS under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Ghost and Payload CMS with Docker? Ghost: yes. Payload CMS: yes.