Cheapest way to run Ghost
Hi everyone,
I've looked into the cheapest way to set up a simple blog using Ghost as CMS but haven't managed to figure it out.
What I'd like to do is run Ghost CMS locally and then let Netlify handle the hosting of the static site that my local Ghost CMS provides content for. But this doesn't work because I can't figure out how to get Netlify to access the stuff my local Ghost CMS is producing.
(What I don't want to have to do is pay for a server to run Ghost CMS, since I'll be the only person editing this blog anyway.)
Curious to hear your thoughts on my particular situation, but also more generally on the cheapest way I can do this.
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My 0$ setup.
If you link Netlify to a github repo. And then push your Ghost CMS posts to github, Netlify will automatically take your posts/build and deploy to your site.
I am using NetlifyCMS (not same as Netlify) which allows me to edit the posts directly from https://my-site/admin. Now I can use any computer login to NetlifyCMS and add/edit new posts.
Your Netlify CMS set up is what I've ended up doing. Super simple and cheap. Love it.
Digital Ocean has a prebuilt ghost image that works fine out of the box. I think the smallest droplet is around $5/mo and runs it just fine.
Thanks for the tip. I came across that option and looks like it'll be my go-to for when I do need to go with Ghost. For now I think Netlify CMS does the trick.
You are looking at the wrong tool for that job.
Static blog generators is what you want for true convenience. Gatsby is pretty good and it supports pulling data from an external source if you want a less static solution.
Ghost shines with its features that does make it require a node.js server. I used it before and can guarantee you that you need at least a 10usd hosting per month, minimum. A 20 USD hosting will meet the recommended and factual needs of this application to provide great performance. Those costs are based on the best hosting price/resource I could find (Vulture, LightSail and linode)
A $5/month droplet on Digital Ocean is all you need. I once installed three Ghost sites on a $5 droplet and only then did I see performance issues (I upgraded that droplet to $10/month and it is now fine again).
Interesting that a "shared cpu" can sustain this. I guess it depends on the load put on those 3 sites. Do you mind sharing what ram you get with a 5usd droplet? I can't find the spec and digital ocean is not letting me signup :(
$5 = 1GB (1 CPU)
$10 = 2GB (1 CPU)
It totally depends on traffic. I haven't had massive numbers visiting those sites, so it's definitely not battle tested in my experience.
Thanks!
I don't know if you only want to use ghost or are open to alternatives. I started using https://forestry.io/ for my Gatsby blog. It gives a cms like experience but just commits everything straight to github. Then netlify will build and publish from there. It looks like they work with a few different static site generators.
This is a really solid option I may consider in the future. Came across Forestry and didn't really understand what it was doing but this is a very clear sum up. Thank you.
I'm not familiar with Ghost, but if it's producing static files then you could add those to git, push to github, and netlify can build from there. You could even write a simple script to do that quite easily and then it's a 1 click process. PM me if you want help.
If you want to host a blog for free, I would suggest trying Github pages.
Here is a post discussing how to setup Ghost on Github pages to get you started: https://github.com/paladini/ghost-on-github-pages
Using Github pages you will be able to get a fast enough load time and can also set your own custom domain.
I suggest Github pages to people who need high-quality free hosting and are ready to take some basic steps initially to do the setup. For example, I used to host my personal blog on Github pages with Jekyll a few years back and had a great experience. Currently, I am hosting my one-page resume on it.
Run ghost on your own computer. You already pay for internet. You already pay for the electricity to run your own computer. You can create a local instance of Ghost.
That by far is the "cheapest"
I tried to do that initially. Ran Ghost locally with no trouble. But was confused about how to then get that onto Netlify. Netlify was trying to access the Ghost API generated by my Ghost instance, but understandably couldn't access it because it was on localhost. I think the solution here probably would have been to figure out if Netlify have a CLI that I could run locally, which would then be able to access the stuff from my local Ghost instance.
Ngrok
$0 way. (if that's what you mean cheapest)
Get a VM (mini or micro) whichever in their free tier.
They have a an AMI from bitnami. (ref https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/How-to-Install-Ghost-Ghost-powered-by-How-to-Insta/B00HJDY0DY)
Up and running.
Update: I did some more reading and it feels like the answer is that there isn't a really cheap way to do this. Seems like what I might want to do is run Netlify CMS with a static site builder, i.e. choose one of the templates here: https://templates.netlify.com/
This comment was deleted 5 years ago.