13 ms·

Goodbye Medium, hello Ghost

194 points by goindeep 4y ago

asimovie 4y ago
Wouldn’t a redirect have been better? This is still getting Medium eyeballs and the sign up CTA is buried in the 3rd paragraph…
- goindeep 4y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean mate?
tqi 4y ago
TLDR build an audience on Medium then migrate to Ghost because Medium "kills writers and publications earning potential" while Ghost allows you to bombard your audience with ads and dubious sponsored content. Don't forget to write a whiny post about it when you're done.
aphroz 4y ago
If this was not posted on Medium I could have read it. So another advantage is that Medium is blocked in some countries.
- saimiam 4y ago
  why is Medium blocked in some countries? Or are you saying it is paywalled without supporting your local currency? Asking because I wasn't aware that some countries block things as bland as Medium.
  - NhanH 4y ago
    It is blocked in Vietnam. Normally here you don't really need a good reason to censor things. Just one random dissident writing something on Medium is good enough to block the entire domain.
  - jawngee 4y ago
    Medium is blocked on some ISPs in Vietnam. My guess is because "overseas agitators" use it to talk shit about the government.
  - CobrastanJorji 4y ago
    China blocks the whole site. Other authoritarian countries block it for a while whenever somebody posts something that ruffles feathers there. Egypt and Malaysia have blocked it a couple of times.
- easrng 4y ago
  https://scribe.rip/cryptofireside.com/goodbye-medium-hello-ghost-57c9b6d7349e?gi=b68ca292ad9b https://scribe.rip/cryptofireside.com/goodbye-medium-hello-g...
manatana 4y ago
Why not use Write Freely or Write.as?
oidar 4y ago
I see more and more content creators realizing they aren't in charge of the channel on which create their content on - and then not knowing what to do about it. Medium, Youtube, Soundcloud, Reddit, Twitch, Tiktok - these companies are getting a hell of a deal with content creators giving things away for free. When things are going well with YouTube and the like it's fine - but what happens if you get unwarranted strikes - and then you lose your community. Content creators really need to build their community management side first and then start posting on the big sites mainly for promotion. Patreon has done a good job in this space. Ghost as well per this writer. What are some other services that allow you to keep your subscriber email list?
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  This has always been the way since the internet. Register your domain. Write on that domain (using CMS you control). And then use a range of social media / forums / creator platforms to get traffic to your site.
  - usrn 4y ago
    You don't even have to pay for hosting or anything. Keep your stuff on github and use a CDN with free integration. It's fire and forget as long as you keep the domain registered. If github or your CDN misbehaves moving is pretty trivial and doesn't affect your site's content or address.
    - goindeep 4y ago
      Some people don't have those skills and don't want to learn them. They just want to write and produce good stuff. But I hear you.
      - usrn 4y ago
        Word can export html and there are GUIs for github that don't need skills. I guess you could say there's some small amount of learning involved but it's extremely minimal. Arguably not more than these social media sites.
balloob 4y ago
With Home Assistant[1] we use Ghost for our newsletter[2]. Besides ease of use and great design as article points out, it also was the only newsletter host that allowed us to disable all the tracking. +1 for Ghost. Awesome software [1]: https://www.home-assistant.io https://www.home-assistant.io [2]: https://building.open-home.io https://building.open-home.io
encryptluks2 4y ago
I think it is great that people are switching, but it sounds like they are more or less going to utilize most of the same hosted features that caused issues elsewhere.
- goindeep 4y ago
  How do you mean?
  - dspillett 4y ago
    I assume he means using a service that might have the same problems later (assuming it doesn't already now) rather than self-hosting (which can have it's own problems, but not those ones).
    - encryptluks2 4y ago
      This.. ultimately, unless you're self-hosting, you will not get the additional benefits. It is way more ideal as well to build your blog around a tool like Hugo where you can at least create your own metrics a lot easier.
smallyunet 4y ago
I don't complete the sign up because Ghost needs credit card info.
- goindeep 4y ago
  That's fair enough. I in no way benefit BTW. In case you thought that, no affiliate links nothing, just telling my story. Cheers.
- chucky123 4y ago
  You can easily setup Ghost without signing up by using their open source version. Use something like railway.app, digital ocean or other platforms to setup Ghost in literally 5 mins.
  - hackernewds 4y ago
    what are these other services?
    - anurag 4y ago
      Render: https://render.com/docs/deploy-ghost https://render.com/docs/deploy-ghost
yawnxyz 4y ago
why not cross-post blog posts? Running your own blog is trivial, but it's next to impossible to be discovered unless you already have a following
- forrestthewoods 4y ago
  Medium and Ghost provide exactly zero value for discoverability. All views come from large content aggregators - Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, HackerNews etc.
  - goindeep 4y ago
    I dont think Ghost is supposed to but yes with Medium, they are supposed to show your stuff off and as someone that has been testing out titles, tags, images, post volumes etc. I can tell you I know for a fact nothing you do will get your stuff seen unless Medium feels like helping you. Pro tip, want a lot of views write about any of the hot social and political topics and take the popular mainstream stance and you will likely get a shit load of views.
- goindeep 4y ago
  I kind of already do that with Hacker Noon and I'm going to try to figure out a way to do something similar with Medium and so I'll have Medium and Hacker Noon pointing stuff to my own domain cryptofireside [dot] com.
forrestthewoods 4y ago
I used Ghost once upon a time. Trying to customize Ghost themes to produce the output I wanted was an absolute nightmare. My blog migrated from WordPress to Ghost to Medium. Now it’s artisinally hand crafted HTML+CSS+JS hosted on Netlify. I know almost no one else is going to host their blog this way, but they should. Hand crafting is easier and more flexible than complex and constrained static site generators. The average blogger doesn’t have enough content to make a generator necessary or even valuable.
- goindeep 4y ago
  Give us a link?
  - forrestthewoods 4y ago
    https://www.forrestthewoods.com/blog/ https://www.forrestthewoods.com/blog/
- unicornporn 4y ago
