Open Source Blogging Platforms
If you want to create self-hosted blogs, you have two options, one either use a content management system or build a website from scratch. For a lot of people, the first option is more viable, even though there are also website builders to create blogs. When it comes to building self-hosted blog, wordpress is the ideal choice. Well, wordpress is undoubtedly the best but you can also use other options: Here are some open source blogging platforms other than wordpress.
Ghost: It is an open source content management that is licensed by MIT and written in JavaScript. You can use it for free to build a blog as well as other kinds of sites. It offers clean web design optimized for search engines.
Hugo: This open source website creation software allows you to build static website easily. Some people even claim that Hugo is better than Wordpress. Hugo is written in Go and is easy to install and use.
Jekyll: This is a free and open source website creation tool to create all sorts of sites including blogs. The content management tool is written in Ruby.
Gatsby: This is another great alternative to wordpress. It is a free and open source framework for building websites and apps. This is React-based framework. This platform is best for creating blogs, portfolio websites, and business websites as well.
Hugo Vs. Ghost Open Source CMS
In recent times, Hugo and Ghost both are evolving as an alternative to Wordpress. Just like Wordpress, Hugo and Ghost are open-source content management systems (CMS).
If you want to know between Hugo and Ghost which one will be better, here is my take on these free content management systems.
Hugo is a CMS designed to create static websites quickly and easily and Ghost is specifically designed for blogging and publishing.
Hugo CMS
Hugo is known for its speedy and excellent performance because of its ability to generates static pages instead of running database queries.
On Hugo, you can create your custom themes and layouts. You can also preview your site as you build it.If you want to create a website with multi language support, Hugo is for you.
Ghost CMS
Ghost has a simple, lightweight Markdown editor idea for creating blogs and simple content sites. Just like on wordpress, you can customize your site through themes. It has a huge community of developers offering limited options for themes. You can organize your content based on categories. Ghosts are best known for SEO performance. If you want to create websites with multiple users, Ghost is for you.
Jekyll Vs Gatsby Open Source CMS
If you want to use CMS other than Wordpress, which is not only free to use but also open source, you can try Jekyll and Gatsby. These CMS have different features and use cases.
Jekyll is simple and lightweight. It is ideal for creating static websites. Gatsby is comparatively more advanced and ideal for creating complex and multi-functional websites.
Jekyll uses Liquid templates, thus allowing users to create custom layouts and themes for their websites. Gatsby uses the React framework, ideal for dynamic websites.
Jekyll has a built-in web server, which means you can preview your website as you build it. Gatsby uses GraphQL to query and retrieve data, process is comparatively complex but allows to create dynamic content and improves performance
Jekyll is written in Ruby, you can extend website functionality with plugins and gems to add new features. Gatsby offers comparatively more plugins as it has a large and active community. Gatsby works with a serverless architecture, thus, allowing you to deploy to a content delivery network (CDN) for improved performance.
To conclude, use Jekyll for a simple and lightweight static website such as blogs and company websites. However, if you want to create advanced websites, online stores or multi-user websites, for example, Gatsby may be the better choice.
What Kind of Sites Can You Build With Ghost
For a lot of people Wordpress can be the obvious choice for building websites, but there are numerous other options. For example, instead of wordpress, you can try Ghost.
Ghost is an open source content management system. It is free to use just like wordpress, all you need is a domain and hosting to create website. If you have not used Ghost, you might be wondering what kind of sites can you build with Ghost.
Personal blogs: While a lot of people use Wordpress for blogs, Ghost is also a great content management system for personal websites and blogs. It has a simple interface and support for markdown formatting.
News websites: Ghost is also scalable like Wordpress, therefore, just like with wordpress you can also use Ghost to create news websites, article websites and multimedia content.
Online Magazines: Ghost offers custom themes and layouts, thus making it one of the best choices for online magazines.
Podcasts: If you want to create a website where you want to publish audio content, you can use Ghost. You can easily build a podcast website with Ghost.
Learning platforms: You can use Ghost to create educational websites and learning platforms where you can publish different kinds of tutorials and multi-media content.
Last, but not least, Ghost CMSt is designed for creating blogs and content website. It is best suited for content-driven websites.
Ghost vs. WordPress: Which is Better for Blogging
WordPress might be the most use content management system, however, a lot of open source content management systems are evolving and Ghost is one of them. Both of these content management systems can be used to build different kinds of sites and they have their own strengths and use cases.
Ghost is a lightweight, however, WordPress is a flexible. Ghost is basically focused on blogging and publishing, whereas WordPress is used for a many purposes, including blogging, e-commerce, and business websites. Ghost has a minimalist interface, however, WordPress has more advanced customization options, so it can be somewhat complex for first time users and newbies.
Ghost is designed for speed, it is an ideal platform for writers. It also has built-in SEO features that will help the website rank on search engines faster. Ghost is also optimized for mobile devices.
WordPress has a huge community of developers, therefore, you will have better access to themes and plugins, which makes customization easy.
If you want a publishing platform, for instance, a blog or a content site, Ghost might be a good choice as it is simple and more streamlined. However, if you want a site that you want to customize extensively, for instance running a blog and a shop on the same site, or multi-user site, WordPress may be the better choice.
