🆚 Ghost vs. Substack

Type

Content management system
Social media platform

About

Ghost is an open-source content management system built on Node.js that serves as a publishing platform for blogs, newsletters, and membership-based websites.

It includes a block-based editor, built-in email newsletter delivery, and native memberships with paid subscriptions via Stripe, along with SEO features, themes, and role-based access.

Read more…

Substack is an online publishing and social platform for writers and journalists that enables creating subscription-based newsletters, podcasts, and multimedia content delivered directly to subscribers.

It combines email newsletter distribution with a web-based archive, provides built-in payment processing and audience analytics, and includes social features such as recommendations, comments, and a Notes feed for short-form posts and discovery.

Headquarters

Singapore
San Francisco, California, United States

Website

Pricing

Free version ✔️Open source
Ghost(Pro)
Starter
(1K+ members)
$18+/month
Publisher
(3 staff users, 1K+ members)
$35+/month
Business
(15 staff users, 10K+ members)
$239+/month
For writers
Platform fee10%
Payment processing
Billing fee0.7%
Credit card fee2.9% + $0.30 per transaction fee
For readers
Free version ✔️
Set by writers

Categories

CMS › Rank #29
Subscriptions › Rank #8
Subscriptions › Rank #4
Social Media › Rank #30
Email Marketing › Rank #10

Popularity

Determined by the number of sites using each technology.

The Substack social media platform is 2.9 times more popular than Ghost.
Total websites

Market share

Subscriptions

Popularity by country

Determined by the number of sites detected from each country.

Substack is more popular in the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, while Ghost is more popular in Germany, Russia, and Sweden.
United States
United Kingdom
Germany
France
Canada
Italy
Spain
Netherlands
Australia
Brazil

Awards

Popularity by domain category

Determined by the number of sites in each category.

Substack is more popular among sites focused on blogs and wiki, business, and entertainment, while Ghost is more commonly used on technical, business forums and games sites.
Blogs/Wiki
Business
Entertainment
Marketing/Merchandising
General News
Education/Reference
Politics/Opinion
Sports
Technical/Business Forums
Internet Services

Top sites

Top-ranked sites that use these technologies.

Name
Rank
#13,052
#16,292
#16,434
View more ➝
Name
Rank
#2,497
View more ➝

See also

🗃️ About This Data