Substack rival Ghost connects to the open social web with its latest public release

After months of beta testing, newsletter platform Ghost has shipped a new version of its software, Ghost 6, that allows its publishers to share their long-form content natively with the broader open social web. That means in addition to publishing their newsletters to the web, RSS, and sending them out via email, Ghost’s users can also natively connect with services like the decentralized X rival Mastodon; Meta’s Threads; Flipboard; WordPress sites that have integrated with ActivityPub, Surf, and WriteFreely; and others.

While Ghost also mentions the ability to publish to Bluesky as a part of this release, that’s made possible through an integration with Bridgy Fed, a service that connects the open social web known as fediverse to the one called the ATmosphere. The former is powered by an open standard for decentralized social networking called ActivityPub, whereas the latter works with the newer AT Protocol used by Bluesky and other apps.

Manton Reece, the founder of the publishing platform Micro.blog, pointed out the difference between his service and Ghost’s, noting that Micro.blog has been working on direct AT Protocol integration while Ghost is using bridging.

ActivityPub has long been used to power open, decentralized social media applications. But in the years after Twitter’s acquisition by Elon Musk, there has been an increased interest in building with this protocol as competitors to Twitter (now called X) emerged.

Meta launched its alternative to X in 2023 with Instagram Threads, which has been catching up to X on mobile devices. Meanwhile, blogging platform WordPress, including the hosted version WordPress.com, now offers the ability to integrate with ActivityPub, allowing users to follow WordPress blogs on services like Mastodon. Other apps have integrated with the open social web as well, such as Flipboard’s flagship app and newer app Surf, and publishing platform Medium.

Ghost also touted the potential network effects of connecting with ActivityPub, because it allows people on federated apps to then follow a Ghost publisher’s posts, as well as interact with them by liking, replying, or reposting. This potentially broadens the publishers’ reach and expands their readership.

In addition, Ghost’s users can keep up with other long-form content in an “Inbox” section of its software, where they can follow other articles published on Ghost or WordPress. Plus, from Ghost’s admin screen, publishers will have the ability to post short-form content to the fediverse, allowing them to grow their following and connect with readers.

Ghost 6 arrives shortly after a shameful incident from its top competitor, the newsletter platform Substack, which sent a push notification to users encouraging them to subscribe to a Nazi newsletter. Several authors already left Substack over its decision to host such content in the past, including Casey Newton of Platformer, a popular tech publication. Other notable Ghost publications include 404 Media, Spyglass, David Sirota’s The Lever, Tangle, Jason Calacanis’s Inside, SFist, and others.

While the ActivityPub integration is a main selling point for Ghost 6, this major release includes a number of other changes and new additions. Notably, Ghost now ships with a native analytics suite that tracks performance, engagement, and conversions across the web, newsletters, and subscriptions in real time.

The software also supports a variety of payment methods, tips and donations, branded newsletters, content that can be personalized to individual readers, and more.

With the release, Ghost adjusted its pricing for its Pro (hosted) plans; its cheapest plans now start at $15 and $29 per month, up from $9 and $25 per month, respectively. Ghost publishers with a large number of subscribers, however, will now see reduced pricing.