[debacle]

I didn't realize Ghost was a non-profit. Very noble. The feedback in Github is interesting. Ghost is probably more likely to have issues with demanding users than, say, mongodb.

Very cool and inspiring post. That said:

- Ghost's marketing materials tend to outright lie to users when making comparisons to WordPress or other platforms.

- I dislike OSS projects that hide their OSS nature. Why does a user need to pay $29/mo for an entry level blog? Why isn't there any obvious mention of the OSS nature of the project on the pricing page, home page, or features page?

- What's been done about the memory issues? Last time I tried ghost, it was a bit of a memory hog.

[prophesi]

Homepage says it's FOSS, features page says it's FOSS, the developer page links to a giant Download button.

And how is it lying about their comparisons? It is indeed simpler to set up a Ghost site than a Wordpress site, and has more features out-of-the-box that you'd otherwise have to download sketchy plugins for with Wordpress/etc.

[chipotle_coyote]

> It is indeed simpler to set up a Ghost site than a Wordpress site...

I...am not sure about that. WordPress, for all its warts, is exceedingly easy for even non-technical users to get up and running; that was a huge contributing factor to its rise. And a large part of that ease of use came from its choice of PHP and MySQL.

I know that in 2018 it's a lot easier to get non-PHP web apps up and running than it was in, say, 2008, but with the exception of hosting providers that have gone out of their way to set up "one-click installs" for Ghost like Digital Ocean, Node, Python, et. al, are still harder. This is something that John Nolan's post pretty explicitly acknowledged:

"We spent several years trying to engineer our way out of this in increasingly complex ways, so that people could set up a publication on Ghost with the same level of ease as they do on Medium. We never even got close. It's just not how modern web technology works."

(And, no, "just use a Docker container" is not a viable answer to give to anyone who doesn't already know what container technology is. Sorry.)

[prophesi]

That quote is in context to using decentralized versus centralized technologies.

> Decentralised platforms fundamentally cannot compete on ease of setup. Nothing beats the UX of signing up for a centralised application.

And self-hosting Ghost is just as simple as Wordpress. Instead of sudo apt-get install'ing apache and PHP, you're sudo apt-get install'ing nginx and nodejs. The ghost installer handles the rest.

[debacle]

Two quick examples: A baseline WP host is not $50 a month. Ghost is not 20 times faster than WP.

[johnonolan]

We do managed hosting, so the comparison is to "Managed WP Hosting" - which is exactly what the page says. Here's an example of a managed WP host: https://wpengine.com/plans/

Here is an independent speed test which finds Ghost (more specifically: Node) to be up to 1900% faster than WP - https://blog.appdynamics.com/engineering/example-node-js-fas...

We don't make baseless claims and we're not in the business of lying to anyone.

[detaro]

Why are they a fair comparison point, and not e.g. wordpress.com?

[johnonolan]

Shared hosting - $1.99, here's your server, good luck

Managed hosting - $29, you get your own server, app, automation, backups, and 24/7 support to make sure everything is working great

Centralised, multi-tenant application - $0-$9, you get no server. You get access to our app for your use. You cannot modify it or run any third party code.

We do managed hosting - and managed WP hosts... also do managed hosting. That's why it's a reasonable comparison point.

WordPress.com is not managed hosting. It's a heavily modified centralised multi-tenant application which loosely resembles WordPress. It does not run the open source codebase at all.

[georgestephanis]

Hi. I've worked for WordPress.com for the past five years. It does run the open source WordPress codebase, and we sync changes from the open source project to WordPress.com regularly.

:vanishes in a puff of php:

[bwoj]

WPEngine is specifically in the business of selling fast WordPress hosting. It actually makes for a more honest comparison. Comparing to Wordpress.com should give you better numbers.

[prophesi]

That's for a managed WP host. I agree that the $50/mo price comes out of nowhere, but you're still not going to find one for $20/mo as you would with Ghost.

Ghost is 20 times faster. And once you add a single WP plugin, it's 100 times faster.

[wolco]

Can't find 20 dollars a month for a managed wp?

For 4 dollars a month you can.

https://www.siteground.com/wpbeginner-managed

50 dollars a month seems extremely costly. For that amount $600 a year it would be cheaper to hire someone to self host for you.

[vezycash]

There's $1-2 monthly hosting for WP

[extra88]

Isn't Dreampress a comparably affordable managed Wordpress host?

https://www.dreamhost.com/wordpress/

[oddevan]

I imagine there's a difference between "managed hosting" (host handles OS/package updates and maintains your LAMP stack) and "managed WordPress hosting" (host handles all of the above AND core WordPress updates, basic security, etc).

[extra88]

Dreampress's non-shared hosting plans include "Wordpress Service Updates" which surely includes core Wordpress updates and updates to plugins they include, like Jetpack. It might also cover updating a list of the most popular plugins.

For security beyond running updated software, it includes a Wordpress-tuned web application firewall and the $24.95/month tier includes "Malware Scanning & Repair."

[michaeltbuss]

Their home page at ghost.org literally says "Ghost is a fully open source, adaptable platform for building and running a modern online publication" at the top.

