head to head · open source
Ghost vs nodepress
Ghost has 55,339 GitHub stars, 11,975 forks, 182 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nodepress has 1,524 stars, 308 forks, 17 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. Ghost leads on adoption by 3,531% (55,339 vs 1,524 stars). Ghost is written in TypeScript under MIT; nodepress is written in TypeScript under MIT. Ghost has attracted 22% as many forks as stars, nodepress 20%. Ghost was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (cms), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Ghost | nodepress | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 55K | ★ 1.5K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-06-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 12K | ⑂ 308 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Ghost if
- You weight community size — 55K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick nodepress if
- You want the nodepress feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and nodepress fits your workflow better
About Ghost
Ghost is an open source publishing platform built in Node.js and TypeScript, designed for blogs, newsletters, and membership based content sites. It runs as a self hosted web application and also powers Ghost(Pro), a managed service where all revenue supports the Ghost Foundation. The project lives in the JavaScript/Node.js ecosystem and is licensed under MIT.
read the full Ghost overview →
About nodepress
NodePress is a TypeScript based headless content management system API service for the surmon.me blog, built with NestJS. It provides a RESTful blog API service, while the frontend, administration, native application, and AI agent are separate related projects. The project lives in the NestJS and TypeScript ecosystem, and it is released under the MIT license.
read the full nodepress overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ghost or nodepress more popular?
Ghost has 55,339 GitHub stars and nodepress has 1,524. Ghost has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ghost and nodepress free?
Both are open source. Ghost is licensed under MIT and nodepress under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ghost and nodepress?
Ghost is written in TypeScript and nodepress in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Ghost or nodepress?
Choose Ghost if you want the larger community (55,339 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose nodepress if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.