5 Best Hosting Providers for Ghost.org Blogs
Ghost.org is a beginner-friendly, easy-to-use and clean blogging platform. It’s not as popular as WordPress, and unlike WordPress, which is a full-blown content management system, Ghost.org is limited to blogging only. If your blog is more focused on reading and writing than it is on creating call to actions, signups or complex layouts, then Ghost is an excellent choice. It’s an open-source, Node.js based system with a focus on distraction-free writing and unmatched simplicity. Ghost.org is endorsed by Envato Market, whose Inside.Envato blog uses Ghost.
If you’re looking for a hosting for your Ghost.org blog, it means you haven’t opted for their Ghost(Pro) package, which starts at $19/month and includes software installation, maintenance, updates, backups, CDN, and essentially all the features you can expect from a good hosting provider. It’s limited however in the number of blogs you can create (just 1) and the number of views (25,000), although this number is a soft limit (they won’t shut your blog down if you go over the limit). For more blogs and views, you’ll have to opt for their higher tier plans, which can cost between $39/month and $199/month. Those looking to have full control over their blogs – and that includes everything from monetization to security – a self-hosted option is more suitable. But what hosting type should you choose for your Ghost.org blog? Will a simple shared hosting do? Or you need to choose from more powerful hosting types?
So these are the best ghost blog hosting providers we recommend:
| Company | From | ||
|---|---|---|---|
# 1 |
 |
$29.99 / mo |
|
# 2 |
 |
$14.99 / mo |
|
# 3 |
 |
$14.99 / mo |
|
# 4 |
 |
$39.95 / mo |
|
# 5 |
 |
$20.00 / mo |
How to Choose Web Hosting for Your Ghost.org Blog?
A shared hosting plan would normally be the hosting type one would choose for a blog, especially in the early stages of its development, however, seeing that Ghost runs on Node.js, finding a shared hosting plan that has support for it is akin to searching for a needle in a haystack. The best course of action is opting for a managed or unmanaged VPS plan, depending on your technical skills. A VPS is by far better than a shared hosting type, with dedicated resources, root access and full control over the apps and scripts you choose to install on the server. Installing Ghost.org on a host is not easy, however, some hosting providers will have step-by-step tutorials to help you out. A VPS plan is also not the cheapest option, but there are several affordable and reliable hosting providers with entry-level and advanced VPS plans.
When choosing a VPS hosting – apart from RAM, storage, and bandwidth considerations – you also need to look out for other features like the type of control panel they come with, whether or not there are backups included, free domains, the number of IP addresses, server management, SSH access, dedicated support, and software licenses included. Your blog may expand with time and you may need to add extra server resources to your plan, so a hosting provider that makes it easy for you to upgrade is also worth noting.
While a shared hosting would have probably been a good fit for your blog, shared hosting plans can’t compete with the dedicated resources and performance offered even by an entry-level VPS plan.
5 Best Hosting for Ghost.org Blogs
The hosting companies hand-picked for our list of the top hosting providers for Ghost blogs provide both entry-level and advanced VPS plans to help you kick-start your blog in a reliable, performant and customizable hosting environment.
InMotion Hosting
If you’re looking for a performance-driven, high-availability and feature-rich VPS plan for your Ghost.org blog, you should absolutely consider InMotion’s cloud-powered SSD VPS hosting plans. Of the three VPS plans offered by this premium hosting provider, the VPS-1000HA-S plan is the most affordable, costing only $29.99/month. The plan includes 4 GB RAM, 60 GB storage, 2 TB bandwidth, and 2 IP addresses. If you anticipate that your blog is going to be needing more resources, you can opt for other InMotion VPS plans with up to 8 GB RAM, 200 GB storage, 4 TB bandwidth, and 3 IP addresses.
Whichever plan you decide to choose, you’ll get free server management, free cPanel licence, free SSDs, CentOS and LAMP stack, free backups, unlocked CPU cores, free domain name if you commit to a 6-month or 12-month plan, unlimited domains/websites allowed, unlimited email accounts, resource monitoring dashboard, ecommerce optimized server environment, 90-day money-back guarantee, SSH access and optional root access. InMotion also includes up to 30 free cPanel account transfers with all their plans. This is a limited time offer.
InMotion’s knowledgebase includes a step-by-step tutorial on how to install, setup and configure Ghost.
