Getting Started with Ghost (self-hosted): Beginner Edition!

[@kvpasupuleti5245]

Can you please continue this series? I don’t find any other source more true and reliable than this, about ghost

[@sonesay]

was looking for the same thing but this is the only ghost video that comes up under the channel search.

[@andybrice2711]

Finally a CMS which look user-friendly and extensible enough that we might be able to leave behind the technical debt of WordPress.

[@JohnSeabourn]

Ahh, I was looking forward to the next part. Great video, hope you make more.

[@adamisherwood6708]

What a great presence on screen you give. It’s the reason I subscribed to you. Very professional. Thanks for a great introduction.

[@LeoouBeats]

Felt the need to comment in this video. You're so good at teaching, thank you for the valuable info!

[@JoeStraw]

Thank you for the no-fluff approach to this tutorial. I feel my time is valued by you and that is the most important thing for me!

[@lopeznotplato]

A year waiting for the continuation of this series. Please continue it, it has been of great help. Thanks!

[@thiagodevelopment1715]

true

[@nait9585]

Need the sequel. ASAP.

[@yashjain4618]

Please make the follow up video. It's so helping

[@Page_moger]

Amazing Jessica, just what I needed. Can you upload something to add ghost to an Angular project?

[@TonyEdwardsPZ]

This was a perfect intro into working with Ghost locally. Thanks for taking the time to make the vid.

[@amx2311]

Thank you. Some people know how to explain things. You are one of those people. I love how you remain on point the entire video.

[@ShannonWare]

I have learned heaps and points that weren't addressed by other videos or articles were addressed. Very much looking forward to that 'Ghost in Production' video.

[@JamesWHurst]

You are absolutely *great* at presentation. No-fluff, right to biz, and great clarity. Thank you - hope you create more.

[@Ghost-CMS]

Thanks for the intro! 👻 Would be great to see more coming :)

[@ejpusa]

Seems a lot of people are excited to see your Ghost Part 2. Great stuff. Inspired me to get into Ghost. :-)

[@gerooq]

Damn, you are one awesome speaker. Looking forward to more videos on this!

[@lucasdecalves]

Hi! I'm from Brazil and your videos help me to learn english and also to program, thank you very much!

[@xXtetyXx]

Great video, waiting for the next ones! Thanks

[@BarryAnime]

amazing video, this really helps me getting started

[@sikwescarter905]

I'm shifting to Ghost keep more coming!

[@NicolasElvino]

Really good intro! Would love to see the next videos :)

[@snghnishant]

I was looking for some Ghost tutorial to get started for creating my own blog for one of my social media pages and now here I am. Great Video, nicely explained. Please upload the new videos for the tutorial playlist, I have subbed for this tutorial. Thanks.

[@tavusion]

I wish you continue making more videos on ghost.

[@terenoth]

Great video Jessica! Looking forward to the Docker tutorial!

[@JoeStraw]

So I've never coded before but I'm starting because I'm committed to learning Ghost. First time downloading node.js, npm, and VSC. Thank you for filming every step - I'm getting there! I look forward to your next Ghost video!

[@TylerPotts]

Great tutorial! I'd love to see more on Ghost :)

[@the_nerd_cave386]

Great video. This was the final push I needed to start writing.

[@RandomLinda14]

Thank you so much for this! I was stuck on the installation part for a while. Happily subscribed for more ghost content!

[@chawker67]

Amazing explanation, would be awesome to see another one!

[@cesargonzalez4935]

Wow, Jess you are a rockstar! super well explained, I'm a fan of your way to teach, thanks!!!!

[@j.m.palacios5318]

Looking forward to the next video. Thanks.

[@andyxatz]

Great video, you deserve WAY more subscribers than you have now!

[@lemonsashimi]

Would love to see more about this. Thanks for explaining!

[@zachtutor7998]

Please continue this series.

[@theyzilay]

At 8:42, you can actually open site in new tab with one click, you see an icon at view site tab, just click on it :)

[@jorgeberroa9874]

Great video again! Love that I’m always learning something new in your videos. Planning to get ghost running this weekend. Also, thanks for approving my pull request on your dotfiles repo.

[@essanhaji]

Underrated channel

[@MrComrad545]

Keep it up! Learned a lot, love the way you present your videos. Coherent, on point and insightful!

[@doshiboshi]

loving it! please do more of these videos

[@AtacamaHumanoid]

Do people usually install Ghost on mac with Homebrew? I installed NPM and Node with Homebrew, if I recall correctly, because it seemed the general consensus is to install everything with Homebrew since that's standard at this point and as long as everything is installed with Homebrew, that makes everything play better together.

