GhostLite

A small, self-hosted blog built on Ghost, with everything except the blog removed.

What you get: the Ghost editor, posts and pages, image and media uploads, tags, scheduling, RSS, Ghost themes, staff logins, and import/export of your content.

What's gone: members, subscriptions, payments, newsletters, comments, analytics, integrations, and webhooks. There is no Docker setup and no outside service to run. GhostLite stores everything in one SQLite file next to your uploads.

Requirements

• Node 22.23.3 (see .nvmrc)
• pnpm 12
• git (the default themes are git submodules; see pnpm fetch-themes below for hosts without git)

Try it locally

pnpm bootstrap   # install dependencies and the default themes
pnpm dev         # run Ghost at http://localhost:2368 with auto-restart

Open http://localhost:2368/ghost/ and create your admin account. The first account set up is the owner.

The development database is ghost/core/content/data/ghost-dev.db. Delete it and restart to start over.

Run your blog

On your server:

git clone https://github.com/kumailht/GhostLite.git
cd GhostLite
pnpm bootstrap

Create ghost/core/config.production.json with your blog's address:

{
  "url": "https://blog.example.com"
}

Then build it and start it:

pnpm build
pnpm start

pnpm build builds the admin, and pnpm start runs Ghost in production mode. The database is created the first time it starts, and it's updated automatically when you upgrade.

Ghost listens on 127.0.0.1:2368. Put a web server in front of it to handle HTTPS. With Caddy, that's one line:

blog.example.com {
    reverse_proxy 127.0.0.1:2368
}

To keep Ghost running after you log out and across reboots, run pnpm start under systemd, pm2, or any other process manager.

Hosting platforms

On platforms such as Railway or Render, which build and run the app for you:

• Build command: pnpm fetch-themes && pnpm build. These platforms deploy a plain copy of the files without git, so pnpm fetch-themes downloads the default themes that pnpm bootstrap would get through git submodules.
• Start command: pnpm start

Attach a persistent volume, mounted at /data for example, so your posts and uploads survive redeploys. Then set these environment variables:

Variable	Value
url	https://blog.example.com
server__host	0.0.0.0
paths__contentPath	/data
database__connection__filename	/data/data/ghost.db

Variable names are case-sensitive (url, not URL), and url must start with https://. Ghost listens on port 2368, so point the platform's public port there. On start, Ghost creates its folders on the volume and copies in the default themes. Any config setting can be set this way: __ separates each level, so mail__options__host is mail.options.host in a config file.

Upgrading

git pull
pnpm bootstrap
pnpm build
pnpm start

Where your blog lives

Everything is under ghost/core/content/, or under paths__contentPath if you set it:

Folder	Contents
data/	The database, ghost.db
images/	Uploaded images
media/	Uploaded video and audio
files/	Other uploaded files
themes/	Installed themes
settings/	routes.yaml and other site settings files
logs/	Log files

Backups

Copy the whole content/ folder. For a consistent copy of the database while Ghost is running, use SQLite's backup command instead of copying the file:

sqlite3 ghost/core/content/data/ghost.db ".backup ghost-backup.db"

You can also export the whole site from Settings → Migration tools in the admin: one zip with your posts, pages, uploads, settings, themes, routes and redirects (password hashes and the private-site access code are left out). Importing that zip on another GhostLite site restores all of it. The same screen imports exports from a full Ghost site too; GhostLite brings in the posts and skips anything it doesn't support.

When an import finishes, a notice with the result appears at the top of the admin. A site with many uploads makes a large zip: if Ghost runs behind nginx, raise client_max_body_size so the import upload isn't rejected.

Themes

GhostLite ships with Ghost's Casper and Source themes. Change or upload themes under Settings → Design & branding in the admin. Most Ghost themes work. Theme features for members, subscriptions, or comments won't appear.

Email

GhostLite only sends email for staff password resets and staff invites. To turn it on, add SMTP settings to ghost/core/config.production.json (or to config.local.json when developing):

{
  "mail": {
    "from": "blog@example.com",
    "transport": "SMTP",
    "options": {
      "host": "smtp.example.com",
      "port": 587,
      "auth": { "user": "USERNAME", "pass": "PASSWORD" }
    }
  }
}

Without SMTP everything else works, but "Forgot password" can't send a reset link. In development, a mail catcher such as Mailpit on port 1025 works with the default config.

Using MySQL instead

SQLite is the default and suits a personal blog. To use MySQL 8, add a database block to ghost/core/config.production.json:

{
  "database": {
    "client": "mysql2",
    "connection": {
      "host": "127.0.0.1",
      "user": "ghost",
      "password": "PASSWORD",
      "database": "ghostlite"
    }
  }
}

Create the empty database first. Ghost creates the tables on first start.

Commands

Command	What it does
pnpm bootstrap	Install dependencies and the default themes
pnpm fetch-themes	Download the default themes without git
pnpm dev	Build the admin and run Ghost with auto-restart
pnpm start	Run Ghost in production mode
pnpm build	Build the admin
pnpm clean	Delete node_modules, build output and Nx cache

License

MIT. Based on Ghost, copyright Ghost Foundation.