When comparing Ghost vs Wix, the Slant community recommends Ghost for most people. In the question“What are the best solutions for a personal blog?” Ghost is ranked 2nd while Wix is ranked 20th. The most important reason people chose Ghost is:
Anyone can view code of Ghost since it's under a libre/open source license.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Open source
Anyone can view code of Ghost since it's under a libre/open source license.
Pro Extremely simple
It only does a few things and it does them well. Unlike WordPress, with which you can build a universe, a blog or anything in between, Ghost is simple.
Pro Markdown support
Markdown is a plain text formatting syntax designed so that it can be human-readable and easily converted to HTML. Markdown allows HTML code for complete flexibility.
Pro Custom domain support
Setting up a custom domain is effortless - fill the in the form and change DNS entries. Done.
Pro Self-host & paid Ghost(Pro)-host options
You can download the source code and set it up yourself (just make sure your hosting provider supports node.js). Alternatively, you can use their Ghost(Pro) service to let them host it for you. Paid plans start at $10/mo.
Pro Official Docker image
Very easy setup with an official image from Docker. Just needs a custom config.json and you are pretty much good to go.
Pro Theme marketplace
A built-in way to get and set up themes.
Pro Real-time preview
You can see markdown on one side of the pane and the result on the other, while writing.
Pro Customizable
Themes may be uploaded, as can logos and covers.
Pro Free hosting on Github Pages via Buster
You can host your Ghost blog for free on Github Pages if you are OK with it being turned into a static site. You can use Buster to generate a static site from Ghost that can then be hosted on Github Pages.
Pro Affordable hosting available
There are lots of affordable hosting plans available for Ghost blogs.
Pro Functionality can be extended with community plug-ins
Wix has an add-on store, called the App Market, that includes community developed bits of functionality (such as comments, calendars and integrations with third-party services) that you can add to your site. The store includes both free and paid add-ons.
Pro Straightforward drag & drop interface
There's a selection of elements you can choose from in the sidebar that you can drag and drop into the page and edit. There are common elements such as text, images and buttons as well as less common elements such as blog or online store. All elements can be adjusted to some extent to fit your needs. For example, you can change things like the font, weight and style of text and even crop, adjust colors and apply filters to images.
Pro Personalized templates
Wix comes with various kinds of templates based on the users genre and needs, ranging from personal, blog, club, portfolio to commercial.
Pro Wix Code lets you add custom code and backends to your WYSIWYG site when needed
This means you can add custom interactions and API's to your site when needed, but do most of the editing in a GUI. This helps you avoid the need to redo an entire site if you need custom interactions. Also dead easy to connect a database and have dynamic components based on CMS updates.
Pro Great support
Cons
Con Commenting must be added
One needs to edit their post.hbs file and add some code from Disqus in order for commenting to be available.
Con Expensive
Too expensive for what you actually get. There are other solutions that have more or less the same features at a lower cost.
Con Poor multilingual support
Its editor does not properly support Asian characters such as Chinese, Japanese and Korean due to a bug in IME. It is difficult to write properly in Asian letters.
Con Finding Ghost host sites can be difficult
If wanting to host elsewhere, some of the other ghost hosting sites are hard to find, and once found they vary in features and functions. There isn't a single standard of service across the board.
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.
Con Inappropriate terminology in the UI
Despite some community support of having it removed, Ghost still prominently uses the following phrase in the UI: "Display a sexy logo for your publication." This terminology can be considered exclusionary and even inappropriate in a professional environment.
Con Generated html is very bad
A lot of duplicated css, a lot of absolute positioning.
Con Hard to migrate away
There isn't an option to self-host the site, but neither should there be a need to.