  > Now it’s artisinally hand crafted HTML+CSS+JS Do you hand craft the Atom/RSS feeds too?
  - forrestthewoods 4y ago
    Yes. Although RSS feels like a waste of time in 2022.
- rg111 4y ago
  Have you tried Bear Blog [0]? [0]: https://bearblog.dev https://bearblog.dev
peter422 4y ago
I don’t doubt the sincerity of the poster and their excitement for moving platforms, but this really reads like an advertisement for ghost, especially with all the specifically selected anchor texts and no mention of any other alternative options.
- UncleEntity 4y ago
  It’s not like they hide their desire to have sponsored posts and affiliate programs. I have read absolutely nothing else they have written but judging by this “organic content” I would certainly pay them to shill some crypto scam if I were into that sort of thing.
singaporecode 4y ago
Medium sucks balls. I know someone who was making $2-$5 per month and writing some high quality content, who got kicked out of the partner program for not having 100 followers (as she was more interested in the content then getting followers, but still she got a very healthy following online - just they didn’t click the “follower” button), now she’s getting zero and hasn’t blogged in ages as a result
- goindeep 4y ago
  Yeah and this is what I meant in the post when I said i genuinely think if Satoshi had posted his whitepaper on Medium, no one would have read it. Medium is OK in that its free and IMO its a great way to test content, but their algo favours crap that they know keeps the paid members coming back. They have a wide variety of topics on there but there is no depth. They tell me I am one of their top crypto/bitcoin writers and I think my best month on there was like $70. Which is nothing for the work that is put in. I can get paid 10 X that for writing just 1 article when freelancing.
Brajeshwar 4y ago
Like most Internet enthusiast, I signed up for Medium when it started and have somehow gotten over 4,500 followers. I have no clue why as I write mostly about our family stories, and some technology stories targeted at non-technical parents, etc. etc. Since then, I had moved to my own domain as I realized most people are asked/forced to signup and sometimes have to "pay to read". I do make sure I do not tick that monetize button/checkbox or have never agreed to be a paid editor. I even changed my username and I continue to pay for Medium to support other editors (and of course, read their stories). I like Ghost but aren't they doing lot of things and blogging is not the main/default thing anymore? On that note, if you want to quickly try out Ghost, I have been happy with pikapods.com (I have no relationship with them). I start with them, if things go north, perhaps figure out dedicated resources.
- steve_adams_86 4y ago
  Ghost is very generally focused on content creation with emphasis on memberships. They don’t specialize in any specific kind of content creation, but you can’t expect a Wordpress experience or something you might tailor from a static site generator either. It’s perfectly fine for classic blogging, though. They aren’t neglecting or abandoning it. In fact it’s excellent, and I’ve used it almost as long as it has existed. If you want to slap up a site for your podcast, a newsletter, a news site, etc. it isn’t a bad choice. Their theme market is a fairly good representation of what Ghost is good at; they have categories which cover, more or less, what it’s intended and expected to be used for. https://ghost.org/themes/ https://ghost.org/themes/
- goindeep 4y ago
  Yeah I went back and forth on the box ticking of the Medium Partner Program, probably something I should have added to the post...In the end I went with it because I wanted to recoup my money back. I think I only read 1-2 Medium stories every month if that, and its just not worth it IMO. Ghost do different things and yes blogging is one of them.
indigodaddy 4y ago
If I were ever going to blog I’d do something like this with Cloudflare perhaps in front: https://docs.replit.com/tutorials/build-host-company-blog-on-replit-with-hugo-nix https://docs.replit.com/tutorials/build-host-company-blog-on... Love the idea of just using Replit or similar web-based/cloud editor/IDE to create the content. And I also like the idea of having Replit control/host the content/files whilst also pushed to a GH repo. So far I’ve been too lazy to attempt it though. Have just had that tab open in my browser for months as a reminder/todo to friggin do it but hasn’t happened yet..
- dangus 4y ago
  If you are stuck on completing this long-ass tutorial that you linked, I’d suggest not overcomplicating it and just launching a VM, droplet, or even just paying a provider for blog hosting. For me Ghost worked very well for this purpose. I’ve had this happen to me far too many times: my engineering sensibilities get in the way of just putting the stuff out there. My suggestion is to off the engineering cap and pretend like your blog or website is a business. What return on investment do you get out of all the time spent writing configuration/code, figuring out your deployment scheme, and standing up infrastructure? For me, I didn’t get any, so I decided to scrap my overcomplicated nonsense and spin up a DigitalOcean droplet with a few clicks. Another few clicks to dump it behind Clpudflare, enable some basic VM backups, and add a basic DO firewall and I was done.
  - indigodaddy 4y ago
    I think you’re probably right. All the searching and researching for the exact perfect way to deploy/infra it is likely just part of procrastination in general of the writing and getting down to it. Probably should just throw something on one my 2 or 3 long-idling VMs or one of my OCI free tier instances..
- dizhn 4y ago
  I use the gitlab web ide which also has basic preview support for markdown. I ensure that I keep the markup to a minimum. I don't even use pictures. When I commit cloudflare (whose build/publish process went from 3-5 minues to seconds) makes it available almost instantly. It's a hugo site which I created by taking a theme I like and gutting unneccessary things. I don't update the code or theme at all and the hugo version is fixed in the cloudflare pages settings. I do not use the hugo tooling at all anymore. You could also write your own script like a lot of people on HN seemt to be doing and configure the build step to do nothing but take whatever is in your web directory and publish it. (Obviously the same is possible with github. I actually migrated from there. Gitlab can import github repos, and the only change needed on the cloudflare side was change where the repo points to and set up the new token)
Calamitous 4y ago
Goodbye, frying pan. Hello, fire.
- smaudet 4y ago
  My burgers taste better over the open flame. Frying pan has its uses, but...
- stereoradonc 4y ago
  Happy Steaking
buf 4y ago
