Ghost vs listmonk: Complete Comparison (2026)
An in-depth comparison of Ghost and listmonk to help you choose the right tool for your business.
Last updated: November 2026
Ghost
6.9/10
Open-source publishing platform that combines a website, newsletters, and paid memberships for independent publishers, creators, and media businesses.
listmonk
6.6/10
listmonk is a free, open-source, self-hosted newsletter and mailing list manager. Technical teams use it to send high-volume email campaigns and transactional email through their own SMTP providers.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | | |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 6.9/10 | 6.6/10 |
| Scalability | 7/10 | 9/10 |
| Ease of Use | 7/10 | 4/10 |
| Customization | 8/10 | 9/10 |
| Security | 7/10 | 6/10 |
| Support | 5/10 | 3/10 |
| Cost | 7/10 | 10/10 |
| Integration | 7/10 | 5/10 |
| Analytics | 6/10 | 5/10 |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Cheapest paid plan | Contact for pricing | Contact for pricing |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | Contact for pricing | Free Self-hosted (open source) |
| Features | ||
| Email Marketing | ||
| Segmentation | ||
| A/B Testing | Not listed | |
| Landing Pages | Not listed | |
| SMS Marketing | Not listed | |
| Webinars | Not listed | |
Ghost vs listmonk cost by team size
| Team size | Ghost | listmonk |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | Contact for pricing | FreeSelf-hosted (open source) |
| 5 users | Contact for pricing | FreeSelf-hosted (open source) |
| 10 users | Contact for pricing | FreeSelf-hosted (open source) |
| 25 users | Contact for pricing | FreeSelf-hosted (open source) |
| 50 users | Contact for pricing | FreeSelf-hosted (open source) |
The plan that fits each team size, billed monthly, before add-ons and usage charges. Each cost opens that tool's pricing calculator for the team size.
Which One Should You Choose?
Why choose Ghost
- Higher Ease of Use score (7/10 vs 4/10)
- Higher Support score (5/10 vs 3/10)
- Better fit for freelancers (8/10 vs 3/10)
- Better fit for small business (7/10 vs 5/10)
Why choose listmonk
- Has a free plan (Ghost does not)
- Higher Cost score (10/10 vs 7/10)
- Higher Scalability score (9/10 vs 7/10)
- Better fit for developers (9/10 vs 6/10)
- Better fit for startups (8/10 vs 6/10)
Pros & Cons
Ghost
Pros
- Ghost takes no percentage of membership revenue, unlike Substack's 10% fee, so publishers pay only the plan price and Stripe fees.
- Website, newsletter, and paid memberships work together without plugins.
- The open-source core can be self-hosted for free, and APIs and webhooks support custom builds.
- More than 100 listed integrations, including Zapier, Stripe, Mailchimp, and privacy-focused analytics tools.
Cons
- Email features are basic: segmentation is limited and there is no built-in A/B testing or SMS.
- Email delivery depends on Mailgun, which users say can be costly or unreliable when self-hosting.
- Lower plans get email-only support with no weekend coverage, and Trustpilot reviews complain about billing and refunds.
- The Starter plan excludes paid subscriptions, custom themes, and integrations.
listmonk
Pros
- The software has no licence or per-subscriber fees. A reviewer estimates 100,000 subscribers on weekly sends costs about 45 USD a month in hosting and SES fees.
- Reviewers report it handles hundreds of thousands to millions of subscribers on modest hardware.
- Multi-SMTP queues with rate limiting let you mix providers such as SES, Postmark or Mailgun.
- SQL-based segmentation and Go templating give developers very fine control.
- It includes a transactional API, OIDC SSO, role-based permissions and scoped API tokens.
Cons
- You must set up and run Docker or the binary, PostgreSQL, a reverse proxy and SMTP yourself.
- Support comes only from the community on GitHub, with no SLA.
- It has no behavioural automation or drip sequences.
- Deliverability and list cleaning depend on your own DNS and provider configuration.
- Reviewers say it has fewer integrations, templates and tutorials than commercial platforms.
Not sold on either?
Frequently Asked Questions
Ghost scores higher on our Marketing criteria: 6.9/10 against 6.6/10 for listmonk. The largest gap is in Cost: 7/10 for Ghost and 10/10 for listmonk.
Listmonk has a free plan; Ghost does not list one.
Ghost is the better fit for freelancers: we rate it 8/10 for them, against 3/10 for listmonk.
