Ghost

Next in our series about blogging platforms is Ghost, an open source platform created in 2013. It was created for smaller blogs to give them the same sort of control that WordPress users have but in a more simplistic way, and was funded by a successful Kickstarter campaign.

Ghost can be self hosted or you can pay to have it hosted by Ghost. Because it’s open source, you can create your own version – all the code is available to download on Github.

It’s cheap to get hosted on their space if you’re not that confident in hosting your own version – $5 per month will be suitable for many bloggers at first.

Here’s how easy it is to get a blog set up:

Quick and easy – just as it should be!

The writing window is beautifully simple – below is the screen that shows the list of posts on your blog, and the second window shows the writing pane. You write in the left side, and get a live preview on the right. You can write your post in Markdown, which Chris has talked about previously.

Ghost also works on any device without needing to download any extra apps.

If you’re looking for a new blogging platform but don’t fancy WordPress, Ghost may be worth a try. You can open an account to trial the platform to see if it’s something that suits you – your trial is for 30 days which should give you a good enough idea.