Ghost vs WordPress
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 Payload CMS Hexo Halo Docsify 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 WordPress with
choose an app… Payload CMS Docsify Wagtail Grav Tina CMS October CMS django CMS Keystone Orchard Core Publii Plasmic Pagekit Umbraco Joomla Statamic Mezzanine ApostropheCMS Drupal Lektor Pico Pimcore Craft CMS Microweber Anchor CMS Squidex Keystatic Plume 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 WordPress Category Content Management Systems Content Management Systems License MIT GPL-2.0 Language JavaScript PHP Setup difficulty Medium Easy Min. RAM 1,024 MB 512 MB Deployment docker, bare-metal, source docker, bare-metal, one-click GitHub stars ★ 54,707 ★ 21,316 First released 2013 2003 Replaces WordPress, Substack, Medium Wix, Squarespace, WordPress.com
Why pick each one
Choose Ghost if… Excellent for newsletters and memberships Clean, fast publishing experience Ghost details Choose WordPress if… Unmatched ecosystem and documentation Easy for non-technical users WordPress details
Frequently asked questions Is Ghost or WordPress better? Neither is universally better. Ghost has the larger community, while WordPress is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Ghost and WordPress free and open-source? Yes. Ghost is licensed under MIT and WordPress under GPL-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Ghost and WordPress with Docker? Ghost: yes. WordPress: yes.