[@ragemydream]

Hi Jessica, great video - please do the next part of the video.

[@sultantech6200]

Hello Jessica. Hope things are good with you. I was really looking forward to the next video about Ghost. Are you going to continue making them any time soon?

[@jairogemes8653]

That’s awesome. Thanks for sharing, very useful.

[@thadeucity]

Great Video, please keep posting

[@ishandinuka590]

Can you continue this series?

[@ImmigrantLife]

Amazing video on the complete setup and thank you so much.

[@Diegoalllll]

I ran into errors when i started installing it locally

[@juniorsemerzier660]

Jessica Deen, i am excited for the next video

[@iFestral]

What is the terminal or theme you are using in VScode?

[@ArifKamaruzaman]

I deployed ghost in docker using template. It's a mess. I have no idea where to configure it. I'll try using compose next.

[@vince530]

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS!! it is very helpful, i understand everything, thankyou, i subscribed!

[@CPTAwesomeGT31]

How can I just sign in to an existing blog on ghost locally? It seems to only give me the option to create a new account but I just want to use an existing account.

[@LilMasterJack]

Yesss pls make more of these

[@gavinmassey8327]

Great tutorial! Thanks

[@kintahroh]

Connect stripe to ghost on selfhostet ghost . Today i dosent understand . Plz show us

[@elliep4570]

Great! Please make more

[@BlackPrimeMinister]

Come back, Jessica! Your Github is active, so we know you're not a ghost (ha!) Happy 2022!

[@akadiryigit]

Thanks for helping It was perfect video for beginners :)

[@TechMadeleine]

Nice video, keep them coming :)

[@andreykhromov6239]

thanks, where is the second video about images?

[@vincentyuan4758]

Thanks for sharing, I just got started to use Ghost, one issue that I met was using this with multiple computers, as the path of the config is different, it does not work even if I use relative path, the error is always the Index.js is not found but it is literally there, I am kind of lost. Anyone has any ideas?

[@carlosnani]

Nice tutorial. Thanks.

[@annukulthakran2834]

Hey anyone know how can I translate my whole theme into Thai language? I have been trying a lot, but no success

[@magicmanj32]

Is there a next part

[@phgo5691]

Great tutorial!

[@binnihh]

What?! Almost a year later and no follow up videos. 😟

[@nguyentam2211]

Thank you for your video! Ghost must be the solution for me as I don't want to get all the features from Wordpress just to build a simple blog.

[@bungnamtaosaksiam6049]

Thank you so much.

[@Havock_]

Yeah seriously, I digged this intro but looking for the follow-up! Not too much on self-hosted versions Ghost, I could really benefit from a sequel :) Cheers! kutgw

[@mohitrao1852]

expecting a full tutorial series ..thanks.

[@rene.rodriguez]

This is such an informative video. You are great at teaching tech… I actually *understood* everything you said! Lol. Subscribed.

[@againstretrotopy]

Great job! I subscribed and hope to see a next video :)

[@Alvarojbjr]

Nicely explained! Super awesome! When is it the next? 😁

[@sabuein]

Thank you.

[@safaci2000]

is ghost considered a headless CMS? It provides an API but i don't think it's headless is it? It provides a full website not just an API.

[@JessicaDeen20]

Yes, it is. According to the Ghost docs, “Ghost is a full headless CMS which is completely agnostic of any particular front end or static site framework.”

[@loganwalsh]

Great video. Excellent presentation style! Subbed and hit the bell 👍

[@medzik1993]

Like your vibe :)

[@Dinosareformen]

where is the part 2? :(

[@nysunra]

This didnt work for me at all. Im stuck off the bat. The command showed error down the line. I installed visual code and entered the command line, ERR shows up.

[@JessicaDeen20]

Depending on where you get the error, you might not have node or npm installed. I suggest following this guide to first install node / npm. docs.npmjs.com/downloading-and-installing-node-js-and-npm.

[@gaegalsidhu]

Liked the video. Great if you can also share 'Ghost in Production/cloud' video too. Thanks

[@ferlou2373]

Will there be a 2nd part?

[@ferlou2373]

Great video anyway!

[@MossMan4288]

As someone who's been feeling less and less optimistic about Medium ever since their algorithm change, I'm looking into alternatives that are similar. Does Ghost pay you at all? Is there a follower system or analytics based on view or reading time? I mean sure, it looks like you have more control over how it looks and functions based on the fact that you apparently have to be an amateur coder just to set the thing up, but I'm wondering what the actual benefits are of writing through something like this other than it just being a way to organize posts how you want. I mean, not that Medium pays for sh!t, but still, at least the possibility is there.

