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Over promise and under deliver. Apparently that's the motto of the folks at Ghost. I'm really disappointed at the progress of this project that I thought would

by notNow 11y ago

Over promise and under deliver. Apparently that's the motto of the folks at Ghost. I'm really disappointed at the progress of this project that I thought would take on WP in 1 or 2 years time since launch but we're heading to year no 3 and they still at 0.6 milestone with no stable and production-ready WP caliber version in sight. Shame that it had to be like this. I was really looking forward to abandoning ugly and frustrating PHP to JS/Node and bringing new life to blogging platforms but shame.

coldtea 11y ago
Yeah, because their huge market position (or the Kickstarter money) guarantee them being able to hit a 10+ year old project which powers 40% of the web, and has a multi-million dollar company behind it. Shame of them for not delivering magical unicors sprinkled with pixie dust.
- briandear 11y ago
  If they promised magical unicorns, then yes, shame on them.
- notNow 11y ago
  I was not expecting them to take on WP even in a 5 year time but I was hoping to see them grow and chip away at WP's market share and reach 20% - 30% by of the blogging platform market but two years in and Ghost still going nowhere in terms of adoption and even worse it lags behind feature-wise. So yeah I'm really disappointed at them and equally at Assemble as well but Ghost is supposed to have had better chances of making it since they are well funded and have/had the support of the JS community to build a decent node-powered blogging platform that takes the market by storm but this yet is to materialize.
  - nhangen 11y ago
    have you considered that maybe the market doesn't want a "decent node-powered blogging platform?" Building a quality product takes time, and often times a lot longer than you think it will take. Lots of things get in the way, and with a product like this, education is a huge part of the adoption cycle. At 500k/year, they are poised to have healthy growth until they reach that point. Might not happen on your timeline, but at least they are still chugging.
    - Killswitch 11y ago
      Here's the real issue. WordPress is more than a blog. Ghost is only attacking the blogging aspect of WordPress. The rich themes and plugins ecosystem of WordPress cannot be matched no matter WHAT anyone thinks. Because of this, WordPress is widely used to develop all kinds of sites. Hell there's a company in my area (sadly I worked there years ago) who literally manages 200+ local businesses sites and they're all powered by WordPress. I'd say 1 or 2 of them are actually blog having sites. The rest are just "I want to be able to edit this section of content myself" sites. WordPress makes it insanely easy to build a site for a client or even anyone who's vaguely familiar with web development. Go get a cheap shared hosting account, click that 1 click WP install button, login to your new site, search for a theme you like, install it in a click, make a few minor tweaks, find some plugins that do stuff you like, install them in a click. Done. Until people realize this, there's no "taking on WordPress".
      - nhangen 11y ago
        definitely. Not to mention WP's capability as an application platform. There are more PHP devs than node devs, and Ghost's adoption probably reflects that.
      - notNow 11y ago
        I think that the whole ecosystem piggybacking on WP can be matched if not surpassed. There's nothing deficient or lacking in the technologies used in a Node stack to pull this off. We have npm already to cover the plugins functionality and on the front end it's a framework-a-palooza with libraries and themes popping every other hour. So, it can be done and I believe it can be easier and simpler whether for the end user or the developer as developing for WP is not really a walk in the park and there's a lot of gotchas and magic involved in this daunting process.
        Killswitch 11y ago
        The issue there is that the ecosystem is full of "I'd rather just install a plugin and be done" types. Nobody wants to recreate popular WordPress plugins to work in a NodeJS replacement. "Why would I recreate this in NodeJS where nobody uses it, when I can just use WordPress?"
  - coldtea 11y ago
    >reach 20% - 30% by of the blogging platform market In 2 years? That's crazy talk. Why would that happen? It's not as WordPress users have issues with it and are actively looking for alternatives. In fact they're more or less happy with it. Ghost would only appeal to the more minimalist crowd, who cared that the source was cleaner etc (and I'm assuming it is, for it can also be just a jangled mess of JavaScript instead of PHP).
joesmo 11y ago
To me, JS/Node is actually a huge step down in terms of language quality/ecosystem. Perhaps that's why it's not catching on with developers?
- notNow 11y ago
  Definitely the answer to your apparent disappointment and frustration with node/js is to cling on PHP and WP madhouse because why not.
  - joesmo 11y ago
    Because it's nowhere near as fucked up as Javascript, IMO.
- hnonymous5 11y ago
  I suggest you edit your comment to make clear that you are being sarcastic.
  - joesmo 11y ago
    I suggest you edit your comment to make it clear you're being an asshole.
tjsix 11y ago
Even if the project delivered absolutely everything promised, and more, it's highly unlikely that it could gain enough adoption to challenge WordPress in any meaningful way. This is primarily due to being built on Node. One of the primary reasons WordPress is as popular as it is, is that you can install it on every single hosting provider out there and many of them provide a one-click or automated installation option. Very few hosting providers, or at least the shared and 'cheap' hosting providers have the ability to install Node and even fewer come with it pre-installed. The simple fact is that your average person that wants a website or blog will not have the knowledge or want, to go through getting all of that set up when using something like WordPress is as simple as clicking a button. Providers like Digital Ocean, are simply not a feasible option, or would even be considered by most non-technical people looking to build a blog/site.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  But that can change in a month. Providers change support all the time.
- notNow 11y ago
  I don't see why it would be difficult for hosting providers to adopt Node on their servers. They're already doing this offering VPS and the likes. Also, I don't see why there wouldn't be a viable Node blogging platform that could be as user-friendly and as easy as WP if not much more. This definitely is very doable and Ghost and Co promised to achieve to do that but they failed yet to make any meaningful impact on the market.
  - tjsix 11y ago
    They probably could, but it's more likely that the demand isn't enough to justify building out the required infrastructure and services to make things work properly in a shared hosting environment.
JoeAltmaier 11y ago
Agreed; but I'd modify that to "the motto of Silicon Valley"

by notNow 11y ago

coldtea 11y ago

Yeah, because their huge market position (or the Kickstarter money) guarantee them being able to hit a 10+ year old project which powers 40% of the web, and has a multi-million dollar company behind it. Shame of them for not delivering magical unicors sprinkled with pixie dust.

