I built a CLI for Ghost
And it made me wonder what the future of UI holds
John O'Nolan
Founder/CEO @ Ghost.org — Geographically restless. Publishing, open source, and independent business around the world.
Latest posts
Open Source in the age of AI
Early 2026 is a very weird time to be an open source maintainer. On the one hand, the burden of codebase maintenance has dropped dramatically. Small teams with long todo lists now have the ability to accomplish more than ever before. On the other hand, the dynamics of the software
I'm making an RSS reader
Why am I making an RSS reader? I don't know. There are a thousand RSS readers out there already, and they all read RSS feeds, but none of them work the way I'd like them to. So I'm making my own. It's
$136M
We've now generated over $136M from free, open source software with Ghost $36M in revenue from managed hosting $100M in platform revenue for indie publishers The ecosystem is growing really quickly at this point, and really excited about where things are heading next. For a while it felt
Reflections on the social web
My biggest point of uncertainty about Ghost 6.0 was whether people were going to "get" the social web integration. The technology is wonderful, but complex. For many people, terms like ActivityPub, Fediverse, bridge, protocol, server, toot, boost, and Webfinger are alienating and confusing. They subtly imply that
12 years of Ghost
Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one
Centaurs of vibe coding
I'm reading Range by David Epstein at the moment, of which the below is an excerpt. I can't help but draw parallels between the evolution of AI, 10+ years ago, and today – if you just switch chess:programming, and freestyle:vibe-coding. It feels remarkably
Democratising publishing
Thoughts on open source governance and how to create trust within technology, communities, and media.
ProNotes
If you use Apple Notes a lot - this (free!) app/plugin for it makes it 1,000% more useful and usable. It adds a formatting toolbar and inline markdown support, which makes Apple Notes feel a bit more like Ghost or Medium: ProNotes Supercharged Apple Notes I shared this on
How members got added to Ghost
I was digging through some old design files yesterday and came across two of the first ever sketches I made for the idea of memberships and subscriptions in Ghost, from way back at the very beginning of 2016. These seem pretty obvious, now, but at the time nothing like this
A decade after being rejected by YC
About 10 years ago I applied to Y Combinator with Ghost . At the time we were trying to get $120k in funding for 7% equity — but got rejected (twice). So instead we launched on Kickstarter and then bootstrapped. Today Ghost has earned over $25Million from customers for 0% equity,
How web bloat impacts users with slow devices
A great post by Dan Luu looking at the relative performance of different web platforms running on devices with limited CPUs.
A new start blog for 2024
At the end of 2023 I started working on a new project called Vintas , a simple hiring platform for remote teams. Initially I shared a few thoughts on Twitter and Threads , but I quickly ran into the same problems I always do when sharing anything on those platforms. The algorithms