I spent the better part of a month last year shopping for a blogging platform before I decided that it was actually easier to build my own. I went through Gatsby, ghost, Jekyll, and notion. This is the most basic rails app you can get and it does everything I need. When I needed to customize it for the "projects" tab, that was simple too. Siliconvict com
mg 4y ago
I am currently thinking about how to set up a new content website. So I looked at the existing solutions. Wordpress, Jekyll etc etc etc. I did not find a solution that I like. I came to the conclusion that a solution should be file based and the tool that turns it into a website should be a single script: # File based The content, templates and assets should be stored as files on disk. No database should be involved. # Single script I don't think turning templates, content and assets into a website is a complex thing. Basically it just means some templating of the content according to the templates. A small script that I can easily read should be sufficient. So I will probably write that script myself. Currently, I expect the templates to be what I call "simplified Twig style": <!doctype html> <head><title>{TITLE}</title></head> <body>{CONTENT}</body> </html> The content will be plain HTML. With metadata in YAML similar to how Jekyll does it: --- layout: post title: Hello World --- Hello world, this is my first blog post. And this is my dog: <img src="dog.jpg" alt="My dog"> Say the script that is creating the website from the templates, content and assets is called create.py. Then create.py is supposed to be something like 50 lines of Python for the first version. And to stay under 500 lines forever. Additional functionality can be achieved via plugins: --- layout: post title: Hello World convert: markdown2html.py --- Hello world, this is my first blog post. And this is my dog: ![My dog](dog.jpg)
- jschulenklopper 4y ago
  It’s not clear what you don’t like about static site generators. Obviously it’s more fun to build one yourself, but using Hugo, Jekyll, Nanoc yields your website faster (measured in developer-time).
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- mirzap 4y ago
  There are couple great solutions that fit points you describe. One of them is Statamic (https://statamic.dev/blade https://statamic.dev/blade) which is IMO the best flat-file CMS currently available with a lot of flexibility if you're dev and want to extend to it (it's free for solo writers). Another one that I know is GravCMS (https://getgrav.org/ https://getgrav.org/). I didn't have much experience with Grav, but it looks OK.
eterevsky 4y ago
Why not Substack?
- stereoradonc 4y ago
  Its not even a CMS. Its a newsletter distribution business, funded by VC money and overvalued. They are laying off staff now :-(
KronisLV 4y ago
My personal blog runs on Grav, a flat-file CMS: https://getgrav.org/ https://getgrav.org/ It was really simple to set up as a Docker container, it is pretty fast due to not having a backing database but instead being file based, allows for some customization in the form of plugins (e.g. RSS/Atom feeds), is themeable and also reasonably secure (as long as you consider using additional auth in front of /admin, though the admin module itself is entirely optional, you can just write blog posts with a text editor, should you so choose). Of course, there's not much of a network there to speak of, in regards to discoverability, nor is there any kind of advertising that would give me passive income from my writing (apart from a link to a VPS hosting provider, where I get discounts on my own hosting if someone signs up). However, using your own self-hosted blog is perfectly viable nowadays, should you so choose! Also, if you need a Wiki, some folks out there strongly recommend BookStack (https://www.bookstackapp.com/ https://www.bookstackapp.com/) and in regards to communication you can use Mattermost (https://mattermost.com/ https://mattermost.com/) or something like it. Not to detract from the actual article itself, it's just that we live in a pretty great time with plenty of options, be it cloud based ones, or self-hosted software! Heck, I even have a PeerTube instance up and running which acts as a backup for my gaming/programming Twitch stream VODs, should YouTube ever purge things on their end. Edit: link to the root page of the blog, for a quick example of how it looks https://blog.kronis.dev/ https://blog.kronis.dev/ (some might also use WordPress, although it's more heavy and security begs more attention)
kn81198 4y ago
When people bring up static site generators as an alternative I have rarely seen CMS being part of it. For a developer always with access to an editor and terminal, sure, it is easy to push out that markdown file and have it rendered as a blog post. But if you want to edit on the go, connecting your setup to a CMS is epic. I now have Forestry linked to my Github+Jekyll blog and don't have to worry about having access to a terminal to blog. It does seem to clog up the commit history though, something to figure out soon...
creakingstairs 4y ago
I've looked hard at various CMSes and decided to roll my own. The blog is built with Elixir/Phoenix and uses Obsidian MD as an editor. I have a personal plugin on Obsidian that will push my Excalibur drawings and my markdown notes to B2 storage and Postgres DB (one way sync to keep it simple). With this, I can have my snappy, vim-enabled editor that is also available on my phone and tablet instead of some clunky web editor!
withinboredom 4y ago
I modified Ghost to support a non-mailgun email provider (postmark) and it was pretty easy. So easy, I wondered why they never did it even though there were open issues for using other providers. It turns out mailgun has an affiliate program[1] that I venture Ghost is using. The amount of telemetry that ghost sends is also concerning... Anyway, I abandoned it. I wouldn't recommend Ghost to anyone. It's a good blogging product, but it seems they're in the business of making money and not a great product. [1]: https://www.mailgun.com/about/partners/ https://www.mailgun.com/about/partners/
- johnonolan 4y ago
  No, we are not on the Mailgun affiliate program[1] [1]: https://ghost.org/docs/faq/mailgun-newsletters/ https://ghost.org/docs/faq/mailgun-newsletters/
- ahstilde 4y ago
  > they're in the business of making money and not a great product. ??? Isn't everyone in the business of making money
  - withinboredom 4y ago
    No. Sometimes we humans do things because we want the thing, if there is money the thing gets us, it’s just a happy byproduct.
    - ahstilde 4y ago
      Ghost isn't a human. It's a funded company. Those do things because they want money.
pdyc 4y ago
If you want to self host please give this a try https://github.com/newbeelearn/sserver https://github.com/newbeelearn/sserver
- entropie 4y ago
  "No, only binaries are released and site is used for discussions around the product." "Avoid using complicated opensource solutions that require constant maintenance." No, thanks.