[throwbacktictac]

After reading this comment I went to check for myself. However I believe the grandfather post still has a valid point. It's not "obvious" how to use the self hosting open source version.

However, I'm pretty sure a person that was really interested in self hosting would not have trouble figuring it out.

I don't necessarily think it's bad that they don't emphasize how to use the open source version. After all, it is a business.

[slim]

They are claiming it is not a business

[throwbacktictac]

They didn't claim to not be a business in the blog post. They are a non-profit business. They still need to earn money to pay bill, pay employees, etc.

"Being a non-profit means that the company has no shares. I don't own it. Hannah doesn't own it. Nobody owns it - it's an independent entity. The company makes money and pays expenses, salaries and taxes as normal - but there's no way for it to be bought or sold either in part (investment) or as a whole (aquisition). Any profit the company makes can only ever be reinvested, not distributed. We can't cash out. Ever. Also the entire product is open source and has no copyright. Anyone can do whatever they want with our code, for free."

[jonesetc]

I poked around the mobile site and couldn't find any of what you're saying. Then I checked non-mobile and there it is up front. So possibly the parent poster was only looking at mobile.

For reference the mobile homepage only says "The professional publishing platform"

[debacle]

And where is the github link on the home page, or the pricing page?

[r3bl]

In the footer, in both of the cases.

[mcguire]

Under "Developers"?

[394852034]

I really wish there was not so much damn confusion about what non-profit and not-for-profit actually mean. They do not mean that the organizations are some altruistic organizations with helper complexes. They simply don't report any profits because they either put it into expansion, inefficiency, or simply heap the profits upon their executives. So while you are heaping wishful and magic thinking good karma on non-profits, you don't realize a huge number of them, essentially far more of them than not, are more or less fraudulent organizations, especially on the federal and global level. While you donate to do good, their executives and officers live like Princes and Kings while they spend just enough to generate marketing and PR materials so the fools will keep giving and donating and volunteering and supporting their little schemes.

I know people don't want to believe that and it's a difficult thing to accept, which is why most people just cling to the "non-profit" label, but reality is realty, whether you accept it or not.

[a_imho]

Very noble.

I was under the impression being setup as a non profit grants various tax optimization strategies / returns. Which can be probably redistributed as salary.

[chatmasta]

There is a place for this sort of cynicism, for example when looking at Zuckerberg’s structure of his “family trust.”

But in this case it’s really an absurd implication. There is literally no personal benefit to founders making their company a non-profit. Yes they can pull salary from it, but they could do that in a for-profit company too. Not only that, but it’s impossible to sell a 501c3 non-profit because there are no shares. It can only dissolve, in which case the board must distribute any remaining assets to another non-profit.

[a_imho]

I don't understand what's absurd about it, you can keep more money if you save on your taxes (both the company's and personal? I don't know how the US system works).

I don't argue being a non-profit is a cause for suspicion in case of a saas, I just don't see why would it be noble.

[chatmasta]

It’s absurd because if you sit down and do the math, you’ll find there are basically no monetary advantages to paying yourself out of a 501c3 vs LLC/SCorp/CCorp. And even if you did find an advantage, there is no way it saves more money than you could make by selling your company. You cannot sell a non profit.

[a_imho]

Still don't understand, when your organization pays less tax, you have more money to pay yourself, thus your salary will be higher.

Conversely, there is little to no reason for being setup as a non-profit in Ghost's case.

[1]https://www.upcounsel.com/llc-vs-nonprofit

[chatmasta]

You do have a point, but it’s a marginal gain at best. Unless you’re operating on razor thin profit margins, it’s not going to make a significant difference in how much you have available to pay yourself. And when you do pay yourself, you and the company need to pay taxes, even if the company is exempt from some income tax.

But really the important point is you cannot sell your company. How many years of 10% extra salary is worth sacrificing your ability to liquidate all the blood sweat and tears you put into your company?

[johnonolan]

We pay full corporation taxes and receive no tax benefits of any kind.

As mentioned several times in this thread, our company is based in Singapore, not the US. The structures, laws and taxes are not equivalent.

I wrote a post about this a while back here: https://john.onolan.org/what-it-means-to-be-non-profit/

[harveynick]

They're a non-profit, not a charity. In the podcast linked to in this post they say quite specifically that being a non-profit doesn't give them tax advantages.

[wolco]

Is the salary information public?

Because one can cash out through a 500k a year salary

[chatmasta]

Or one could just incorporate as a for-profit in the first place, and pay a $500k salary. There is basically no advantage to paying yourself $500k at a 501c3 vs a for-profit, and certainly not one that outweighs the many disadvantages. Employees need to pay taxes just as they would at any corporation, and the company needs to pay their withholdings. The only payroll tax a 501c3 is exempt from is FUTA (federal unemployment tax).

Seriously, looking for nefarious motivation here is really grasping at straws.

[j16sdiz]

... 501c3 ..

They are a Singapore non-profit. https://blog.ghost.org/moving-to-singapore/