Anyone here successfully get a Ghost blog federated with ActivityPub?
Been researching this and sounds like it’s perhaps still in beta. I want to set up a website/blog and leaning towards installing self-hosted Ghost on a VPS. Would Ghost even be the right thing to use if I have no interest in email newsletters? (continued)
@andrewbriscoe I just saw a guy using write.as and it had integration here too. It looks pretty neat. And the software is available to run on your own like ghost but I imagine far less bloated with all the dependencies of JavaScript and node like Ghost has.
@seatek Thanks Mark! I’ll check that one out in the morning. Ghost is very fast even on the cheapest server but it may be more than I need, especially since I’m not sure if I want to do a newsletter.
@andrewbriscoe I’d be really curious hearing your thoughts on the comparison when you do!
@seatek Currently if someone signs up for a newsletter like Casey Newton’s Platformer they enter their email and receive the newsletter via email. Fediverse integration will allow you to sign up as [at]seatek[at]hard.blue and receive the blog post/newsletter on your fediverse timeline. If the blog has premium subscribers it could customize the content that gets delivered. That’s my understanding so far anyway.
@andrewbriscoe that’s really neat!! Surprisingly capable actually. But I suspect that is only if you use their hosted version yes?
@seatek I may delete the server eventually and use their service. Still learning the pros and cons. Bulk email is not required but even though I don’t understand the popularity of email newsletters I think I would want that feature if I actually made a go at some sort of membership program. Apparently people do like having blogs delivered by email. I’m actually getting excited about Ghost after learning all this.
@andrewbriscoe it’s sounding really nice! The thing that put me off more than the heavy JavaScript and I believe Node.js was the price was tied to how many visitors - or did they mean how many registered subscribers instead of visitors?
@seatek Haha. I know a bit of Javascript and several other languages but I’m not a heavy programmer myself. I know a little about a lot of technical areas. Yup, the pricing is based on “members.” The $9 plan supports up to 500. These are free and paid members. I think the smart thing is to start on the cheapest plan and if you get 500 members and some of them are paying then you will have no problem upgrading your plan when needed. I know Casey Newton has been happy after leaving Substack.
@andrewbriscoe yeah just checked - the Linode object storage is only $5/mo 
and it is FAST.
My problem isn’t with JavaScript but more with Node.js. It’s an even bigger fatter beast with so many dependencies. It’s a nightmare. Mastodon uses it too and I hate it. It’s also had several horrible security issues recently.
@seatek Ahh, that makes sense. That would make it a pain if you were to do customization then. I just followed the instructions to install it. 