[@DevChannelVideos]

Great video 🙏

[@kunalmathur4890]

is ghost only for blogging ??

[@sheri9570]

Can't adjust the quality of the video, anyone?

[@pacificpearlsailing]

Awesome!

[@sma0000]

I'll now have to first go see a visual studio installation video :D That's the kind of non-techie I am :(

[@humairaabbasi3467]

Is the Ghost free?? Or its paid? Can anyone explain to me a lil bit?? I have almost zero knowledge of coding. How can I use it? TIA

[@joelbuxton6884]

After successfully installing node.js + npm, I get a EACCES error code when trying to install Ghost-CLI. I attempted to remedy this by using sudo npm i -g ghost-cli@latest and then trying the install again again. No luck. Not a dev here, so feeling in over my head. Perhaps its because I don't know how to create "A clean, empty directory on your machine". Currently running a M1 macOS device. Thanks for any help you may offer. (I do not want to return to Wordpress or Blogger or Squarespace). Please help. Or direct me to tutorials to get me out of this quagmire. Seems to be a common issue without a clear answer on both GitHub and Ghost forums.

[@JessicaDeen20]

It'd be helpful to know which error code you get, but if you just need to create an empty directory, you can run the 'mkdir' command. Example: 'mkdir mynewdirectory' the new folder will me called 'mynewdirectory' and it will be located where ever you run that command. From there, you will need to 'cd' or "change directory" into the new folder: ‘cd mynewdirectory’. Then, to confirm it’s fully empty, you can run ‘ls -la’ and you should only see two “items” with dots, no files. From there, run your npm command again. I have not tried to to install Ghost on an M1, but these commands work on all other *NIX systems I have tried.

[@joelbuxton6884]

​@@JessicaDeen20 That all worked for setting up the directory, and it worked exactly as you described. Thank you kindly. Next, I ran the Ghost-CLI install cmd. Same error pops up. Then I remembered to run the possible fix: sudo npm command referred to above. But it was the same error code as my previous post unfortunately: npm WARN checkPermissions Missing write access to /usr/local/lib/node_modules/ghost-cli npm WARN checkPermissions Missing write access to /usr/local/lib/node_modules npm ERR! code EACCES npm ERR! syscall access npm ERR! path /usr/local/lib/node_modules/ghost-cli npm ERR! errno -13 npm ERR! Error: EACCES: permission denied, access '/usr/local/lib/node_modules/ghost-cli' npm ERR! [Error: EACCES: permission denied, access '/usr/local/lib/node_modules/ghost-cli'] { npm ERR! errno: -13, npm ERR! code: 'EACCES', npm ERR! syscall: 'access', npm ERR! path: '/usr/local/lib/node_modules/ghost-cli' npm ERR! } npm ERR! npm ERR! The operation was rejected by your operating system. npm ERR! It is likely you do not have the permissions to access this file as the current user npm ERR! npm ERR! If you believe this might be a permissions issue, please double-check the npm ERR! permissions of the file and its containing directories, or try running npm ERR! the command again as root/Administrator.

[@JessicaDeen20]

I believe the permission errors you are getting is because you are using sudo - sudo is administrator level and you don’t want to install npm packages with admin privileges- you want them installed for your current user. Try this guide to help you avoid using sudo: johnpapa.net/node-and-npm-without-sudo/

[@joelbuxton6884]

@@JessicaDeen20 It worked! Thank you so much for your guidance. I got a little tangled there as I followed the instruction from johnpapa and created a new directory using his commands. But there was an error as the cd was not empty. I backtracked. Created a new directory again, and followed the steps on the ghost site. Anyway, I am good to go. I may have some random folder called ~/.npm-packages because of this, but I could not find it. Last question: Did I do damage to my computer by using sudo? If so, is there a way to repair it? The reason I am being pretty thorough here is that I really did not come across any clear, ELI5, her through this particular error. Let this be for the records then. Thanks again for your generosity. Take care.

[@SkingsOfficial]

great!

[@dominiquerichardson]

docker container you dont say🤔

[@sukuntee]

You’re soo smart that,😅😅 its hard to understand your videos😅 bless you though!! I think i don’t have a few different features you recommended 😫

[@yosefholi]

Too bad she stopped this! It was really good.

