John O'Nolan, Founder and CEO of Ghost, shares his insights as a former WordPress core team member turned competitor. He discusses Ghost's unique nonprofit structure and its focus on sustainability, emphasizing the importance of small teams for creativity and innovation. O'Nolan also delves into the challenges of open-source funding, advocating for clear incentives in community contributions. He contrasts the publishing experiences of Ghost and WordPress, promoting a diverse approach to content management and the exploration of various platforms.
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insights INSIGHT
WordPress vs Ghost Approach
WordPress is a generalized CMS allowing flexibility through plugins but comes with complexity and security challenges.
Ghost focuses on professional publishing with core features and limited external integrations, aiming for simplicity and focus.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Onboarding New Developers
Try Ghost by signing up for a free trial to explore its managed hosting and theme system.
WordPress theme developers will find Ghost's Handlebars.js templating familiar and easy to adopt.
insights INSIGHT
Ghost's Small Scale Vision
Ghost aims for sustainable operation with a nonprofit model and a small team around 50 people.
John values growing a diverse ecosystem over dominating market share or maximizing company size.
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In this episode of WP Minute+, I sat down with John O'Nolan, founder and CEO of Ghost, to discuss the open-source publishing platform and how it compares to WordPress in light of recent controversies. John's unique perspective as a former WordPress core team member and now leader of a competing platform provided fascinating insights into the challenges and opportunities in the open-source CMS space.
Our conversation covered a wide range of topics, from Ghost's opinionated approach to feature development to the structure of its non-profit foundation. I was particularly struck by John's commitment to keeping Ghost focused and relatively small, with a goal of never growing beyond 50 employees. This intentional constraint, he argues, fosters creativity and helps maintain the team's agility and sense of purpose.
Throughout our discussion, I was impressed by John's thoughtful approach to balancing commercial success with open-source ideals. His insights on the need for clear incentives in community contributions and the potential for paid open-source development challenged some long-held assumptions in the WordPress world. As someone who has used both platforms, I found myself reconsidering some of my own views on the future of content management systems and open-source sustainability.
Key takeaways for WordPress professionals:
Ghost's non-profit structure offers an alternative model for open-source sustainability.
Intentional constraints on company size can drive innovation and focus.
The "benevolent dictator for life" model may be outdated for large open-source projects.
Clear incentives and recognition are crucial for encouraging community contributions.
Open-source projects may need to consider paid contributions to remain competitive.
Diversity in platforms and approaches benefits the entire web ecosystem.
There's value in exploring and learning from different content management systems.
The WP Minute+