Recs.
Updated
Ghost is a powerful publishing platform that can be used to build from simple blog sites to complex web magazines.
SpecsUpdate
Pros
Pro Easy to use split-screen editor and Markdown support
Writing content in Ghost is very easy. It supports Markdown for formatting your posts and has a split screen editor which has the Markdown code on the left and a live preview on the right side. This is nice because Markdown is already used in many areas of the web, but with the preview on the right you don't need any previous Markdown experience to ensure your content looks good.
Pro Posts can have multiple authors and user management in general is very good
Ghost has arguably done what many other CMS have tried and failed. It has one of the, if not the best user management features out of the box. Posts can have multiple authors and every user can have a well defined role. This makes ghost perfect for large multi-author online magazines or blogs.
Pro Great admin dashboard
Ghost's admin dashboard is one of the most beautifully designed out there. By removing unnecessary plugins and by adding them directly to the core ghost application, the dashboard is very minimalistic, displaying only the most useful data, such as social data or analytics and other important data that any blogger or developer needs.
Pro Ghost is very easy to use for beginners
Ghost was built to be a simple and fast blogging platform. There are countless themes in the theme marketplace, both paid and free which can be installed. Everything unnecessary was stripped away and only the most important things like SEO, social sharing and other plugins were installed right into the core. This results in very little configuration and makes ghost the easiest CMS out there.
Pro Ghost(Pro), the official hosted version of ghost is very customizable
Ghost provides a simple way to deploy and develop a blog or news site using the ghost platform. It allows you to host it on their site with everything ready and configured, but unlike other CMSs which do the same, ghost provides more something like a hosting environment instead of a massive multi-site install.
Pro Desktop app
While having no Mobile app seems a bummer to you, get your hopes up, a Desktop app exists. After all, you should be doing most of the blogging in a laptop, right?
Cons
Con No Developer API for APP or Module Integrations
Ghost is straight up Blog and really nothing else. Currently there is no manageable way to create and integrate additional functionality like you would using other CMS frameworks. There does not appear to be a roadmap to get there with Ghost in the future although it has been hinted at recently. If all you want it a dirt simple blog with no bells or whistles or extensibility then this is a great Blog CMS.
Con Although very simple to use, its simplicity can be hindering
It's very easy to add content and customize themes or find free or paid themes for ghost. But that's it; it's very easy to use but also so simple that it can be underwhelming. It can be frustrating to try and tackle ghost's limitations.
Con Current theme design is currently lacking
While ghost has a theme marketplace and many free and paid themes, it still is lacking in this department. A lot of designs are not very good, but still, good designs can be found.
Con No native mobile app
Ghost has a decent mobile web app that works through the browser only, at least for now. While it is good, it still is not as good as a native mobile app. So in that regard, ghost still has way to go.
Recommendations
Comments
Flagged Pros + Cons
Con Self-hosted might be hard to setup
Requires NodeJS and NPM which both come with a lot of dependencies. Also requires editting configuration files manually.