Ghost is an open-source headless publishing platform specifically designed for professional content creators, newsletters, and media businesses. It competes with Substack and WordPress for creators who want full ownership and control of their audience without platform dependency. Ghost's membership and subscription features let creators monetize directly without revenue sharing. Ghost sites are identifiable through their distinctive kg-card CSS class patterns used by Ghost's rich content editor (Koenig), assets served from Ghost's CDN, and the x-powered-by: Express header common to Ghost's Node.js architecture. Ghost(Pro) plans start at $9/month, while self-hosted Ghost is free.
Paste any URL to instantly detect whether it was built with Ghost. Our engine checks 6 technical signals.
Ghost is used across many industries. These are the most common website types built on this platform:
Publishers & bloggers
Flexible content management with rich plugin ecosystems
Enterprise businesses
Scalable CMS with extensive customization
NGOs & nonprofits
Affordable open-source platform with wide community support
E-commerce retailers
WooCommerce integration for product catalogs
Every Ghost website leaves distinctive technical fingerprints. Here's what to look for:
JavaScript Patterns
2 script patterns linked to Ghost
HTML Attributes
2 HTML patterns in the page source
Explore how Ghost compares to similar cms tools: