Ghost + Gatsby: A Modern Publishing Stack for Fast, Flexible Websites

If you want a publishing platform that’s both powerful and lightning fast, combining Ghost with Gatsby is a great way to go. Ghost handles content management and publishing, while Gatsby builds a highly optimized static site from that content. Together, they deliver the best of both worlds: an easy editor for authors and a blazing-fast frontend for readers.

What is Ghost?

Ghost is a modern, open-source CMS (Content Management System) built specifically for professional publishing. Unlike general-purpose CMS platforms, Ghost focuses on content creation, monetization, and simplicity.

Key features include:

• Beautiful, distraction-free editor (Markdown-based with rich embeds)
• Membership and subscription support
• Built-in SEO and AMP support
• Powerful APIs for integration (REST and GraphQL)
• Headless CMS mode

Ghost can be used as a full CMS with its own frontend theme system, or as a headless CMS that provides content to another frontend like Gatsby.

What is Gatsby?

Gatsby is a React-based static site generator. It takes your content (from sources like Ghost, WordPress, Markdown, or APIs) and compiles it into a static site. The result: super-fast load times, improved SEO, and high scalability.

Highlights include:

• Static site generation with server-side rendering (SSR) and incremental builds
• Rich plugin ecosystem for data sources and features
• Performance optimization (image optimization, prefetching, code splitting)
• React-based frontend for dynamic interactivity
• Deployed anywhere (Netlify, Vercel, AWS, etc.)

Why Use Ghost and Gatsby Together?

• Ghost as the content hub – Editors and authors manage posts in Ghost’s admin panel.
• Gatsby as the frontend – Pulls content from Ghost’s API and builds a fast, secure, static site.
• Separation of concerns – Writers focus on content, developers focus on presentation.
• Performance and scalability – Gatsby sites are static, so they’re extremely fast and easy to host on CDNs.
• Security – With a static frontend, there’s no exposed CMS backend to attack.

Typical Architecture

Here’s what a Ghost + Gatsby setup looks like:

   Authors & Editors
          |
          v
   +---------------+
   |     Ghost     |  <-- CMS (Content API)
   | (Headless)    |
   +---------------+
          |
          v
   +---------------+
   |    Gatsby     |  <-- Static site generator (React)
   |   (Builds)    |
   +---------------+
          |
          v
   +---------------+
   |   Deployed    |  <-- CDN / Hosting (Netlify, Vercel, etc.)
   |   Website     |
   +---------------+
          |
          v
       Readers

• Ghost stores and manages your content.
• Gatsby fetches content via the Ghost Content API (or GraphQL).
• Gatsby builds static files (HTML, CSS, JS).
• The site is deployed to a CDN for speed and global availability.

Example Setup

Install Gatsby Ghost Source Plugin

In gatsby-config.js:

module.exports = {
  plugins: [
    {
      resolve: `gatsby-source-ghost`,
      options: {
        apiUrl: `https://your-ghost-site.com`,
        contentApiKey: `YOUR_CONTENT_API_KEY`,
      },
    },
  ],
};

Query Ghost Content with GraphQL

Example query in Gatsby:

{
  allGhostPost {
    edges {
      node {
        title
        slug
        published_at(formatString: "MMMM DD, YYYY")
        html
      }
    }
  }
}

This lets you pull posts from Ghost and render them in Gatsby pages.

Benefits of This Setup

• Best authoring experience – Ghost provides a clean, intuitive editor.
• Blazing-fast sites – Gatsby generates static pages optimized for performance.
• Secure & scalable – The frontend is static, hosted on a CDN.
• Developer-friendly – Modern React ecosystem for custom UIs.
• Future-proof – Decoupled CMS architecture for flexibility.

Conclusion

Ghost + Gatsby is a modern publishing stack that balances content creation ease with frontend performance and scalability. Ghost takes care of authors, while Gatsby ensures readers get a super-fast experience.

If you’re building a blog, magazine, or content-driven business website, this combo is a powerful alternative to traditional CMS platforms.

In the next part of this series I will talk over fully expanding on Gatsby to generate a full static website, which funnily enough exactly how this site is created.