BlueHost
Although BlueHost are known especially for their WordPress optimized hosting plans, their plans are compatible with other CMSs as well, including Ghost.org. BlueHost’s entry-level VPS plan is the epitome of affordability, currently costing only $14.99/month. For this price, this Standard VPS hosting plan includes 2 CPU cores, 30 GB SAN storage, 2 GB RAM, and 1 TB bandwidth. This plan also includes a free domain name and 1 IP address. BlueHost’s higher level plans offer up to 4 CPU cores, 240 GB SAN, 8 GB RAM, 4 TB bandwidth, 1 included domain, and 2 IP addresses.
All plans include 24/7 support, 30-day money-back guarantee, KVM and OpenStack open-source technology, enhanced cPanel, instant provisioning, dynamic storage expansion, full root access to CentOS, multi-server management, SSH access, access control, and optional spam protection, SiteLock, Site Backup Pro, etc.
BlueHost have always managed to create a balance between affordability and performance, which is why they are a major actor of the webhosting landscape.
HostMonster
Whether you need a hosting service for a personal or professional website or blog, HostMonster is a solid service with a reliable server infrastructure and well thought out plans. The VPS plans they offer are definitely on the affordable end on the pricing spectrum, with the highest VPS plan costing only $59.99/month (Quad core, 8 GB RAM, 240 GB storage, 4 TB bandwidth, free domain name, 2 IPs, CentOS 6.5). They offer managed servers built on a powerful cloud technology. All plans come with instant provisioning, cPanel included, root access, advanced cloud technology like OpenStack and KVM, guaranteed server resources, and multi-account management.
Their Standard VPS plan now costs only $14.99/month – which is the same price as BlueHost’s Standard VPS plan – and it includes a dual core CPU, 2 GB RAM, 30 GB storage, 1 TB bandwidth, free domain name, 1 IP, and CentOS 6.5 (64-bit).
HostMonster’s VPS technology will offer you the flexibility, power and control to launch and manage your Ghost.org blog as you see fit.
GreenGeeks
GreenGeeks was established in 2008, and it has been independently owned ever since. This means that it’s a non-Endurance International Group hosting, which is the parent company of many hosting brands including BlueHost and HostMonster. Apart from not having an affiliation with EIG, GreenGeeks is also a green hosting company, that is, they power their data centers by relying solely on renewable energy.
GreenGeeks offer 5 different VPS plans that are fast, reliable and flexible. The smallest VPS hosting plan costs $39.95/month and has 25 GB SSD RAID-10 Storage included, 1 GB RAM, 1,000 GB premium bandwidth, 4 Cores CPU, and free quick provision. If you’re looking for a more resource abundant plan, you can go as high as 8 GB RAM, 125 GB SSD RAID-10 Storage, 3,000 GB premium bandwidth, 4 cores CPU. Whichever VPS plan you choose, you’ll get free cPanel/WHM license included, free server management, free eNom domain reseller account, free nightly backups, free migration service, full root access, 99.9% service uptime, enhanced security, and VPS provisioned on blacklist-free IPs.
Whether you choose GreenGeeks for their environmentally friendly approach to web hosting or for their world-class hosting infrastructure, your Ghost.org blog will certainly thrive on any of their VPS plans.
ASmallOrange
A Small Orange is a hosting provider that – just like InMotion hosting – provides cloud-powered VPS hosting plans. In terms of VPS hosting variety, ASO has the biggest line-up of VPS plans, allowing you to choose between 8 different levels. All VPS plans are built on a secure hosting infrastructure with enterprise quality hardware and powerful and secure data centers.
The level I cloud VPS hosting plan at ASO costs $20/month and includes 30 GB storage, 1024 MB RAM and 500 GB bandwidth. VPS plans go as high as $150/month with 8 cores CPU, 250 GB storage, 10240 MB RAM, and 5 TB bandwidth. All yearly plans include a free domain and 2 months hosting for free. Plans also include some very appealing features like free backups, root access, SSD caching technology, automatic failover protection, KVM virtualization technology, firewalls with IP blocking and location blocking possibility, free migration assistance and free cPanel and WHM.
ASO’s VPS plans grant you the flexibility and control over your server resources, so you can enjoy better performance whether you’re planning to host a Ghost.org blog or any other CMS.
Conclusion
If you plan on opting for the self-hosted version of Ghost and want to have full control over your blog, a VPS hosting plan is the most feasible option. You can get a VPS plan for as low as $15/month (or $30/month after the initial term) and enjoy all the perks that come with dedicated server resources – near 100% server uptime, better security, outstanding performance, full root access and ultimate control.
Please also consider Midnight who provide Ghost hosted blogs with zero setup – includes SSL sub-domain, feature & security updates and you can cancel anytime.