jillesvangurp 4y ago
This space has turned into a mess, there are so many options now that it's all meaningless. What happened to simply hosting your own blog and building a brand that way? Instead we have gazillions of for profit, ad driven channels that essentially offer the same as a 2005-era wordpress blog in terms of functionality. I get that a small portion of authors is actually looking to monetize via these platforms but the vast majority don't make a penny on their content and nor are they looking to. So that's not the main driver. As for quality control on these platforms, aside from some censorship, there is none. It's exactly the same type of content you'd find on blogs, Facebook, Linkedin, or wherever else people choose to voice their opinion. So, that's not it either. I think it's a combination of couple of things: - Analytics, likes, and feedback & commenting. Most of these platforms have like buttons and give you some notion of success and ways to interact. Everything a wannabe influencer needs basically. Blogs used to have similar features but those got targeted by blog spam. So, people turned off a lot of this stuff because it was just too painful to deal with. I don't think blogs ever recovered from losing that functionality. It's just a bit bare-bones these days. You can fix it if you know what you are doing but out of the box, you have none of it. - Convenience and safety. Most people don't want to maintain servers or play web admin and they don't want to worry about doing the right things technically (assuming they are capable of that even). They just want to write and hit publish and be done with it. It's an important feature and it's why things like Facebook and Linkedin became popular. Better distribution and low hassle. Medium never really became an important distribution platform. You always have to post your Medium links somewhere else to get an audience. - Community. These platforms for better or worse function like mini social networks with readers and authors connecting. It's of course a very fragmented space and there are tiny disconnected social clusters all over the internet now. Blogs used to offer a similar experience but there's not much happening there anymore except for a few holdouts. The blogosphere (I hesitate to use the word) is kind of dead. - Distribution. To get your content some eyeballs, you need to promote it on multiple platforms. This has changed a lot over time. It used to be that you would have followers that would pick up anything you wrote from your RSS feed and then would distribute that to their readership. These days that's less of a thing and you need to distribute via one of the big social networks. Medium as a distribution platform is not that important. You still need the big social networks to share a link on. Not much difference with a self hosted blog. With Medium, there's definitely a problem. The platform is now so pushy towards it's readers that I can't justify parking any content there. Just not worth it. I've used dev.to on and off for some articles and I kind of liked that experience and I appreciate the community there. I tend to cross post on my own website still. But altogether it's far less often than I used to blog.
gabrielgio 4y ago
> Ghost, like Medium, is clean, it is minimal, but that is about where the similarities end. I don't think that website that loads 2,5Mb of js, keep making post request on every action, and shows pop ups on everything you hover/select clean and minimal. It may not be the worst, but not minimal on my book. That is not medium's fault, but there is even a 2,5Mb gif which takes almost half the size of page. Some people don't like mobile metered connection user.
stereoradonc 4y ago
Building communities is tough. Monetising them is even tougher. Whoever said Medium is a "blogging platform"? If you can't export your own data easily out of the platform, it's a terrible idea to build something from scratch. I'd stick with Telegram (channels, specifically) because I can automate them for content, and a WordPress blog because I own the medium (not the host). While I have been blogging for over 3 years, I stuck to a niche and don't care much about views. If you are shilling on crypto and web3 blockchain kind of trends, then it will definitely hurt your chances to monetise because of the payment cuts required for payment processors etc. Its best to have a clear pathway for premium content, be upfront to your readers, and explore other mediums to amplify your reach. The growth won't be sudden, but a slow tick-tock. It all depends on the external algorithms, which care about virality of content. A shameless plug to demonstrate the richness of content possible in Telegram (https://t.me/thecuriousloop https://t.me/thecuriousloop) The content is auto-posted from IFTTT as a manual curation from what I read. I save to a specific Raindrop folder where it gets auto-tweeted and auto-posted to LinkedIn. It allows for comments on all posts and you can post links/multimedia content. Those opting for premium version of Telegram service can upload 4GB files. I do post recommended books and have dedicated section on bypassing paywalls.
klelatti 4y ago
The key point is that if you know how to grow your publication without Medium’s help then Ghost is a great option. I’ve been using Ghost for my newsletter for actuaries using Python and Medium’s distribution would add no value for me at all. Plus the flexibility of Ghost’s integrations - eg with Discourse - is very useful. [1] https://www.joveactuarial.com https://www.joveactuarial.com
d4rkp4ttern 4y ago
For technical blogging, IMHO, the absolutely essential requirements are good support for math notation and code snippets (with nice syntax highlighting). So I am constantly surprised why technical bloggers write on medium, which supports neither.
- kevsim 4y ago
  I've also moved over to a self-hosted solution, but when using Medium previously, I just embedded GitHub gists for code blocks. Looks nice, has good syntax highlights, can get the raw gist, etc. Not ideal, but not terrible.
- rainsil 4y ago
  I wonder why they haven't implemented this after so many years. It can't be much more difficult than integrating highlight.js and MathJax, and it's lost them at least one big publication (Hackernoon)
rabite 4y ago
I wish Ghost supported Bitcoin and Monero, without a third party processor. Even Jack Dorsey has advertised it suggesting it could be decentralized with this single feature. I hope they get around to implementing this.
nsarafa 4y ago
John who founded Ghost is a stand up gentleman. Happy to see people supporting him and his open source community
lancesells 4y ago
> If you have used WordPress you’ll know that if you want to be serious, you need a hosting solution but WordPress doesn’t offer one Wordpress.com?
Nancyten 4y ago

