Hosting a Ghost blog website for free — A Comparison [2021]

Ghost publishing platform is a great place for starting up with a free website or especially a blog. Ghost is open-source software built by previous developers of WordPress that offers in-built membership management, social media, SEO with a focus on blogging, works on a modern Node.js code, customizable beautiful themes, and SSL. Along with it comes with lots of Integrations with such as Adsense, Disqus & Zapier. These are few of the thing which every blogger aspire to have. You can look into a lot more things that Ghost has to offer here. This post is specifically highlighting the key differences between popular free Ghost Hosting providers.

In this Article we will compare 3 free Ghost Hosting providers i.e. Ghost (Pro) vs DigitalPress vs Mindspun (Formerly Ghoststead)

Note: Ghost (Pro) is offered by the same Ghost foundation which built the Ghost publishing platform. We are gonna compare these Hosting providers on a number of features/factors :

• Cost of setting up:

1. Ghost (Pro) — Free
2. DigitalPress — Free
3. Mindspun — Free

• Free Tier validity:

1. Ghost (Pro) — 14 Days Trial
2. DigitalPress — Truly Unlimited with 1GB storage
3. Mindspun — Unlimited until 20 posts/Page limit is reached

• Available Users:

1. Ghost (Pro) — Unlimited
2. DigitalPress — Unlimited*
3. Mindspun — Unlimited

*Not Clear

• User Interface:

1. Ghost (Pro) — Easy and informative
2. DigitalPress — Simple & Sleek
3. Mindspun — Simple & Sleek

• Themes:

1. Ghost (Pro) — Unlimited
2. DigitalPress — 13 free themes with no support for uploading/customizing new themes
3. Mindspun — 6 free themes plus the ability to upload more themes

Here the difference between free themes provided by all three is that Mindspun has their own logo branding on these themes whereas Ghost (Pro) and DigitalPress comes with Pristine Ghost brandings, which a potential user must alter themselves

• Connect to a Custom Domain:

1. Ghost (Pro) — Available
2. DigitalPress — Available
3. Mindspun — Available

• Customer Support:

1. Ghost (Pro) — Available*
2. DigitalPress — Email Based Support
3. Mindspun — Email Based Support

*Premium Support available, but Not clear whether applicable in the Trial period

• Key Restrictions:

1. Ghost (Pro) — only free for 14 days
2. DigitalPress — 1GB Storage/only 13 themes available
3. Mindspun — Only 20 posts/pages available

So these were the key points that should help you make a conscious decision which Ghost Hosting Provider to select if you want to do it for free. Based on your budget you can explore the different tiers provided by each of the platforms and choose one which fits your needs closely. Hope this article helps in your quest for free Ghost Hosting. Ciao!

Originally published at https://kushalbhalaik.xyz/blog on May 13, 2021.