Why I migrated Nerd on Tour from WordPress to Ghost Pro

Over two decades ago, I started blogging on Blogger. That was the time when I was excited about all things Google. Then self-hosted WordPress appeared on my radar and developing sites became my job, with occasional publishing blog posts on the side.

Thing is, that I fell into the abyss of never-ending tinkering. Instead of focusing on writing, WordPress dashboard turned into a doom scroll to-do list. Where every plugin constantly nags me to tweak, debug, fix and pay.

For a time, I even ventured to the WordPress.com site. Having a clean dashboard was a blessing, but still something was off. The paid plans had weird storage tiers: 6 GB, 13 GB. The email post notifications were tied to WordPress.com accounts. And in comparison to self-hosted WordPress, the WP.com felt too restricted.

Meanwhile, Ghost, the new blogging platform, had a successful Kickstarter campaign. I was paying close attention to this project because John O'Nolan worked as a Deputy Head of Design for WordPress. Furthermore, I was intrigued with his laser focus on efficient publishing. While WordPress transition to be all encompassing page builder, Ghost sole mission is blogging.

In fact, it's splendid! Thanks to that, Ghost is a profitable business, and some of my favorite creators host their sites here:

• Troy Hunt, the creator of Have I Been Pwned, uses and recommends Ghost
• Gone with Wynns, the traveling couple shares their quirky humor here
• 404 Media, the tech news outlet, relies on paid membership enabled by Ghost

So after a long time on WordPress, I crystallized specific requirements for the blog:

1. Big storage for all my travel pictures. Ghost Pro offers unlimited storage already at the lowest tier.
2. Integrated image optimization, site cache and CDN. No need for extra plugins as all of this is built into Ghost Pro.
3. Efficient server setup so both the dashboard and the site run smoothly regardless of my location. Ghost Pro minimalistic setup delivers the speed.
4. DDoS, Web Application Firewall and threat protection. Fastly CDN is used for all Ghost Pro sites, which makes me feel safe about my data.
5. Uptime for any traffic. I would rather not be bothered with optimizing the server when my content becomes popular. Ghost Pro does it for me.
6. Email newsletter. Essential feature to build direct connection with my audience. Ghost Pro has it covered.
7. Site analytics. I just seek simple stats about my articles and source of traffic. It's a standard feature of Ghost Pro. More stats are coming soon!
8. Fast and minimalistic post editor. I like the simplicity of WordPress Gutenberg, and Ghost offers a similar and even more streamlined editor.
9. Site optimization for search engines, schema and social media. It's vital that my content performs and looks good on the discovery channels.
10. Native comments with spam protection. Ghost Pro offers this with membership management.

To achieve all of that on self-hosted WordPress, I would need to pay for:

• Web hosting with big storage: 35 USD
• Image optimization plugin 10 USD
• Site cache plugin 5 USD
• CDN Cloudflare 25 USD
• Email newsletter 20 USD
• Yoast SEO 8 USD

Total: 103 USD per month

Moreover, the maintenance falls on my shoulders. For example, the image optimization affects the cache, which affects CDN, so balancing them is an ongoing issue.

For a moment, I considered the free self-hosted version of Ghost. But that would mean the same overhead I currently have with self-hosted WordPress. So, I'm pumped that Ghost Pro addresses my needs for 11 USD per month. That's almost 10x cheaper and without maintenance!

I still use WordPress for other projects. But I want the nerdontour.net to be my publishing hub. Not a tinkering workshop. As Lorenzo Simonini, my podcast guest, said:

There are two types of sailors. Those who maintain their boat all the time, and those who sail.

With Ghost Pro, I finally feel that I became the second type of sailor.