194 points by goindeep 4y ago

Wouldn’t a redirect have been better? This is still getting Medium eyeballs and the sign up CTA is buried in the 3rd paragraph…

goindeep 4y ago
I'm not sure what you mean mate?

tqi 4y ago

TLDR build an audience on Medium then migrate to Ghost because Medium "kills writers and publications earning potential" while Ghost allows you to bombard your audience with ads and dubious sponsored content. Don't forget to write a whiny post about it when you're done.

aphroz 4y ago

If this was not posted on Medium I could have read it. So another advantage is that Medium is blocked in some countries.

saimiam 4y ago
why is Medium blocked in some countries? Or are you saying it is paywalled without supporting your local currency? Asking because I wasn't aware that some countries block things as bland as Medium.
- NhanH 4y ago
  It is blocked in Vietnam. Normally here you don't really need a good reason to censor things. Just one random dissident writing something on Medium is good enough to block the entire domain.
- jawngee 4y ago
  Medium is blocked on some ISPs in Vietnam. My guess is because "overseas agitators" use it to talk shit about the government.
- CobrastanJorji 4y ago
  China blocks the whole site. Other authoritarian countries block it for a while whenever somebody posts something that ruffles feathers there. Egypt and Malaysia have blocked it a couple of times.
easrng 4y ago
https://scribe.rip/cryptofireside.com/goodbye-medium-hello-ghost-57c9b6d7349e?gi=b68ca292ad9b https://scribe.rip/cryptofireside.com/goodbye-medium-hello-g...

manatana 4y ago

Why not use Write Freely or Write.as?

oidar 4y ago

I see more and more content creators realizing they aren't in charge of the channel on which create their content on - and then not knowing what to do about it. Medium, Youtube, Soundcloud, Reddit, Twitch, Tiktok - these companies are getting a hell of a deal with content creators giving things away for free. When things are going well with YouTube and the like it's fine - but what happens if you get unwarranted strikes - and then you lose your community. Content creators really need to build their community management side first and then start posting on the big sites mainly for promotion. Patreon has done a good job in this space. Ghost as well per this writer. What are some other services that allow you to keep your subscriber email list?

quickthrower2 4y ago
This has always been the way since the internet. Register your domain. Write on that domain (using CMS you control). And then use a range of social media / forums / creator platforms to get traffic to your site.
- usrn 4y ago
  You don't even have to pay for hosting or anything. Keep your stuff on github and use a CDN with free integration. It's fire and forget as long as you keep the domain registered. If github or your CDN misbehaves moving is pretty trivial and doesn't affect your site's content or address.
  - goindeep 4y ago
    Some people don't have those skills and don't want to learn them. They just want to write and produce good stuff. But I hear you.
    - usrn 4y ago
      Word can export html and there are GUIs for github that don't need skills. I guess you could say there's some small amount of learning involved but it's extremely minimal. Arguably not more than these social media sites.

balloob 4y ago

With Home Assistant[1] we use Ghost for our newsletter[2]. Besides ease of use and great design as article points out, it also was the only newsletter host that allowed us to disable all the tracking. +1 for Ghost. Awesome software [1]: https://www.home-assistant.io https://www.home-assistant.io [2]: https://building.open-home.io https://building.open-home.io

encryptluks2 4y ago

I think it is great that people are switching, but it sounds like they are more or less going to utilize most of the same hosted features that caused issues elsewhere.

goindeep 4y ago
How do you mean?
- dspillett 4y ago
  I assume he means using a service that might have the same problems later (assuming it doesn't already now) rather than self-hosting (which can have it's own problems, but not those ones).
  - encryptluks2 4y ago
    This.. ultimately, unless you're self-hosting, you will not get the additional benefits. It is way more ideal as well to build your blog around a tool like Hugo where you can at least create your own metrics a lot easier.

smallyunet 4y ago

I don't complete the sign up because Ghost needs credit card info.

goindeep 4y ago
That's fair enough. I in no way benefit BTW. In case you thought that, no affiliate links nothing, just telling my story. Cheers.
chucky123 4y ago
You can easily setup Ghost without signing up by using their open source version. Use something like railway.app, digital ocean or other platforms to setup Ghost in literally 5 mins.
- hackernewds 4y ago
  what are these other services?
  - anurag 4y ago
    Render: https://render.com/docs/deploy-ghost https://render.com/docs/deploy-ghost

yawnxyz 4y ago

why not cross-post blog posts? Running your own blog is trivial, but it's next to impossible to be discovered unless you already have a following

forrestthewoods 4y ago
Medium and Ghost provide exactly zero value for discoverability. All views come from large content aggregators - Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, HackerNews etc.
- goindeep 4y ago
  I dont think Ghost is supposed to but yes with Medium, they are supposed to show your stuff off and as someone that has been testing out titles, tags, images, post volumes etc. I can tell you I know for a fact nothing you do will get your stuff seen unless Medium feels like helping you. Pro tip, want a lot of views write about any of the hot social and political topics and take the popular mainstream stance and you will likely get a shit load of views.
goindeep 4y ago
I kind of already do that with Hacker Noon and I'm going to try to figure out a way to do something similar with Medium and so I'll have Medium and Hacker Noon pointing stuff to my own domain cryptofireside [dot] com.

forrestthewoods 4y ago

I used Ghost once upon a time. Trying to customize Ghost themes to produce the output I wanted was an absolute nightmare. My blog migrated from WordPress to Ghost to Medium. Now it’s artisinally hand crafted HTML+CSS+JS hosted on Netlify. I know almost no one else is going to host their blog this way, but they should. Hand crafting is easier and more flexible than complex and constrained static site generators. The average blogger doesn’t have enough content to make a generator necessary or even valuable.

goindeep 4y ago
Give us a link?
- forrestthewoods 4y ago
  https://www.forrestthewoods.com/blog/ https://www.forrestthewoods.com/blog/
unicornporn 4y ago
> Now it’s artisinally hand crafted HTML+CSS+JS Do you hand craft the Atom/RSS feeds too?
- forrestthewoods 4y ago
  Yes. Although RSS feels like a waste of time in 2022.
rg111 4y ago
Have you tried Bear Blog [0]? [0]: https://bearblog.dev https://bearblog.dev

peter422 4y ago

I don’t doubt the sincerity of the poster and their excitement for moving platforms, but this really reads like an advertisement for ghost, especially with all the specifically selected anchor texts and no mention of any other alternative options.

