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What is Ghost CMS?

The open-source operating system for the creator economy.

Ghost is the world’s most popular open-source newsletter and publishing platform. It was built as a direct reaction against the bloat of WordPress and the "walled gardens" of Substack and Medium.

With Ghost, you don't just own your content; you own the customer relationship. It includes native SEO, memberships, subscriptions, and email newsletters out of the box—no plugins required.

⚠️ The Reality of Self-Hosting

Because Ghost is open-source, you can download it for free. But "free" software often costs the most in time. Many developers think self-hosting is just running a simple installer.

It is not. To run a production-ready Ghost instance that sends emails reliably and handles traffic, you aren't just managing an app. You are managing an entire stack of invisible dependencies.

The "Hidden Stack" Checklist

If you self-host manually, you are responsible for installing, configuring, and updating all of these:

✖
Node.js Environment: Ghost requires specific, often legacy versions of Node.js. If you update your server OS and Node auto-updates, your site crashes.
✖
MySQL 8 Database: You must install and secure the database, manage users, and perform manual dumps for backups.
✖
Nginx Reverse Proxy: You need to manually configure Nginx config blocks to route traffic and handle SSL termination.
✖
Transactional Email (The Hard Part): Ghost cannot send emails on its own. You must configure a relay (SMTP) with Mailgun or SendGrid, set up DKIM/SPF records, and debug connection timeouts.
✖
Systemd & Process Management: You need to configure a process manager (like systemd) to ensure Ghost restarts if the server reboots.

What "Just Installing It" Looks Like

Here is a glimpse of the manual configuration required just to get the database and email talking to each other:

# 1. Installing Dependencies (Hope for no version conflicts)
root@vps:~/ghost# apt-get install nginx mysql-server nodejs npm

# 2. Editing Config (Don't make a typo or site goes dark)
root@vps:~/ghost# nano config.production.json
"database": {
  "client": "mysql",
  "connection": {
    "host": "127.0.0.1",
    "user": "ghost-user",
    "password": "complex_password"
  }
},
"mail": {
  "transport": "SMTP",
  "options": {
    "service": "Mailgun",
    "auth": { ... }

# 3. Trying to start...
root@vps:~/ghost# ghost start
Message: 'EACCES: permission denied, open '/var/www/ghost/content/logs/production.log'
Error: MySQL Connection Refused. Check port 3306.

Do you want to debug MySQL permissions, or do you want to write content?

The Leapjuice Way

We engineered the infrastructure so you don't have to. We treat Ghost as a Managed SaaS, not just a server install.

✔
Pre-Configured Stack: We automate the deployment of MySQL 8, Nginx, Redis Caching, and Node.js.
✔
Email Solved: We inject enterprise-grade SMTP relays (SendGrid/Mailgun) automatically. Your newsletters land in the Inbox, not Spam.
✔
Google Cloud Power: Your instance runs on C4D AI Processors with Hyperdisk storage (500MB/s), ensuring your site loads instantly for readers.
✔
Auto-Healing: If a database service hangs, our orchestration engine detects it and restarts it instantly.
Deploy Managed Ghost

Starts at $29/mo. Deploys in 60 seconds.

Who is this for?

Writers & Journalists: Use Ghost to launch a paid newsletter business (like Substack) but keep 100% of the revenue (minus Stripe fees).

Startups: Use Ghost as a beautiful, high-performance company blog that ranks highly on Google thanks to our Premium Tier Network.

YouTubers: Centralize your audience. Algorithms change; your email list is yours forever.