Jonah Aragon 

idk if any mutuals have/want a newsletter and want to switch to Ghost, but I will literally help you migrate to Ghost from your static site, Substack, whatever for free; just because I think Ghost and its recommendation network and its ActivityPub features are all so awesome 🙏

I *really* want to get the network effect going with an open-source platform and leave Substack in the dust. So yeah hmu lol

Sep 27, 2025 at 2:32pmWeb
Show threadAdam GreenfieldSep 27, 2025
@jonah You are *on*. This is exactly the help I need and I would be hugely grateful for assistance. DM me? *Thank you*.
Show threadAltonDooleySep 27, 2025

@jonah Been using Ghost to host my paleontology blog for several months, and have been very happy with it!

https://life-from-a-certain-point-of-view.ghost.io

Life...From a Certain Point of View

Paleontology and Other Thoughts on Science

Life...From a Certain Point of View
Show threadhairylarrySep 27, 2025

@jonah

I have been using Reverbnation for my free newsletter but it doesn't fit as well as it used to and it has a limit of 500 addresses without upgrading.

I run my own server with nginx on Ubuntu so it looks like I can install ghost.

Is this difficult or straightforward? Can I install to a subdomain?

Thanks

Show threadJonah Aragon Sep 28, 2025

@hairylarry the Docker install is most recommended now https://docs.ghost.org/install/docker

It’s pretty straightforward. Subdomain works perfectly. (Subdirectory shouldn’t be used because it isn’t compatible with ActivityPub.)

I think you *definitely* get the most benefit by combining your blog and newsletter into a single Ghost site, but either way works.

For now you will need to use Mailgun to actually send emails from Ghost. But search for instructions to switch to Mailgun’s (unadvertised) “Flex Plan” which makes it free to send 1000 emails per month (and $1 for each additional 1000, still cheap).

How To Install Ghost With Docker (preview) - Ghost Developer Docs

Preview our new batteries-included tools for self-hosting Ghost using Docker Compose.

Ghost Developer Docs
Show threadhairylarrySep 29, 2025

@jonah

The blog feature is good for me because it turns my newsletter into a monthly blog with a single place to find the newsletters.

Thanks for the install recommendations. The 1000 emails per month with mailgun will last me for a while.

Show threadjfml - Jonas LaugsSep 27, 2025
@jonah Whaaaat, I wasn't aware you could sent newsletters with Ghost, I'll check that out, thanks!
Show threadStephen CollinsSep 28, 2025
@jonah @voltagex we’re not mutual, but it is high time I had a personal site back up. And Ghost seems like the ideal backend. I shall investigate!
Show threadAdam ♿Sep 28, 2025
@trib Can recommend Ghost or a static site generator, depending on what kind of computer touching you want to do @jonah
Show threadStephen CollinsSep 28, 2025

@voltagex @jonah I speak reasonably decent WordPress on the back end, but coding isn’t my strong suit. Static would likely do the job, but something that plays Fedi would be nice. Just have to work out where I put it.

Minor DNS fuckery will be required as the zone file is looked after by Fastmail. I’ll probably need to source some simple hosting.

Show threadJonah Aragon Sep 28, 2025

@trib @voltagex I like https://www.pikapods.com for Ghost. The main benefit is them handling regular maintenance/updates. Of course if you want to DIY then anywhere works.

The fedi reader is an underrated part of Ghost I think. You can follow federated Ghost and Write.as blogs in Ghost and read the full articles there (unlike Mastodon which just displays links to articles you’re following)

PikaPods - Instant Open Source App Hosting

Run the finest Open Source web apps from $1.20/month, fully managed, no tracking, no ads, full privacy. Self-hosting was never this convenient.

Show threadMichael Bishop ☕Sep 28, 2025

@jonah

I have been wanting to run my own Ghost but unsure of setting up and the expense of the 3rd party email server that's required. Also, needing a VPS is an added expense beyond my current shared hosting account.

Show threadJonah Aragon Sep 28, 2025

@MichaelBishop I run my personal blog for a bit less than $5/month, $3-$4/month goes to Pikapods https://www.pikapods.com which I would highly recommend for Ghost hosting unless you like Linux and want to DIY, and $0-$1/month for Mailgun’s Flex Plan.

Pikapods is slightly more technical than just turnkey Ghost hosting like ghost.org or other providers offer, but you don’t really need to worry about maintenance/updates after setting it up which is the main reason I recommend it.

PikaPods - Instant Open Source App Hosting

Run the finest Open Source web apps from $1.20/month, fully managed, no tracking, no ads, full privacy. Self-hosting was never this convenient.

Show threadlilythemaidSep 28, 2025
@jonah Ghost has activity pub features now? :O
Show threadGeePawHillSep 28, 2025
@jonah I can't quite tell if I can self-host Ghost?
Show threadFarticle Accelerator🇨🇦Sep 28, 2025
@GeePawHill @jonah Yes...

docs.ghost.org/install

There are also a number of blogs out there that detail how to set it up via docker on various NAS systems.
How To Install Ghost - Ghost Developer Docs

The fastest way to get started is to set up a site on Ghost(Pro). If you're running a self-hosted instance, we strongly recommend an Ubuntu server with at least 1GB of memory to run Ghost.

Ghost Developer Docs
Show threadJulian HoferSep 28, 2025
@jonah i missed that ghost supports ActivityPub these days. Out of interest, did you ever compare Ghost with WriteAs?
Show threadJonah Aragon Sep 28, 2025

@ju yeah. I like it quite a lot more. Nothing big against write.as but I think Ghost’s newsletter features are better, the built-in ActivityPub *reader* for following other blogs is superb (I also just tested following a Write.as blog in Ghost yesterday and that works perfectly FWIW), and I think Ghost’s monetization features are really important for people who write regularly and don’t want to give their money to Substack or Patreon.

Also I’m a self-hosting nerd and I think Ghost is a lot better here. I’ve used WriteFreely but it feels like a product really designed for the write.as instance than general self-hosters.

Show threadJulian HoferSep 28, 2025
@jonah you convinced me to look further into this. I am happy with using my Astro-based static site for my own page, but I'd love to suggest people who want things to just work something different than WordPress.
Show threadfraaanSep 28, 2025

i'm this but for buttondown! ghost is super cool but not something i've messed w a ton.

i used to have a tinyletter and hopped ship when that got eaten so i've been set up on buttondown for a good year or two and it really serves all of my dinky little #email #newsletter needs. it's got #rss implementation and honestly what more could u want :^)


#email #newsletter #rss
Show threadDrewSep 28, 2025
@jonah I can also help anyone interested, Jonah might have too many people to help by now
Show threadBrandonSep 29, 2025
@crmsnbleyd @jonah I'm happy to offer some assistance to if you all get swamped. Wrote a bit about my setup here: https://krrd.ing/self-hosting-ghost/
Self Hosting Ghost

I thought I'd detail my process of self hosting ghost, in case it'd help anyone. It's required quite a bit of tinkering to get fully setup (but half of that is probably self-inflicted).

KRRD
Show threadbit101Sep 28, 2025
@jonah I don't need this, but I applaud what you are doing.
Show threadStephanie BoothSep 29
Looks like it’s time for me to get another Ghost/WordPress comparison
Show threadTheolodianSep 29
@jonah every time that I click on your profile, the Mastodon app for iOS crashes hard. So that’s interesting. 🤨
Show threadHugh EvansSep 29
Any experience migrating from Jekyll? I've been mulling the move for a while but wasn't sure if I'd have to reformat all my blogs
Show threadStevenSavage (he/him)Sep 30
@jonah I plan to "eventually" so following you as a way to remind myself ;)
Show threadcwicseolforSep 30
@jonah This is important work, good on you.
Show threadsiderealSep 30
@jonah they deleted my old blog because they decided to stop charging my card. Self hosting is the way to go lol
Show threadJonah Aragon Sep 30
@sidereal yeah self-hosting is definitely the way to go
Show threadYaakovOct 1
@jonah hey, do you have any good links or references for getting AP set up? I’ve tried both self hosted and their server and neither seem to actually work properly
Show threadJonah Aragon Oct 1
@yaakov what’s the issue you’re seeing? I use self-hosted on one blog and theirs on another without trouble.
Show threadYaakovOct 1
@jonah the page in the admin panel stopped working so I tried turning it off and back on, and the last I tried I got stuck here: https://github.com/TryGhost/ActivityPub/issues/1281
HTTP 500 with no further details ¡ Issue #1281 ¡ TryGhost/ActivityPub

I'm running both ghost:6-alpine and activitypub:1.1.0 in podman and have nginx terminating both. I have the reverse proxy configured as per ghost 6 release notes. When I enable ActivityPub under Se...

GitHub
Show threadJonah Aragon Oct 1
@yaakov is your admin panel on a different subdomain? And you are on 6.0.3 or higher? Because that version fixed an AP bug in the initial release. Feels like an nginx issue so maybe posting your config could help... I use Caddy though which works perfectly.