UncleEntity 4y ago
It’s not like they hide their desire to have sponsored posts and affiliate programs. I have read absolutely nothing else they have written but judging by this “organic content” I would certainly pay them to shill some crypto scam if I were into that sort of thing.

singaporecode 4y ago

Medium sucks balls. I know someone who was making $2-$5 per month and writing some high quality content, who got kicked out of the partner program for not having 100 followers (as she was more interested in the content then getting followers, but still she got a very healthy following online - just they didn’t click the “follower” button), now she’s getting zero and hasn’t blogged in ages as a result

goindeep 4y ago
Yeah and this is what I meant in the post when I said i genuinely think if Satoshi had posted his whitepaper on Medium, no one would have read it. Medium is OK in that its free and IMO its a great way to test content, but their algo favours crap that they know keeps the paid members coming back. They have a wide variety of topics on there but there is no depth. They tell me I am one of their top crypto/bitcoin writers and I think my best month on there was like $70. Which is nothing for the work that is put in. I can get paid 10 X that for writing just 1 article when freelancing.

Brajeshwar 4y ago

Like most Internet enthusiast, I signed up for Medium when it started and have somehow gotten over 4,500 followers. I have no clue why as I write mostly about our family stories, and some technology stories targeted at non-technical parents, etc. etc. Since then, I had moved to my own domain as I realized most people are asked/forced to signup and sometimes have to "pay to read". I do make sure I do not tick that monetize button/checkbox or have never agreed to be a paid editor. I even changed my username and I continue to pay for Medium to support other editors (and of course, read their stories). I like Ghost but aren't they doing lot of things and blogging is not the main/default thing anymore? On that note, if you want to quickly try out Ghost, I have been happy with pikapods.com (I have no relationship with them). I start with them, if things go north, perhaps figure out dedicated resources.

steve_adams_86 4y ago
Ghost is very generally focused on content creation with emphasis on memberships. They don’t specialize in any specific kind of content creation, but you can’t expect a Wordpress experience or something you might tailor from a static site generator either. It’s perfectly fine for classic blogging, though. They aren’t neglecting or abandoning it. In fact it’s excellent, and I’ve used it almost as long as it has existed. If you want to slap up a site for your podcast, a newsletter, a news site, etc. it isn’t a bad choice. Their theme market is a fairly good representation of what Ghost is good at; they have categories which cover, more or less, what it’s intended and expected to be used for. https://ghost.org/themes/ https://ghost.org/themes/
goindeep 4y ago
Yeah I went back and forth on the box ticking of the Medium Partner Program, probably something I should have added to the post...In the end I went with it because I wanted to recoup my money back. I think I only read 1-2 Medium stories every month if that, and its just not worth it IMO. Ghost do different things and yes blogging is one of them.

indigodaddy 4y ago

If I were ever going to blog I’d do something like this with Cloudflare perhaps in front: https://docs.replit.com/tutorials/build-host-company-blog-on-replit-with-hugo-nix https://docs.replit.com/tutorials/build-host-company-blog-on... Love the idea of just using Replit or similar web-based/cloud editor/IDE to create the content. And I also like the idea of having Replit control/host the content/files whilst also pushed to a GH repo. So far I’ve been too lazy to attempt it though. Have just had that tab open in my browser for months as a reminder/todo to friggin do it but hasn’t happened yet..

dangus 4y ago
If you are stuck on completing this long-ass tutorial that you linked, I’d suggest not overcomplicating it and just launching a VM, droplet, or even just paying a provider for blog hosting. For me Ghost worked very well for this purpose. I’ve had this happen to me far too many times: my engineering sensibilities get in the way of just putting the stuff out there. My suggestion is to off the engineering cap and pretend like your blog or website is a business. What return on investment do you get out of all the time spent writing configuration/code, figuring out your deployment scheme, and standing up infrastructure? For me, I didn’t get any, so I decided to scrap my overcomplicated nonsense and spin up a DigitalOcean droplet with a few clicks. Another few clicks to dump it behind Clpudflare, enable some basic VM backups, and add a basic DO firewall and I was done.
- indigodaddy 4y ago
  I think you’re probably right. All the searching and researching for the exact perfect way to deploy/infra it is likely just part of procrastination in general of the writing and getting down to it. Probably should just throw something on one my 2 or 3 long-idling VMs or one of my OCI free tier instances..
dizhn 4y ago
I use the gitlab web ide which also has basic preview support for markdown. I ensure that I keep the markup to a minimum. I don't even use pictures. When I commit cloudflare (whose build/publish process went from 3-5 minues to seconds) makes it available almost instantly. It's a hugo site which I created by taking a theme I like and gutting unneccessary things. I don't update the code or theme at all and the hugo version is fixed in the cloudflare pages settings. I do not use the hugo tooling at all anymore. You could also write your own script like a lot of people on HN seemt to be doing and configure the build step to do nothing but take whatever is in your web directory and publish it. (Obviously the same is possible with github. I actually migrated from there. Gitlab can import github repos, and the only change needed on the cloudflare side was change where the repo points to and set up the new token)

Calamitous 4y ago

Goodbye, frying pan. Hello, fire.

