Ghost

Ghost — MIT licensed open source blog and newsletter platform for professional publishing

About Ghost

Ghost is an open-source blog and newsletter platform for professional publishing. The official site describes Ghost as the best open source blog and newsletter platform and emphasizes that it is independent and funded by its users.

Ghost is widely used for:

  • blogs and publishing sites
  • newsletters and membership publications
  • creator websites
  • editorial workflows
  • subscription-based content businesses

Created by: John O’Nolan First released: 2013 Primary language: JavaScript License: MIT License

Ghost is popular because it focuses on publishing first. Instead of trying to be a generic application framework, it gives writers and media teams the features they need to create, manage, and monetize content. The official site highlights that Ghost is open source, independent, and funded by users.

Key strengths include:

  • Clean publishing workflow for articles and newsletters
  • Membership and subscription support
  • Modern editor experience
  • Developer-friendly API and theming
  • Open-source publishing stack

Common Use Cases

Blogs

Ghost is a natural fit for blogs that want a polished writing experience and simple publishing workflows.

Newsletters

It is also widely used for newsletter-driven businesses and email-first publishing.

Membership Sites

Teams use Ghost to manage paid content, subscriptions, and member-only access.

Media and Editorial Sites

The platform is a strong choice for online publications that need a balance of editorial control and speed.

Custom Publishing Products

Developers can build custom front ends or integrations on top of Ghost when they want a more tailored experience.

Technical Notes

Ghost combines a content management workflow with publishing, membership, and delivery features. Its theme system and APIs make it possible to design custom publication front ends while keeping the editorial backend focused and usable.

Important concepts include:

  • content publishing and scheduling
  • membership and subscription workflows
  • themes and templates
  • integrations and APIs
  • newsletter delivery

License Information

Ghost is distributed under the MIT License.

The current license notice is:

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Copyright (c) 2013-2026 Ghost Foundation

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to
use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies
of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do
so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.

If you use Ghost in your project, keep the MIT License text and attribution together with your distribution.

How to Attribute Ghost in Your Project

In README.md

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This project uses [Ghost](https://ghost.org/) © Ghost Foundation, MIT License.

In About / Credits page

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Ghost - Copyright (c) 2013-2026 Ghost Foundation - MIT License
https://github.com/TryGhost/Ghost/blob/main/LICENSE

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Ghost publishing platform, MIT License
Copyright (c) 2013-2026 Ghost Foundation

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