Hosted Platform Preview
It's been two weeks since Ghost launched publicly, and we've been absolutely thrilled by the response we've had. The most commonly asked question you've asked by far, though, is "When is the hosted platform coming?" So today, I'm very excited to share a preview with you of what's just around the corner.
FAQ: How will it work?
We've been working very hard indeed at Ghost HQ to create something rather special. We're very excited about this! Take a look:
:)
FAQ: How much will it cost?
It's taken us a little bit of time, but we're now ready to confirm the pricing of the platform when it launches to the public.
There will be a free 1 month trial available for everyone who wants to give the platform a try. Additionally, Kickstarter backers will receive account credit based on the rewards which they selected during the campaign.
FAQ: When can I get it?
Right now we're rolling the platform out to Ghost.org users incrementally to make sure that the infrastructure scales and can handle all of the pressures which it will soon be under.
We're adding hundreds of users each week (starting with Kickstarter backers) and you will receive an email as soon as you have access to the platform.
We don't have a public launch date fixed yet, but we'll absolutely be keeping you updated. We understand that a lot of people are excited about being able to set up a Ghost blog quickly and easily, and we can't wait to open this up to the world!
FAQ: Why can't I just use my shared server?
That's an excellent question! To answer, we have to look at the history of how online hosting has evolved, and where it is now. I'll try to keep it as short, simple and interesting as possible.
Ten years ago, a little platform called WordPress launched into the world and started growing in popularity at a rate of knots. At the time, hosting PHP was not as trivial as it is today. There were a few companies who did it well, but getting everything up and running was a struggle at best.
As time went on, and more popular PHP platforms started popping up (Drupal, Joomla, and so on) - the hosting industry evolved to cater for the users of those platforms; making one-click installers and simple control panels which meant everyone could get up and running really easily. Today, we pretty much take for granted how easy this process has become.
Now, as the world shifts towards new technologies (like Node.js - which is what Ghost is built on) the hosting industry is adapting again. This is a very straightforward case of supply and demand. The more demand there is for hosting a technology due to popular applications built on it - the more hosts support and offer hosting for this technology.
Node.js hosting is a young but incredibly vibrant industry. In some very abstract way, you could compare it to PHP hosting 10 years ago.
As new applications, like Ghost, are built on this technology: more and more hosts will move to support it. As one example, just a few days ago Media Temple told us that they are looking into adding Node.js support to their Grid Service as a result of the interest in Ghost. Many others have already added support.
So, if you would like to install Ghost on your favourite hosting company's servers - but they don't support it yet - the next step is really very simple: Keep asking them for it :)
FAQ: Why are you building this in Node.js if not all hosts support it yet?
For the same reason people are building electric cars even though not all fuel stations have power points yet: It's faster, cleaner, more efficient - and it's undoubtedly the future of technology. Ghost is a Tesla.
Some tests have already found Ghost to be up to 1,900% faster than alternatives built on PHP, and (to be totally honest with you) we haven't actually had time to do any performance optimisation yet.
This is just the beginning.
