I also use self-hosted Ghost. Digital Ocean has a preconfigured droplet that you can use and everything will be setup for you without any extra work on your par

I also use self-hosted Ghost. Digital Ocean has a preconfigured droplet that you can use and everything will be setup for you without any extra work on your part. Ghost's interface for writing is really nice. It get's out of the way so you can worry about writing content. Writing your own custom theme is pretty simple as well. I end up redesigning my own website every year or so.