Why I Choose WordPress Over Ghost

In my recent post Back to the World, I said that I’ve considered switching to Ghost to get my blog back on-line. I even made 3 unpublished themes for Ghost. But why I decided to stick to WordPress finally?

Well, first reason is that this blog has been powered by WordPress since the very beginning. I get used to it. There is no transition barrier, I just need to import all of my old data with just a few clicks.

Second reason is I need more than just a pure word press platform. (Well, kinda ironic as when I say a pure word press platform I mean Ghost, but WordPress is actually doing a lot more than its name indicates.) I want to not only publish my words, but also showing off my photos, galleries etc. The post format feature introduced with WordPress 3.1 fits my needs perfectly. While Ghost in current stage only supports the most basic post format.

It is not to say that Ghost lacks features, actually it’s doing well as a newly publishing platform. Its development seems quite promising, you can take a look at their roadmap. Also, there are many beautiful themes for Ghost to choose from, or you can easily create your own unique theme to completely showing off your personality. With the help of handlebars, making a Ghost theme is way effortless than making a WordPress theme. If you know HTML and CSS, it’s pretty straight forward.

Speaking of theme, I must talk about Twenty Fourteen, the default WordPress theme in 2014. I think it’s really the most intrepid theme for WordPress ever, like they said in the intro video of WordPress 3.8. I admit I’ve got a crash on it the minute I saw it. However, the default 1260px width crashes it. Fortunately, the theme editor makes it possible to customize within the admin dashboard. And I’ve made it to adapt FHD screen, if you are viewing my website with a large screen you can see. In fact Twenty Fourteen is the third reason for me to choose WordPress.

The last reason is the most common barrier that keeps people away from Ghost and has already been argued by many people, is the deployment and hosting issue. Ghost requires node.js. Almost every hosting supports php, mysql while there’re only a few that support node.js. And there’s no auto install and upgrade mechanism for Ghost. Although there’s Ghost dedicated hosting company like Ghostify, the price is a bit high in my opinion.

So what is wrong with Ghost?

It’s nothing wrong with Ghost, it just doesn’t fits my needs when it comes to build my personal website in the current stage. Actually I like Ghost, and I will definitely follow the latest development of Ghost in the future.

If you’re looking for a complete comparison of WordPress and Ghost, this post may disappoint you. If it does, I’m sorry. The only suggestion I can give you is choosing the one that fits your needs. If you’re still tossing around, give both a try!