Ghost vs Sanity
Pricing
Ghost: Self-host free, managed from $9/mo
Sanity: Free tier (3 users), Growth from $15/user/mo
Description
Ghost: Open source publishing platform for serious writers
Sanity: Headless CMS with a real-time collaborative editing studio and flexible content modeling
Pros
- Open source (MIT license)
- Built-in memberships and payments
- Fast and clean
- Generous free tier with 100K API requests/mo
- Highly customizable content studio built with React
- Real-time collaboration and structured content with GROQ query language
Cons
- Self-hosting needs technical skills
- Smaller plugin ecosystem than WP
- Steeper learning curve than traditional CMS platforms
- Costs scale with API usage and number of users
Details
Ghost is what WordPress wishes it still was: focused on writing. Founded by John O’Nolan (ex-WordPress core team) as a non-profit. Bootstrapped after getting rejected by YC twice. Now generated over $136M total, used by Apple, DuckDuckGo, Mozilla. You can self-host free or use their managed service.
Sanity is a headless CMS that separates content management from presentation, allowing you to deliver content to any frontend via API. Its open-source editing studio (Sanity Studio) is fully customizable with React components. Solo founders benefit from the generous free tier, but should be aware that costs can increase as traffic and team size grow.
Verified
