Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

Ghost

518
499
+ 1
219
Grav

108
149
+ 1
16
Add tool

Ghost vs Grav: What are the differences?

  • Introduction: The following Markdown code highlights the key differences between Ghost and Grav, two popular content management systems.
  • Hosting Platform: Ghost is a fully hosted platform, meaning it provides the hosting and maintenance of websites on its own servers. On the other hand, Grav is self-hosted, allowing users to choose their preferred hosting provider and have complete control over their website's infrastructure.
  • CMS Architecture: Ghost is built with a Node.js stack, which offers better scalability and performance for handling large amounts of traffic. In contrast, Grav is built on a flat-file architecture using PHP, resulting in faster loading times and better efficiency for smaller websites or blogs.
  • Theme and Plugin Ecosystem: Ghost has a limited number of themes and plugins available, with a strong focus on simplicity and minimalism. Grav, on the other hand, boasts a wider range of themes and plugins, offering more customization options and flexibility for users to tailor their website's design and functionality.
  • Data Management: Ghost follows a content-first approach, providing a straightforward and user-friendly interface for creating and managing content. Grav emphasizes a file-based structure, allowing users to directly manipulate website data by editing markdown files and folders, giving more granular control over site contents.
  • Learning Curve: Ghost has a more intuitive and user-friendly interface, which makes it easier for beginners to get started quickly with minimal technical knowledge. Grav, although offering extensive flexibility, requires more technical proficiency due to its file-based architecture and configuration settings.
  • Pricing: Ghost offers a subscription-based pricing model, where users pay a monthly or yearly fee for hosting their website on Ghost servers. Grav, being self-hosted, is open-source and free to use, with users only incurring the cost of their chosen hosting provider.

In summary, Ghost provides a fully hosted platform with a simpler interface and limited customization options, while Grav offers self-hosting capabilities, a wider range of themes/plugins, and greater flexibility in content management, albeit with a steeper learning curve.

Decisions about Ghost and Grav
Xander Groesbeek
Founder at Rate My Meeting · | 5 upvotes · 217.8K views

So many choices for CMSs these days. So then what do you choose if speed, security and customization are key? Headless for one. Consuming your own APIs for content is absolute key. It makes designing pages in the front-end a breeze. Leaving Ghost and Cockpit. If I then looked at the footprint and impact on server load, Cockpit definitely wins that battle.

See more
Get Advice from developers at your company using StackShare Enterprise. Sign up for StackShare Enterprise.
Learn More
Pros of Ghost
Pros of Grav
  • 45
    Beautiful
  • 35
    Fast
  • 29
    Quick/simple post styling
  • 20
    Live Post Preview
  • 20
    Open source
  • 19
    Non-profit
  • 16
    Seamless writing
  • 6
    Node.js
  • 5
    Fast and Performatic
  • 5
    Javascript
  • 4
    Simplest
  • 3
    Wonderful UI
  • 3
    Handlebars
  • 3
    Full Control
  • 2
    Magic
  • 2
    Clean
  • 1
    Headless CMS
  • 1
    Self-hostable
  • 4
    Easy to Update
  • 3
    No Databases
  • 2
    Fast Performance
  • 2
    Extensive Plugins
  • 2
    Strong Security
  • 2
    Full Control over customisation + functionality
  • 1
    Ligth storage use

Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions

Cons of Ghost
Cons of Grav
    Be the first to leave a con
    • 2
      Not easily to intergrate as an eCommerce (yet)

    Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

    What is Ghost?

    Ghost is a platform dedicated to one thing: Publishing. It's beautifully designed, completely customisable and completely Open Source. Ghost allows you to write and publish your own blog, giving you the tools to make it easy and even fun to do.

    What is Grav?

    It is a free, open-source and self-hosted content management system (CMS) based on the PHP programming language and Symfony web application framework. It uses a flat file database for both backend and frontend. It is more widely used, and growing at a faster rate, than other leading flat-file CMS competitors.

    Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

    What companies use Ghost?
    What companies use Grav?
    See which teams inside your own company are using Ghost or Grav.
    Sign up for StackShare EnterpriseLearn More

    Sign up to get full access to all the companiesMake informed product decisions

    What tools integrate with Ghost?
    What tools integrate with Grav?

    Sign up to get full access to all the tool integrationsMake informed product decisions

    What are some alternatives to Ghost and Grav?
    Poltergeist
    Poltergeist is a driver for Capybara. It allows you to run your Capybara tests on a headless WebKit browser, provided by PhantomJS.
    WordPress
    The core software is built by hundreds of community volunteers, and when you’re ready for more there are thousands of plugins and themes available to transform your site into almost anything you can imagine. Over 60 million people have chosen WordPress to power the place on the web they call “home” — we’d love you to join the family.
    Drupal
    Drupal is an open source content management platform powering millions of websites and applications. It’s built, used, and supported by an active and diverse community of people around the world.
    Joomla!
    Joomla is a simple and powerful web server application and it requires a server with PHP and either MySQL, PostgreSQL, or SQL Server to run it.
    Adobe Experience Manager
    It is a Web Content Management System that allows companies to manage their web content (Web pages, digital assets, forms, etc) and also create digital experiences with this content on any platform web, mobile or IoT.
    See all alternatives