smaudet 4y ago
My burgers taste better over the open flame. Frying pan has its uses, but...
stereoradonc 4y ago
Happy Steaking

buf 4y ago

I spent the better part of a month last year shopping for a blogging platform before I decided that it was actually easier to build my own. I went through Gatsby, ghost, Jekyll, and notion. This is the most basic rails app you can get and it does everything I need. When I needed to customize it for the "projects" tab, that was simple too. Siliconvict com

mg 4y ago

I am currently thinking about how to set up a new content website. So I looked at the existing solutions. Wordpress, Jekyll etc etc etc. I did not find a solution that I like. I came to the conclusion that a solution should be file based and the tool that turns it into a website should be a single script: # File based The content, templates and assets should be stored as files on disk. No database should be involved. # Single script I don't think turning templates, content and assets into a website is a complex thing. Basically it just means some templating of the content according to the templates. A small script that I can easily read should be sufficient. So I will probably write that script myself. Currently, I expect the templates to be what I call "simplified Twig style": <!doctype html> <head><title>{TITLE}</title></head> <body>{CONTENT}</body> </html> The content will be plain HTML. With metadata in YAML similar to how Jekyll does it: --- layout: post title: Hello World --- Hello world, this is my first blog post. And this is my dog: <img src="dog.jpg" alt="My dog"> Say the script that is creating the website from the templates, content and assets is called create.py. Then create.py is supposed to be something like 50 lines of Python for the first version. And to stay under 500 lines forever. Additional functionality can be achieved via plugins: --- layout: post title: Hello World convert: markdown2html.py --- Hello world, this is my first blog post. And this is my dog: ![My dog](dog.jpg)

jschulenklopper 4y ago
It’s not clear what you don’t like about static site generators. Obviously it’s more fun to build one yourself, but using Hugo, Jekyll, Nanoc yields your website faster (measured in developer-time).
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
mirzap 4y ago
There are couple great solutions that fit points you describe. One of them is Statamic (https://statamic.dev/blade https://statamic.dev/blade) which is IMO the best flat-file CMS currently available with a lot of flexibility if you're dev and want to extend to it (it's free for solo writers). Another one that I know is GravCMS (https://getgrav.org/ https://getgrav.org/). I didn't have much experience with Grav, but it looks OK.

eterevsky 4y ago

Why not Substack?

stereoradonc 4y ago
Its not even a CMS. Its a newsletter distribution business, funded by VC money and overvalued. They are laying off staff now :-(

KronisLV 4y ago

My personal blog runs on Grav, a flat-file CMS: https://getgrav.org/ https://getgrav.org/ It was really simple to set up as a Docker container, it is pretty fast due to not having a backing database but instead being file based, allows for some customization in the form of plugins (e.g. RSS/Atom feeds), is themeable and also reasonably secure (as long as you consider using additional auth in front of /admin, though the admin module itself is entirely optional, you can just write blog posts with a text editor, should you so choose). Of course, there's not much of a network there to speak of, in regards to discoverability, nor is there any kind of advertising that would give me passive income from my writing (apart from a link to a VPS hosting provider, where I get discounts on my own hosting if someone signs up). However, using your own self-hosted blog is perfectly viable nowadays, should you so choose! Also, if you need a Wiki, some folks out there strongly recommend BookStack (https://www.bookstackapp.com/ https://www.bookstackapp.com/) and in regards to communication you can use Mattermost (https://mattermost.com/ https://mattermost.com/) or something like it. Not to detract from the actual article itself, it's just that we live in a pretty great time with plenty of options, be it cloud based ones, or self-hosted software! Heck, I even have a PeerTube instance up and running which acts as a backup for my gaming/programming Twitch stream VODs, should YouTube ever purge things on their end. Edit: link to the root page of the blog, for a quick example of how it looks https://blog.kronis.dev/ https://blog.kronis.dev/ (some might also use WordPress, although it's more heavy and security begs more attention)

kn81198 4y ago

When people bring up static site generators as an alternative I have rarely seen CMS being part of it. For a developer always with access to an editor and terminal, sure, it is easy to push out that markdown file and have it rendered as a blog post. But if you want to edit on the go, connecting your setup to a CMS is epic. I now have Forestry linked to my Github+Jekyll blog and don't have to worry about having access to a terminal to blog. It does seem to clog up the commit history though, something to figure out soon...

creakingstairs 4y ago

I've looked hard at various CMSes and decided to roll my own. The blog is built with Elixir/Phoenix and uses Obsidian MD as an editor. I have a personal plugin on Obsidian that will push my Excalibur drawings and my markdown notes to B2 storage and Postgres DB (one way sync to keep it simple). With this, I can have my snappy, vim-enabled editor that is also available on my phone and tablet instead of some clunky web editor!

withinboredom 4y ago

I modified Ghost to support a non-mailgun email provider (postmark) and it was pretty easy. So easy, I wondered why they never did it even though there were open issues for using other providers. It turns out mailgun has an affiliate program[1] that I venture Ghost is using. The amount of telemetry that ghost sends is also concerning... Anyway, I abandoned it. I wouldn't recommend Ghost to anyone. It's a good blogging product, but it seems they're in the business of making money and not a great product. [1]: https://www.mailgun.com/about/partners/ https://www.mailgun.com/about/partners/

johnonolan 4y ago
No, we are not on the Mailgun affiliate program[1] [1]: https://ghost.org/docs/faq/mailgun-newsletters/ https://ghost.org/docs/faq/mailgun-newsletters/
ahstilde 4y ago
> they're in the business of making money and not a great product. ??? Isn't everyone in the business of making money
- withinboredom 4y ago
  No. Sometimes we humans do things because we want the thing, if there is money the thing gets us, it’s just a happy byproduct.
  - ahstilde 4y ago
    Ghost isn't a human. It's a funded company. Those do things because they want money.

