head to head · open source
Ghost vs publify
Ghost has 55,658 GitHub stars, 12,130 forks, 182 open issues and last shipped yesterday. publify has 1,855 stars, 3,617 forks, 86 open issues and last shipped 8 days ago. Ghost leads on adoption by 2,900% (55,658 vs 1,855 stars). Ghost is written in TypeScript under MIT; publify is written in Less under MIT. Ghost has attracted 22% as many forks as stars, publify 195%. Ghost was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | publify | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 56K | ★ 1.9K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Less |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-26 |
| Forks | ⑂ 12K | ⑂ 3.6K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Ghost if
- You weight community size — 56K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick publify if
- You want the publify feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Less
- You evaluated both and publify fits your workflow better
About Ghost
Ghost.org • Forum • Docs • Contributing • Twitter [!NOTE] Love open source? We're hiring! Ghost is looking staff engineers to join the team and work with us full time The easiest way to get a production instance deployed is with our official Ghost(Pro) managed service. It takes about 2 minutes to launch a new site with worldwide CDN, backups, security and maintenance all done for you. For most people this ends up being the best value option because of how much time it saves — and 100% of revenue goes to the Ghost Foundation; funding the maintenance and further development of the project itself. So you’ll be…
read the full Ghost overview →
About publify
Publify The Ruby on Rails publishing software formerly known as Typo What's Publify? Publify is a simple but full featured web publishing software. It's built around a blogging engine and a small message system connected to Twitter. Publify follows the principles of the IndieWeb, which are self hosting your Web site, and Publish On your Own Site, Syndicate Everywhere. Publify has been around since 2004 and is the oldest Ruby on Rails open source project alive. Features A classic multi user blogging engine Short messages with a Twitter connection Text filters (Markdown, SmartyPants, @mention to link, hashtag to…
read the full publify overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ghost or publify more popular?
Ghost has 55,658 GitHub stars and publify has 1,855. Ghost has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ghost and publify free?
Both are open source. Ghost is licensed under MIT and publify under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ghost and publify?
Ghost is written in TypeScript and publify in Less. 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 publify?
Choose Ghost if you want the larger community (55,658 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose publify if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.