[@yeager6882]

Is there a entry level, beginner to the very beginning anywhere. In 10 seconds I have no idea what you're talking about, and it is nothing similar to their website

[@JessicaDeen20]

Can you explain a little more on the type of beginner tutorial you’re looking for? 10 seconds in is just explaining what Ghost is, according to their website. The actual tutorial starts at 1:01 in and we walk through how to install ghost from scratch. I’m happy to do another tutorial, just curious how beginner you’d (and others) would like it to be.

[@yeager6882]

@@JessicaDeen20 “Open source, headless, node-based, content management system.” Do you mean a website? I went to ghost.org/ . In the upper right corner there is a button “Get started - free” and it walked me through a bunch of start-up stuff. I “successfully went through it all and got a website (I guess), but I cannot do anything. ¬¬There are like four different menu that have sort of the same stuff, but none of it gets me a set forward. I look around at a bunch of tutorial, introduction, beginner, etc., and they’re all different. Is there a way to start all over? I can’t get it to do anything.

[@JessicaDeen20]

@@yeager6882 Looking at Ghost.org, their descriptions states, “The #1 open source headless Node.js CMS (Content Management System)." This essentially means it’s a customizable platform for running blogs, magazines, journals, or yes, a simple website. It’s fully open sourced, which means it’s “source code that is made freely available for modification and distribution.” As far as going to their website and clicking “get started for free”, you signed up for what is known as a free trial for their Ghost Pro offering. This means they host it, you can get started for free, but you will have to pay money to do things since they manage it for you. My video, this video, focuses on setting up your own (self managed, not hosted by Ghost, and thus not paid for) instance of Ghost. Did you watch my video in full? If not, could you give it a try? The walk through, complete with showing you what to download, which commands to run, and how to get the website going locally on your computer. Once you have tackled that, you will be ready for my 2nd video, which hasn’t been made yet, but will focus on how to take the skills your learned in this video and will build on them so you can have a website you manage available online.

[@JessicaDeen20]

@John Us Ah, then honestly, the way I walk through the setup in this video sounds like it may not be for you. This does require some management as far as understanding web hosting and there is some assumption of developer level interest (I work for Microsoft so many of my followers want to get started with Ghost: Self Hosted). Also, your concern is valid - self hosted will likely be more time consuming, and in your case, may not offer much reward. Ghost Pro is the same thing as self hosted, but requires financial cost - in this instance, the financial investment offsets the learning curve investment. After this video, you'd still need to setup Ghost to run somewhere online, which requires paying for hosting in the cloud _somewhere_ (Azure, Google, Amazon), etc. If I were you, I would look at solutions like Wix, Ghost Pro, WordPress, SquareSpace, and Weebly (I believe they have a free tier). All of those solutions are geared towards helping you get up and running with a website with little cost. You don't need Ghost per se, you just need something that YOU find easy to accomplish your goals. I hope this helps and I will keep this experience in mind when I make future videos as it is not my intention to mislead anyone.

[@JessicaDeen20]

All of these are valid points. I have updated the title of this video to reflect the self-hosted aspect, which should cover the points you made above as I don't want anyone else to feel lost. (For what it's worth, node is javascript runtime environment, and JavaScript is a programming language, yarn and npm are package managers for use with node, Visual Studio Code is an opened source Code IDE (Integrated Development Environment), and then local hosts has to deal with local networking.) From the sound of it, I strongly recommend checking out Ghost Pro or Wordpress (wordpress.com/create-blog/), if you're willing to pay for your website. I haven't searched, but there should be some intro videos for how to use either. I hope, at the very least, these suggestions help. :)

[@veloaddict]

great, you can read a documentation

[@yokooomori2439]

ghost install local -bash: ghost: command not found

[@kasper369]

is just me or people who use Ghost have an enterprise vibe

[@johndraper3608]

This is supposed to be for beginners. But right off the bat you say I need a "supported version of Node." I have no idea what that is. Then I'm supposed to have Yarn or NPM to "manage my packages." I only understand about half the words in that sentence. Then you say I need a clean directory. I have no idea if I even have a directory and whether or not it is clean. Then, you say blithely, "I'll switch over to visual studio code . . ." I have no idea what that is. This is not for beginners. You're assuming a lot of knowledge I don't have. :(

[@JessicaDeen20]

Apologies John, as the title suggests, this videos is for those who wish to run a Ghost blog in a self hosted manner, which tends to imply that person has a developer background. While my content is geared towards developers who have some basic fundamentals under their belts, you raise a good point those who have not yet built those foundational skills will likely be lost. I’ll keep that in mind for future content. Apologies this didn’t help you with your goals.

[@bautistazalazar9722]

In my case is the same

[@bigboiron]

Good video just speaking a little to fast for beginners. This is day 1 for me.