Ghost Feature Parity Ideas

This document captures features from the Ghost blogging platform that Joinery does not yet have, organized by priority. These are ideas for consideration, not committed roadmap items.

Reference: Ghost (ghost.org) is a Node.js-based open source publishing platform focused on blogging, newsletters, and membership monetization.

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Already Present in Joinery

For reference, these Ghost features already exist in Joinery:

• Blog posts with scheduling, drafts, author tracking, featured images
• Tags/categories (via groups system with grp_category = 'post_tag')
• Content revisions/history (content_versions_class.php)
• Email/newsletter system with templates, queuing, mailing lists, recurring mailers
• Membership tiers with subscription management
• Rich text editor (Trumbowyg WYSIWYG)
• RSS feeds (/views/rss20_feed.php)
• XML sitemap (/views/sitemap.php)
• Comments with moderation, nesting, anti-spam
• User roles/permissions (permission levels)
• Media/file handling with multiple image sizes
• Analytics (session, email stats, funnels)
• REST API with key authentication
• Webhooks (inbound from Stripe, PayPal, Mailgun)
• Navigation menus (public + admin)
• Static pages with component system
• Reactions (like/favorite/bookmark)
• In-app notifications
• Plugin system
• robots.txt

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Gaps — High Priority (Core Publishing)

1. Gated / Paywalled Content — IMPLEMENTED

Ghost: Each post can be set to public, free-members-only, or specific paid tier(s). Non-members see a paywall prompt when they hit restricted content. Joinery: Implemented via tier_min_level fields on posts, pages, events, files, videos, products, mailing lists, page contents, and event sessions. The authenticate_tier() method on SystemBase enforces access, and the tier gate prompt component renders upgrade/login CTAs. Includes preview length setting, early access timers, lock indicators in listings, and admin UI on all entity edit pages. See specs/implemented/tier_gating.md.

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2. Email-Only Posts

Ghost: A post can be delivered as a newsletter without creating a public web page — the content exists only in inboxes. Joinery: All posts are web-first; no equivalent exists. Notes: Requires a flag on posts (e.g. pst_is_email_only) and routing logic to hide the post from public URLs while still allowing email delivery.

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3. Audience Segmentation for Email

Ghost: Newsletter sends can be targeted by membership tier, custom labels, or which newsletter a member subscribed to. Joinery: Email uses basic mailing lists only; no tier-based or label-based segmentation. Notes: Would build on the existing subscription tiers system. Requires linking mailing list recipients to tier membership at send time.

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4. Member Import / Export

Ghost: Members (subscribers) can be imported and exported as CSV files, including their tier, labels, and subscription status. Joinery: No CSV import/export for subscribers found. Notes: Useful for migrating from other platforms (including Ghost) and for bulk subscriber management.

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5. Full-Text Post Search for Readers

Ghost: Native search indexes post titles, excerpts, tags, and authors for readers. Third-party options (Algolia, Typesense) can add full-body search. Joinery: Search exists for users and sessions but no public-facing post content search. Notes: A minimal implementation could search pst_title, pst_short_description, and pst_body via a new AJAX endpoint and a search input in the theme.

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6. Per-Post SEO Fields

Ghost: Each post has dedicated fields for SEO title, SEO description, and a social sharing (OG) image distinct from the featured image. Joinery: No dedicated SEO meta fields on posts or pages; relies on content defaults. Notes: Requires new columns on pst_posts (e.g. pst_seo_title, pst_seo_description, pst_og_fil_file_id) and theme-layer <meta> tag rendering.

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7. Structured Data / Schema.org Markup

Ghost: Posts automatically render Article structured data (JSON-LD) for rich search results. Joinery: Not implemented. Notes: Can be added to the post view template without any database changes. Requires pulling author, publish date, image, and description into a JSON-LD block.

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8. Per-Post Excerpt and Custom OG Image

Ghost: Each post has a custom excerpt (displayed in listings/feeds) and a separate social sharing image for Open Graph/Twitter Card previews. Joinery: pst_short_description serves as the excerpt but there is no per-post OG image field. Notes: Partially covered by pst_short_description. Needs an OG image field and theme-layer <meta property="og:image"> rendering.

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Gaps — Medium Priority (Publishing Workflow)

9. Multiple Named Newsletters

Ghost: Operators can create multiple distinct newsletters (e.g. "Weekly Digest", "Breaking News"), each with its own branding, settings, and subscriber list. Joinery: The mailing list model exists but is not structured around named newsletter products. Notes: May be achievable by extending the existing mailing lists system with newsletter-specific metadata (header image, reply-to address, footer text).

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10. Email Personalization Tokens

Ghost: Email body supports {first_name} and similar merge tags that resolve to the recipient's data at send time. Joinery: No evidence of personalization tokens in email templates. Notes: Would require a token-replacement pass in the email send pipeline, substituting values from the recipient's user record.

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11. Content Snippets

Ghost: Authors can save frequently reused content blocks as named snippets and insert them into any post. Joinery: Not found. Notes: Could be a simple data table of named HTML/markdown snippets, surfaced as an insert option in the Trumbowyg editor.

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12. Post Custom Template Assignment

Ghost: Each post can be assigned a specific theme template (e.g. a full-width layout, a landing page layout). Joinery: All posts use the same template. Notes: Requires a pst_template field on posts and theme template discovery logic similar to Ghost's custom-*.hbs convention.