briandear 11y ago
If they promised magical unicorns, then yes, shame on them.
notNow 11y ago
I was not expecting them to take on WP even in a 5 year time but I was hoping to see them grow and chip away at WP's market share and reach 20% - 30% by of the blogging platform market but two years in and Ghost still going nowhere in terms of adoption and even worse it lags behind feature-wise. So yeah I'm really disappointed at them and equally at Assemble as well but Ghost is supposed to have had better chances of making it since they are well funded and have/had the support of the JS community to build a decent node-powered blogging platform that takes the market by storm but this yet is to materialize.
- nhangen 11y ago
  have you considered that maybe the market doesn't want a "decent node-powered blogging platform?" Building a quality product takes time, and often times a lot longer than you think it will take. Lots of things get in the way, and with a product like this, education is a huge part of the adoption cycle. At 500k/year, they are poised to have healthy growth until they reach that point. Might not happen on your timeline, but at least they are still chugging.
  - Killswitch 11y ago
    Here's the real issue. WordPress is more than a blog. Ghost is only attacking the blogging aspect of WordPress. The rich themes and plugins ecosystem of WordPress cannot be matched no matter WHAT anyone thinks. Because of this, WordPress is widely used to develop all kinds of sites. Hell there's a company in my area (sadly I worked there years ago) who literally manages 200+ local businesses sites and they're all powered by WordPress. I'd say 1 or 2 of them are actually blog having sites. The rest are just "I want to be able to edit this section of content myself" sites. WordPress makes it insanely easy to build a site for a client or even anyone who's vaguely familiar with web development. Go get a cheap shared hosting account, click that 1 click WP install button, login to your new site, search for a theme you like, install it in a click, make a few minor tweaks, find some plugins that do stuff you like, install them in a click. Done. Until people realize this, there's no "taking on WordPress".
    - nhangen 11y ago
      definitely. Not to mention WP's capability as an application platform. There are more PHP devs than node devs, and Ghost's adoption probably reflects that.
    - notNow 11y ago
      I think that the whole ecosystem piggybacking on WP can be matched if not surpassed. There's nothing deficient or lacking in the technologies used in a Node stack to pull this off. We have npm already to cover the plugins functionality and on the front end it's a framework-a-palooza with libraries and themes popping every other hour. So, it can be done and I believe it can be easier and simpler whether for the end user or the developer as developing for WP is not really a walk in the park and there's a lot of gotchas and magic involved in this daunting process.
      - Killswitch 11y ago
        The issue there is that the ecosystem is full of "I'd rather just install a plugin and be done" types. Nobody wants to recreate popular WordPress plugins to work in a NodeJS replacement. "Why would I recreate this in NodeJS where nobody uses it, when I can just use WordPress?"
- coldtea 11y ago
  >reach 20% - 30% by of the blogging platform market In 2 years? That's crazy talk. Why would that happen? It's not as WordPress users have issues with it and are actively looking for alternatives. In fact they're more or less happy with it. Ghost would only appeal to the more minimalist crowd, who cared that the source was cleaner etc (and I'm assuming it is, for it can also be just a jangled mess of JavaScript instead of PHP).

joesmo 11y ago

To me, JS/Node is actually a huge step down in terms of language quality/ecosystem. Perhaps that's why it's not catching on with developers?

notNow 11y ago
Definitely the answer to your apparent disappointment and frustration with node/js is to cling on PHP and WP madhouse because why not.
- joesmo 11y ago
  Because it's nowhere near as fucked up as Javascript, IMO.
hnonymous5 11y ago
I suggest you edit your comment to make clear that you are being sarcastic.
- joesmo 11y ago
  I suggest you edit your comment to make it clear you're being an asshole.

tjsix 11y ago

Even if the project delivered absolutely everything promised, and more, it's highly unlikely that it could gain enough adoption to challenge WordPress in any meaningful way. This is primarily due to being built on Node. One of the primary reasons WordPress is as popular as it is, is that you can install it on every single hosting provider out there and many of them provide a one-click or automated installation option. Very few hosting providers, or at least the shared and 'cheap' hosting providers have the ability to install Node and even fewer come with it pre-installed. The simple fact is that your average person that wants a website or blog will not have the knowledge or want, to go through getting all of that set up when using something like WordPress is as simple as clicking a button. Providers like Digital Ocean, are simply not a feasible option, or would even be considered by most non-technical people looking to build a blog/site.

JoeAltmaier 11y ago
But that can change in a month. Providers change support all the time.
notNow 11y ago
I don't see why it would be difficult for hosting providers to adopt Node on their servers. They're already doing this offering VPS and the likes. Also, I don't see why there wouldn't be a viable Node blogging platform that could be as user-friendly and as easy as WP if not much more. This definitely is very doable and Ghost and Co promised to achieve to do that but they failed yet to make any meaningful impact on the market.
- tjsix 11y ago
  They probably could, but it's more likely that the demand isn't enough to justify building out the required infrastructure and services to make things work properly in a shared hosting environment.

JoeAltmaier 11y ago

Agreed; but I'd modify that to "the motto of Silicon Valley"