Are you considering starting a blog? Are you undecided about whether to use Ghost or WordPress as your blogging platform? In this article, we’ll compare Ghost and WordPress in depth, highlighting their respective strengths and weaknesses so you can decide which platform is best for you when it comes to WordPress vs Ghost.
This isn’t a comparison of Ghost’s hosted version versus WordPress.com. This is a comparison of Ghost, an open source content management system, and WordPress.org.
User Interface and First Impressions
The Ghost dashboard is simple and straightforward to use. The first thing you see when you log in is your most recent content (the demo content is included with ghost if you just installed it). Content, New Post, and Settings are the three options in the menu. This immediately makes you feel ready to start writing your first post.
The dashboard in WordPress has a lot more options, which can be intimidating for new users. The interface is not as clean as it once was, but you can still easily create new posts, edit content, and do other things.
Overall, Ghost’s dashboard is a little cleaner than WordPress’s, and it might be easier for complete beginners to get used to (except for the markdown writing method), though WordPress offers more options and flexibility.
Ghost is the winner.
Speed
Ghost performs slightly better in speed tests and Google page insights right out of the box.
After that, however, there isn’t much in the way of beginner-friendly improvements to loading speed. However, there are numerous plugins available for WordPress that can assist you in this area. WordPress gains a speed advantage when you use caching plugins like W3 Total Cache.
Tie for first place
Community
WordPress has a larger and more established community because it is the more experienced and popular option. This means that not only can you do almost anything with WordPress, but someone else has already done it and written a tutorial on how to do it (hint: WPBeginner). Because there are so many WordPress users, it’s also very easy to get personal help with WordPress-related issues from other WordPress users.
Ghost, on the other hand, has a smaller community and support forums. There are some dedicated users who help answer questions and write relevant guides, but it doesn’t have the same cloud of guides, tips, and ideas as WordPress.
WordPress comes out on top.
Options for Design and Layout
The default themes for both WordPress as well as Ghost are very similar. Easy, useful, and appealing.
Aside from that, WordPress has a lot more variety in this department than Ghost. A simple result of the fact that there are far more WordPress themes than Ghost themes.
Many WordPress themes allow you to have a surprising amount of creative control over the design of your website without having to hard-code anything. Color schemes, backgrounds, fonts, container sizes, and other small and large details can all be changed from within the theme customizer.
Furthermore, there are numerous drag-and-drop themes and plugins for WordPress that you can use to quickly create various types of pages, such as portfolios, about pages, and landing pages. Because Ghost is primarily a blogging platform, you only have a few options.
There are options for those who know how to code to customize themes with Ghost, but if you don’t know how to code at all, your options are limited.
WordPress comes out on top.
Flexibility
The flexibility of WordPress is one of its main selling points. It’s an open-source program that can be used to create almost any website.
You get to choose from tens of thousands of plugins and themes. There’s almost certainly a plugin for whatever functionality WordPress doesn’t provide by default. Maintenance mode, animated galleries, and even fully functional online stores are all available. WordPress can handle any task you throw at it.
However, things are a little different with Ghost. It was created specifically for blogging, and only blogging, by the team behind it.
While there are Ghost themes and some apps/APIs, they don’t stray too far from what a stereotypical blog or blogger would require.
WordPress comes out on top.
Conclusion
Ghost is a lovely solution that’s ideal for people who just want to start a blog.
WordPress is an all-in-one solution. It has fantastic themes and plugins, as well as increased flexibility.
After all is said and done, the choice is between simplicity and flexibility.
If you want to start something more than a blog, or at the very least have the option of continuing to build on the blog after it’s launched, WordPress is the way to go.
We hope that this article did help you contrast WordPress and Ghost and decide which to use for your new website.
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