I built Jottings because I got frustrated with publishing platforms that do everything. Most writers don't need that much. But that doesn't mean Ghost is wrong—it's just solving a different problem than I wanted to solve.
Let me be honest about both platforms so you can decide which fits your needs.
What Ghost Does Well
Ghost is a serious publishing platform. If you're a professional writer building an audience through newsletters and memberships, Ghost has thought through all the mechanics you need.
Their membership system is solid. You can paywalled content, set up tiers, manage subscriber email lists, and Ghost handles the complexity of payments and access control. The newsletter feature is deeply integrated—you're not bolting on a third-party service, everything flows together naturally.
The editor is polished. They've invested heavily in the writing experience, and it shows. If you spend hours in the editor every day, you'll appreciate the attention to detail.
Ghost also scales predictably. It's built on Node.js with a proper database, so as your audience grows and you're publishing every day with thousands of subscribers, Ghost handles it with established patterns.
And honestly? Their community is vibrant. Lots of themes, plugins, and tutorials available because Ghost has been around longer.
What Jottings Is Built For
I built Jottings for a specific use case: people who want to write frequently without overthinking it. Short thoughts, occasional longer pieces, no pressure.
The core difference is philosophical. Ghost is built for publications. Jottings is built for microblogging—in the spirit of Twitter, but owned by you.
Your site is a static site. No server to maintain, no database to secure. We generate HTML at build time and serve it from Cloudflare's CDN. This means your costs are genuinely minimal—like, we're talking under five dollars a month for most users. Ghost's self-hosted option requires at least a VPS ($10+), and their managed hosting starts at $29/month.
We also keep the feature set small on purpose. No newsletters. No membership tiers. No paywalls. You write, we publish it as static HTML. You want email subscribers? Pipe your RSS feed into a service like Substack or beehiiv if you want to. But we're not building it in—it stays simple.
The writing experience is intentionally light. No fancy editor with modules and cards. Just a text area. You use Markdown if you want formatting, or plain text if you don't. Some people find this liberating. Others find it limiting. Both reactions are valid.
The Real Differences
Hosting & Infrastructure
Ghost: Requires active hosting (managed or self-hosted). You're running a Node.js application with a database.
Jottings: Static site generation. We build your site, upload it to Cloudflare, and that's it. No server process running 24/7.
Cost
Ghost managed: $29-199/month depending on features Ghost self-hosted: ~$10/month for hosting + your maintenance time Jottings: ~$3-5/month for most users
This matters if you're bootstrapped. Over a year, that's a significant difference.
Monetization
Ghost: Memberships and paywalls baked in. You can charge for access.
Jottings: No built-in monetization. If you want to charge readers, you'd use a separate service. Most Jottings users don't monetize—they write for the joy of it or for audience building.
Publishing Style
Ghost: Designed for consistent, scheduled publishing. Create content calendars, publish on a schedule, build an email audience.
Jottings: Optimized for frequent, conversational posts. Drop a thought whenever you want. Your site updates immediately.
Community Features
Ghost: Comments, subscriptions, community engagement features.
Jottings: No built-in comments or subscriptions. You own your data, but you're responsible for community building elsewhere.
Who Should Use What
Choose Ghost if:
- You're building a professional publication or newsletter
- You want to charge readers for access
- You're publishing consistently (multiple times per week) to a growing audience
- You want all publishing tools in one platform
- You have a budget for hosting
Choose Jottings if:
- You want a personal space to write without complexity
- You value low cost and minimal maintenance
- You prefer simplicity over features
- You publish frequently in a conversational style
- You want a static site that's fast and secure by design
- You already have an audience elsewhere (Twitter, newsletter) and just need a home for your words
The Honest Take
Ghost is not wrong. They've built something genuinely good for writers who want a business. The problem they solve is real, and they solve it well.
Jottings is built for a different person. Someone who writes because they enjoy it. Someone who wants their writing online but doesn't want to manage infrastructure or pay for features they don't use.
I've used Ghost. I appreciate what they've built. But I found myself not using most of the features. So I built something that matches how I actually write: frequently, casually, in a space I control.
The best platform is the one that matches your actual needs, not the one with the most features. If that's Ghost, great—they deserve your money because they're excellent. If that's Jottings, even better, because we'll be significantly cheaper and simpler.
Think about how you actually publish. What features do you use? What would you never touch? Then pick the tool that matches your reality, not some idealized version of yourself that uses every feature.
That's how I decide on tools. And that's why I built Jottings.
Using Jottings? I'd love to hear how it's working for you. Find me on my site.