Is the publishing platform ready for prime time?
Check Ghost.org’s own example: Ali Abdaal — a page they advertise as an example of a great Ghost setup, on the Ghost.org homepage.
Have you ever happened upon a page that loads slower?
This is the most horrible code you can imagine. Ghost loves javascript.
Javascript that messes up your browser’s processing, resulting in jerky scrolling!
In 2024!? Who wants jerky scrolling?
We’ve discovered several problems with Ghost’s cache settings. When a new user happens to visit your Ghost page, your page is not updated.
The Ghost installation does not fetch the updated content until a new user requests it, through visiting your page. Only then does Ghost wake up to update the page.
Ghost has a cache problem
Only the second visitor to your page will actually see the new and updated page. And this does not work each and every time either. This is a bad solution, but the staff did not want to acknowledge the problem. They acted like there was no problem, first denying the set-up, then later shrugging it off as “part of the system design” after we’d exhausted every avenue to try to fix the problem.
For clarification; we tried to fix this problem because Ghost staff told us that the problem did not lie with them. Only after lots of checks we realized that the Ghost staffer did not know about this set-up, and had to learn about it from our findings. After learning about it, the suppor staffer then suddenly said that it was part of the system – even though she had never heard about it just a few hours earlier.
Ghost is a joke. Avoid at all costs. Spend a few weeks learning WordPress instead and find a good host for both your domains and your wordpress installations.
You get much more freedom with your own WordPress installation at a reputable host, and it’s not more complicated to use than Ghost. If you find a responsive host/ISP who replies quickly to your support questions it’s miles better than the small Ghost team, who take days to reply to a question.
Don’t use WordPress.com though, it’s a giant money pit / subscription scam, where they charge you for every little extra feature.
You even have to pay to add extra email addresses or simple things like re-using a theme you’ve already bought on another of your wordpress.com domains. That won’t happen if you use an independent ISP’s WordPress setup.
Avoid Ghost.org.
