Ghost
Professional publishing — newsletters, memberships, and monetization.
MIT-licensed alternative to WordPress and Substack. Handlebars themes, SEO built-in, Stripe integration for paid memberships, and Admin API for headless.
Substack is a proprietary, hosted newsletter and publishing platform that takes a percentage of paid subscription revenue and keeps your subscriber list and content within its own ecosystem. It's easy to start with, but you don't own the infrastructure and are subject to its platform policies and fee structure.
Ghost is an open-source alternative for writers and publishers who want to self-host their newsletter and membership business and keep full control of their subscriber data and monetization.
FAQ
Is there a free, open-source alternative to Substack?
Yes. Ghost is open source and free to self-host, though most people running Ghost themselves still pay for hosting infrastructure and payment processing.
What's the best open-source alternative to Substack?
Ghost is the closest open-source match for Substack's newsletter-plus-membership model, with the advantage of owning your subscriber data instead of it living inside Substack's platform.
What are the top open-source alternatives to Substack?
Browse all open-source alternatives to Substack above, or explore the full Content & CMS category for more options.