pdyc 4y ago

If you want to self host please give this a try https://github.com/newbeelearn/sserver https://github.com/newbeelearn/sserver

entropie 4y ago
"No, only binaries are released and site is used for discussions around the product." "Avoid using complicated opensource solutions that require constant maintenance." No, thanks.

jillesvangurp 4y ago

This space has turned into a mess, there are so many options now that it's all meaningless. What happened to simply hosting your own blog and building a brand that way? Instead we have gazillions of for profit, ad driven channels that essentially offer the same as a 2005-era wordpress blog in terms of functionality. I get that a small portion of authors is actually looking to monetize via these platforms but the vast majority don't make a penny on their content and nor are they looking to. So that's not the main driver. As for quality control on these platforms, aside from some censorship, there is none. It's exactly the same type of content you'd find on blogs, Facebook, Linkedin, or wherever else people choose to voice their opinion. So, that's not it either. I think it's a combination of couple of things: - Analytics, likes, and feedback & commenting. Most of these platforms have like buttons and give you some notion of success and ways to interact. Everything a wannabe influencer needs basically. Blogs used to have similar features but those got targeted by blog spam. So, people turned off a lot of this stuff because it was just too painful to deal with. I don't think blogs ever recovered from losing that functionality. It's just a bit bare-bones these days. You can fix it if you know what you are doing but out of the box, you have none of it. - Convenience and safety. Most people don't want to maintain servers or play web admin and they don't want to worry about doing the right things technically (assuming they are capable of that even). They just want to write and hit publish and be done with it. It's an important feature and it's why things like Facebook and Linkedin became popular. Better distribution and low hassle. Medium never really became an important distribution platform. You always have to post your Medium links somewhere else to get an audience. - Community. These platforms for better or worse function like mini social networks with readers and authors connecting. It's of course a very fragmented space and there are tiny disconnected social clusters all over the internet now. Blogs used to offer a similar experience but there's not much happening there anymore except for a few holdouts. The blogosphere (I hesitate to use the word) is kind of dead. - Distribution. To get your content some eyeballs, you need to promote it on multiple platforms. This has changed a lot over time. It used to be that you would have followers that would pick up anything you wrote from your RSS feed and then would distribute that to their readership. These days that's less of a thing and you need to distribute via one of the big social networks. Medium as a distribution platform is not that important. You still need the big social networks to share a link on. Not much difference with a self hosted blog. With Medium, there's definitely a problem. The platform is now so pushy towards it's readers that I can't justify parking any content there. Just not worth it. I've used dev.to on and off for some articles and I kind of liked that experience and I appreciate the community there. I tend to cross post on my own website still. But altogether it's far less often than I used to blog.

gabrielgio 4y ago

> Ghost, like Medium, is clean, it is minimal, but that is about where the similarities end. I don't think that website that loads 2,5Mb of js, keep making post request on every action, and shows pop ups on everything you hover/select clean and minimal. It may not be the worst, but not minimal on my book. That is not medium's fault, but there is even a 2,5Mb gif which takes almost half the size of page. Some people don't like mobile metered connection user.

stereoradonc 4y ago

Building communities is tough. Monetising them is even tougher. Whoever said Medium is a "blogging platform"? If you can't export your own data easily out of the platform, it's a terrible idea to build something from scratch. I'd stick with Telegram (channels, specifically) because I can automate them for content, and a WordPress blog because I own the medium (not the host). While I have been blogging for over 3 years, I stuck to a niche and don't care much about views. If you are shilling on crypto and web3 blockchain kind of trends, then it will definitely hurt your chances to monetise because of the payment cuts required for payment processors etc. Its best to have a clear pathway for premium content, be upfront to your readers, and explore other mediums to amplify your reach. The growth won't be sudden, but a slow tick-tock. It all depends on the external algorithms, which care about virality of content. A shameless plug to demonstrate the richness of content possible in Telegram (https://t.me/thecuriousloop https://t.me/thecuriousloop) The content is auto-posted from IFTTT as a manual curation from what I read. I save to a specific Raindrop folder where it gets auto-tweeted and auto-posted to LinkedIn. It allows for comments on all posts and you can post links/multimedia content. Those opting for premium version of Telegram service can upload 4GB files. I do post recommended books and have dedicated section on bypassing paywalls.

klelatti 4y ago

The key point is that if you know how to grow your publication without Medium’s help then Ghost is a great option. I’ve been using Ghost for my newsletter for actuaries using Python and Medium’s distribution would add no value for me at all. Plus the flexibility of Ghost’s integrations - eg with Discourse - is very useful. [1] https://www.joveactuarial.com https://www.joveactuarial.com

d4rkp4ttern 4y ago

For technical blogging, IMHO, the absolutely essential requirements are good support for math notation and code snippets (with nice syntax highlighting). So I am constantly surprised why technical bloggers write on medium, which supports neither.

kevsim 4y ago
I've also moved over to a self-hosted solution, but when using Medium previously, I just embedded GitHub gists for code blocks. Looks nice, has good syntax highlights, can get the raw gist, etc. Not ideal, but not terrible.
rainsil 4y ago
I wonder why they haven't implemented this after so many years. It can't be much more difficult than integrating highlight.js and MathJax, and it's lost them at least one big publication (Hackernoon)

rabite 4y ago

I wish Ghost supported Bitcoin and Monero, without a third party processor. Even Jack Dorsey has advertised it suggesting it could be decentralized with this single feature. I hope they get around to implementing this.

nsarafa 4y ago

John who founded Ghost is a stand up gentleman. Happy to see people supporting him and his open source community

lancesells 4y ago

> If you have used WordPress you’ll know that if you want to be serious, you need a hosting solution but WordPress doesn’t offer one Wordpress.com?

Nancyten 4y ago