plebos and Ghost

The same foundations

We didn't set out to beat Ghost; we converged with it. The self-hostable core is open source (MIT, like Ghost). Federation runs on ActivityPub — Ghost shipped it in 6.0, and so do we. Your own domain, your subscriber list, your own Stripe account, a full export of everything you've written: on all of that, we and Ghost have arrived at the same answers, often because Ghost found them first. And for running a single publication, Ghost is the more mature tool — a decade of production behind it, member comments shipped today. If a self-contained site is what you want, Ghost is an excellent choice, and we'll say so plainly.

A site, or a city

Here is the whole of the difference. Every Ghost site is a world of its own, by design: its members live in its own database, its comments are its own, and a reader who follows five Ghost publications holds five separate accounts. That isn't a gap Ghost forgot to close — it is what a site is.

plebos is built around what happens between publications. A reader here is one person across the whole platform: one identity, one patronage relationship, one civil discussion layer, free to move among every writer in the city. Shared identity like that can't be bolted onto a federation of independent sites — it has to live in the foundation — which is why plebos is its own platform and not a plugin for Ghost. Federation gives you following between separate accounts; the city is the shared civic layer on top that following alone cannot be.

What's still being built

We'll be straight about where this stands: the city is the reason plebos exists, and it is the part still being built. The reading room — every publication, newest first, no algorithm between you and what you chose to follow — is live. The Forum's shared-identity discussion layer is ahead of us. We would rather tell you that than pretend the city is finished.

What the rake is for

Ghost takes nothing from your earnings and charges flat hosting from day one. plebos is free until you earn, and then takes a small, declining cut — at most four percent — only of money a reader chose to pay you. That isn't a worse price for Ghost's product; it's the price of a different one. The cut funds the commons a single site doesn't have: discovery, the reading room, the shared identity layer. On a Sustaining plan it's waived — you're sustaining the city directly.

The choice

Want a mature, self-contained publication at a flat price, with a decade of production behind it and comments shipped today? Use Ghost — with our blessing, and because we both federate, we'll still see your work. Want to be one citizen across many publications, found and followed inside a shared commons? That is what plebos is for. Same roots, a different idea, a clear choice.