Ghost vs WordPress is one of the most interesting comparisons searched by people who want to start a blog. In recent times, a new platform "Superblog" is being considered a great alternative for Ghost and WordPress by many professional bloggers. In this article, we will compare Ghost vs WordPress vs Superblog for the following aspects.
- Performance
- SEO
- Who is it for?
- Features
- Ease of use
- Setup and Maintenance
- Design and Readability
- Best Practices
Contents
1. Performance
Ghost
Ghost is fast. Faster than WordPress. But if you are using the Ghost open-source version then you will need to have a powerful server to get good performance. If your Ghost blog gets more traffic or you keep adding more content then your Ghost blog becomes slow. You need to keep monitoring the performance and upscale your server and database to keep up the maintenance. On the other hand, if you use the Ghost Cloud version, the server upscaling is done automatically but you will still need to optimize the performance of your Ghost blog manually.
WordPress
WordPress is notorious for bad performance. WordPress blogs slow down very occasionally even if your blog doesn't have a huge amount of traffic or content. You have to keep a constant watch to make sure your WordPress blog doesn't slow down. You might think, to avoid this, you can simply use WordPress cloud hosting but even that might be equally bad as maintaining your own server for a WordPress blog. The underlying reason for this is the number of plugins and the kind of WordPress theme you use for your WordPress blog. In general, WordPress is a very heavy blogging engine.
Superblog
Superblog is extremely fast. The performance remains the same even if your blog gets 1 million visitors or you add tons of content. It is due to the fact that Superblog's technology is independent of servers. And because it is a managed cloud blogging platform you don't need to keep monitoring the performance. As a bonus, Superblog compresses your images and optimizes your embeds automatically.
The performance aspect of Ghost vs WordPress vs Superblog is clearly dominated by Superblog because performance is an important ranking factor.
2. SEO
Ghost
Ghost is great for SEO. You will need to install plugins to optimize your blog for on-page SEO and technical SEO. Constant monitoring of SEO scores is required by doing periodic audits. If you are not able to score high on audits then you might need to hire freelancers or full-time experts to do the optimization for you. Most SEO experts recommend you to use the blog on a subdirectory instead of a subdomain. It is incredibly tough to use Ghost blog on a subdirectory.
WordPress
WordPress is extremely customizable and can be optimized very well for SEO. It can be done manually or by using plugins that are huge in number. But you have to be careful to not slow the blog by installing many plugins. In addition to that, you have to choose a theme that is SEO-friendly. Once your WordPress is optimized for SEO, you need to keep monitoring the same via site audits. It takes a lot of time to score high in SEO audits. Most SEO experts recommend you to use the blog on a subdirectory instead of a subdomain and it is incredibly tough to use WordPress on a subdirectory.
Superblog
Superblog is SEO optimized out-of-the-box. You will never have to spend any time optimizing your blog or monitoring how your blog fares in SEO. You can create your Superblog and keep writing content instead of focusing on SEO for your blog. Superblog even fixes technical SEO errors. It is very easy to use Superblog on a subdirectory. Most SEO experts recommend to use blog on a subdirectory.
You can audit your blog for SEO using official Google's audit tool: https://web.dev/measure. In this round of Ghost vs WordPress vs Superblog for SEO comparison, Superblog takes the cake!
3. Who is it for?
Ghost
Ghost platform is targeted at individual publishers and bloggers who want to monetize their content. Product features are aligned in that direction. However, there is a decent plugin ecosystem to extend the Ghost blog for other cases as well. Many businesses and casual bloggers use Ghost because of the ease of use when compared to WordPress.
WordPress
WordPress started as a blogging platform and evolved into a general-purpose tech stack. You can use WordPress to build a landing page website, blog, travel booking site, e-commerce portal, hospital management system, or anything else. Choose WordPress for your use case very cautiously as it will add a lot of overhead otherwise.
Superblog
Superblog is for startups and businesses that want to have an SEO-focused blog that just works! You can focus on writing content instead of spending time on setup, maintenance, and SEO because superblog takes care of them automatically.