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13. Web-Only / Email-Only Content Blocks

Ghost: Individual content blocks within a post can be flagged as visible only on the web or only in the email newsletter version. Joinery: Not supported — single content field, same for both channels. Notes: Complex to implement cleanly; requires the editor to support block-level metadata and the email renderer to filter accordingly.

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14. Post-Level Performance Analytics

Ghost: Each post shows its own view count, email send count, open rate, and click rate. Joinery: Analytics infrastructure exists but not wired to individual posts. Notes: Would require tagging visitor_events with a post ID and building a per-post stats aggregation query.

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15. Subscriber Growth Tracking

Ghost: Admin dashboard shows subscriber count over time as a time-series chart. Joinery: Total subscriber counts exist but no historical growth chart found. Notes: Could be derived from existing user/subscriber creation timestamps with a charted aggregation query.

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16. AMP Support

Ghost: Posts have an Accelerated Mobile Pages version for fast mobile rendering in Google Search. Joinery: Not implemented. Notes: Low impact given Google's reduced prioritization of AMP in recent years. Low priority.

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Gaps — Medium Priority (Admin & Team)

17. Granular Author Roles

Ghost has five roles:

• Contributor — can create/edit own drafts, cannot publish
• Author — can write, edit, and publish own posts
• Editor — can edit/publish others' posts, invite authors
• Administrator — full access
• Owner — admin + billing, cannot be deleted

Joinery: Binary system — permission level 5 (content editor) vs 10 (superadmin). No contributor or editor distinctions. Notes: A more granular role system would benefit multi-author publications.

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18. Two-Factor Authentication for Staff

Ghost: 2FA is enabled by default on all staff accounts, triggered on new/unrecognized devices. Joinery: No 2FA system found. Notes: Security feature. Could integrate TOTP (Google Authenticator-compatible) or email-based OTP.

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19. Full Site Export / Backup

Ghost: Admin can export all content (posts, pages, members, settings) as a JSON archive. Joinery: No content export tool found. Notes: Useful for backup and migration. Could export posts, pages, members, and settings as JSON or CSV.

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20. Admin Routes / URL Configuration

Ghost: Operators can upload a routes.yaml file in the admin to define custom URL structures and collections. Joinery: Route configuration is hardcoded in serve.php and requires developer access to change. Notes: A simplified admin UI for common routing customizations (e.g. custom blog prefix, tag URL format) would improve operator flexibility without requiring code changes.

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Gaps — Lower Priority (Nice-to-Have)

21. Tag Archive Pages

Ghost: /tag/slug/ automatically generates a browsable archive of posts with that tag, with pagination. Joinery: Tags exist (via groups) but no public-facing tag archive URL is wired up. Notes: Requires a route in serve.php and a view template. Relatively straightforward.

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22. Author Archive Pages

Ghost: /author/slug/ automatically generates a page listing all posts by that author. Joinery: Not found. Notes: Similar to tag archives — needs a route and a view template filtering posts by pst_usr_user_id.

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23. Tag-Specific and Author-Specific RSS Feeds

Ghost: /tag/slug/rss/ and /author/slug/rss/ generate per-taxonomy RSS feeds. Joinery: Single site-wide RSS feed only. Notes: Extends the existing RSS view to accept a filter parameter.

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24. Outgoing Webhooks (Content Events)

Ghost: Operators can configure outgoing webhook URLs to fire on events like post.published, member.created, member.updated. Joinery: Only inbound webhooks exist (Stripe, PayPal, Mailgun). No outgoing event webhooks. Notes: Would enable Zapier/n8n-style automation. Requires an outgoing webhook configuration UI and an event dispatch system hooked into the post save and member registration flows.

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25. Newsletter Signup Embed / Widget

Ghost: A signup form widget can be embedded on any page or external site to capture newsletter subscribers. Joinery: No standalone embeddable subscriber capture widget found. Notes: Could be a simple iframe or JS snippet pointing to an existing registration endpoint.

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26. Per-Integration API Key Management

Ghost: Admin can create named integrations, each with its own Content API and Admin API key pair, for fine-grained access control. Joinery: Single API key model — no per-integration key scoping. Notes: Useful for multi-tool setups. Lower priority unless the API is used heavily by third parties.

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27. Cloud Storage Adapter

Ghost: Supports Cloudinary, Amazon S3, and Cloudflare as storage backends for uploaded media. Joinery: Local filesystem only. Notes: Relevant if the platform needs to scale beyond a single server or serve media via CDN.

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28. Privacy-First First-Party Analytics

Ghost: Built-in analytics are cookie-free and first-party (no third-party tracking scripts), so no cookie consent banner is needed. Joinery: Session-based analytics exist but the privacy/cookie posture is not documented. Notes: Increasingly important for GDPR compliance and user trust.

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Summary of Biggest Gaps

#	Feature	Impact	Complexity
1	Gated/paywalled content	High	Medium
5	Full-text post search for readers	High	Low
6	Per-post SEO fields (title, description, OG image)	High	Low
3	Email audience segmentation by tier/label	High	Medium
4	Member import/export (CSV)	Medium	Low
17	Granular author roles	Medium	Medium
24	Outgoing webhooks (content/member events)	Medium	Medium
14	Per-post performance analytics	Medium	Medium
21	Tag archive pages	Medium	Low
22	Author archive pages	Medium	Low
2	Email-only posts	Medium	Low
7	Structured data / schema.org markup	Medium	Low
18	Two-factor authentication for staff	Medium	High