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Despite the page title, it’s not (and never has been) Outpost versus Ghost. Outpost exists to complement and extend Ghost, not to replace it. Ghost’s membership model showed the way in 2020: membership-driven publications are the future of independent publishing. Outpost was built on that conviction. We believe in a publishing system where some things naturally belong in the CMS, and some things are better outside it. Among its many features, Ghost has built-in memberships with free and paid tiers, Stripe billing, strong content gating and more. Plus it has built-in newsletters where any post can be sent out as a newsletter. Outpost adds additional growth, retention, and integration tools on top of those powerful Ghost tools.

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(Some of) What Ghost does natively

  • Free and paid member management
  • Gating of content by member level that works
  • Stripe subscription billing (tiers, monthly/annual pricing)
  • Built-in newsletter sending via Mailgun
  • API connections that lets Outpost and other integrations work
  • Easy to use tools to change themes/customize themes
  • A graceful WYSIWYG editor
  • Paywall tied to particular pieces of content (members-only content gating)
  • Member filtering

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What Outpost adds

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When to use Ghost alone

If you’re just starting out, Ghost’s built-in membership features may be sufficient:
  • You have a single paid tier
  • You don’t need automation beyond a welcome email
  • You don’t need lots of CTAs
  • Your audience is small enough to manage manually

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When to add Outpost

Add Outpost when you need:
  • Conversion tools beyond Ghost’s subscription page (CTAs, metered paywalls, embed widgets)
  • Powerful welcome sequences
  • Retention automation (renewal reminders, win-back sequences)
  • CRM or analytics integrations
  • Podcast or YouTube integrations for auto-publishing
  • Team or gift subscriptions
  • Deeper analytics and reporting
Outpost and Ghost work together, you don’t choose between them.