4. Features
Superblog
- Pages
- Team Roles
- Lead generation forms
- Custom code
- Strategic Call-to-action buttons
- Limited theme customization
- Auto SEO optimization
- Auto sitemap generations
- No server maintenance
- Auto image optimization
Ghost and WordPress blogs can be customized to fit any use case but the problem is that it will take a lot of effort for you to get the basics right. Superblog, on the other hand, provides everything in-built. All you have to do is to keep writing content and experiment with your strategies.
5. Ease of use
Ghost
Ghost is moderately easy to use. There is some learning curve to getting started with Ghost.
WordPress
WordPress requires a steep learning curve. The more and more you want to get a good experience from your blog, the more effort you need to put in.
Superblog
Superblog is probably the easiest when compared to Ghost vs WordPress. You can setup your Superblog in a few minutes and it gets out of your way. You can focus on writing content and never think about the technical aspects of your blog.
6. Setup and Maintenance
Ghost
Using the Ghost open-source version involves getting a cloud server, installing Ghost software (database + dashboard + CMS), and setting up SSL, CDN, and backups. If you use the Ghost Cloud version, these steps can be avoided. But then again, in both of these scenarios, you need to setup the blog, configure it, find a good theme, install integrations, optimize the blog for SEO, and make sure it loads fast.
Then you need regular monitoring and maintenance of the server and security (in the case of the open-source version) and the Ghost integrations, SEO, and performance of your Ghost blog.
WordPress
WordPress also requires similar effort as Ghost blog if not more effort to setup and maintain your blog.
Superblog
Superblog is the easiest of all three to setup and to maintain your blog. You can create a superblog, connect your domain and go live in less than two minutes. After that Superblog takes care of auto-optimizing your blog for SEO, Speed, Design, and Readability.
7. Design and Readability
Ghost
Ghost blog is absolutely gorgeous by default. In fact, Ghost is considered a minimal alternative to WordPress. Then you need to customize the blog to make sure the font, design, and spacing are good enough to make your Ghost blog optimal for reading.
WordPress
WordPress is decent enough to start with. You need to spend a considerable amount of time finding the right theme and plugins to make your WordPress blog look beautiful. After that, you need to make sure the theme uses and plugins make the content readable. Even the fonts used are a parameter to the readability of the blog.
Superblog
Superblog is designed to be beautiful and readable. Superblog takes care of UI/UX/RX for every feature so that you don't have to spend time customizing the blog. The more beautiful and readable your blog is, the more time your readers will spend on your blog. This is a very good signal to Google that people are loving your blog and hence an important ranking factor.
8. Best Practices
Every blog needs to follow a certain structure so that the readers will spend a good amount of time reading the blog post and find strategically placed "Lead generation forms" or "Call to Action" buttons to bring them to your product/service's landing page.
In WordPress and Ghost, you need to consciously design this flow to make sure you are converting your blog readers into your audience/customers. Or hire an expert to setup all these best practices.
However, Superblog has these best practices built-in.
For example:
- Superblog shows a "Lead-generation" form below every post. If the blog visitors like your post, they might consider signing up for your service or product by looking at the form.
- Likewise, Superblog shows a "Description box" beneath the form instead of "Author bio" so that if a blog visitor finds your "description" aka "the pitch" appealing, they will click the "Call-to-Action" button and end up on your landing page.
A number of such well-thought best practices are provided by Superblog automatically.
Conclusion
Ghost vs WordPress vs Superblog can be summarised into three simple lines based on the above analysis.
Use WordPress, if you have time/money to spend on the technical side of setting up and maintaining a blog. Also, the huge ecosystem is a big bonus.
Use Ghost, if you want a beautiful alternative to WordPress but you still need to spend time on maintenance, optimization, and best practices or if you are looking for a publishing platform for individuals.
Use Superblog, if you want a blogging platform that *just works* where you can focus on writing content instead of the technicalities of setting up and maintaining an SEO-focused blog for your business/product/startup.
