OttoKit
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Comparison · Mkt Auto
Craft CMS vs Ghost
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Craft CMS and Ghost — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Craft CMS vs Ghost: at a glance
What is Craft CMS?
Craft 6's alphas keep converting the plugin API, one removal at a time
Craft is running two lines with very different energy. The 5.10 maintenance branch ships one-bug releases hours apart and nothing else. Craft 6 is in its seventeenth alpha, still migrating onto Laravel: alpha 17 removes Plugin::settingsHtml() in favour of a settingsForm() built on the Control Panel Form system, replaces the Pane.vue component with a craft-pane web component, and moves another management command onto Laravel's schema API.
What is Ghost?
Ghost is quietly turning its newsletter into a lifecycle marketing engine.
Ghost's last quarter of releases is almost entirely membership and money: gift subscriptions, publisher gift links, comment threading, saved member views, and now automated email sequences with their own analytics. The publishing and theming side still gets attention, with in-browser theme editing and a staff admin toolbar, but it is no longer where the work concentrates. The product a Ghost operator touches daily is increasingly a subscriber CRM with a CMS attached.
Craft CMS vs Ghost: editorial side-by-side
Craft CMS
6.3MKT AUTO
Craft 6's alphas keep converting the plugin API, one removal at a time
◆ Current state
Craft is running two lines with very different energy. The 5.10 maintenance branch ships one-bug releases hours apart and nothing else. Craft 6 is in its seventeenth alpha, still migrating onto Laravel: alpha 17 removes Plugin::settingsHtml() in favour of a settingsForm() built on the Control Panel Form system, replaces the Pane.vue component with a craft-pane web component, and moves another management command onto Laravel's schema API.
◆ Where it's heading
The pattern established at alpha 14 has not changed shape, only advanced: every alpha retires another Yii-era extension point and re-lands it on the new stack, with craftcms/yii2-adapter carrying the compatibility burden. Alpha 17 adds an Inertia-native slideout system that renders any CpScreenResponse as an in-page panel, which is the control panel moving from a legacy JavaScript layer to a genuinely Inertia/Vue one rather than wrapping it. The long fix list — stale permission trees, autosave firing on unchanged values, provisional drafts created on page open, queue jobs stuck reserved — reads as the cost of that churn being paid down alpha by alpha.
◆ Prediction
Expect further alphas that remove specific Yii-era plugin APIs with adapter fallbacks, and the 5.10 line to keep shipping single-fix patches until a Craft 6 beta absorbs the team's attention.
Ghost
5.0MKT AUTO
Ghost is quietly turning its newsletter into a lifecycle marketing engine.
◆ Current state
Ghost's last quarter of releases is almost entirely membership and money: gift subscriptions, publisher gift links, comment threading, saved member views, and now automated email sequences with their own analytics. The publishing and theming side still gets attention, with in-browser theme editing and a staff admin toolbar, but it is no longer where the work concentrates. The product a Ghost operator touches daily is increasingly a subscriber CRM with a CMS attached.
◆ Where it's heading
Each release adds another piece of the paid-newsletter stack that operators currently leave Ghost to get: drip onboarding, referral loops through gifting, self-updating audience segments, and per-sequence performance data. The pattern is closing the gap with dedicated newsletter platforms rather than deepening the CMS. Distribution work runs as a second thread, with social profile connections and AI-search metadata aimed at making sure the audience arrives at all.
◆ Prediction
Expect sequences to leave beta with segment-triggered or branching sends, since Ghost has now shipped both self-updating member filters and sequence analytics, the two inputs a targeted automation needs.
Alternatives to Craft CMS and Ghost
Other Mkt Auto products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Craft CMS or Ghost.
Joomla
Two security releases ship the same day, and 6.2 finally clears alpha
Buttondown
Buttondown ships almost daily, and most of it is someone else's bug report closed.
Flodesk
Flodesk just moved its analytics out of the dashboard and into Claude and ChatGPT.
Formidable Forms
Formidable widens MCP compatibility and locks down signature files
Mailtrap
Mailtrap is assembling a full email operations platform, one category step at a time
See all Craft CMS alternatives → · See all Ghost alternatives →
Recent activity from Craft CMS and Ghost
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 13h agoCraft CMSAlpha 17 retires plugin settingsHtml and adds Inertia slideouts
- 12d agoGhostAnalytics for email sequences
- 13d agoCraft CMSAlpha 16 fixes double-required migrations and a widget gap
- 13d agoCraft CMS5.10.13.2 fixes a SQL error on empty Categories fields
- 14d agoCraft CMS5.10.13.1 restores rendering of sanitized SVGs
- 14d agoCraft CMSCraft 6 swaps its image pipeline to intervention/image and libvips
- 27d agoCraft CMSCraft 6 alpha 14 breaks plugin providers and lifecycle hooks ⚡
- 1mo agoGhostOptimize your site for AI search
- 1mo agoGhostPublisher gift links
- 1mo agoGhostEmail sequences for new members ⚡
- 2mo agoGhostYour new admin toolbar
- 2mo agoGhostDynamic filters for members
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Craft CMS and Ghost?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Craft CMS is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 5.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Craft CMS better than Ghost?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Craft CMS is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 5.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Mkt Auto products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Craft CMS?
Top Craft CMS alternatives in Mkt Auto are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Craft CMS alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/craft-cms for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Ghost?
Top Ghost alternatives in Mkt Auto are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Ghost alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/ghost for the full list with editorial commentary on each.