# Free Ghost Alternative: A Markdown Blog Built In

> Skip the $18-29/mo blog host. Write posts as simple text files and get RSS, a sitemap, rich search results and a version AI assistants can read.

Source: https://boringpush.com/blog/free-ghost-blog-alternative-markdown

## You pay monthly to host a folder of text

A SaaS blog is mostly text with a title, a date and some tags. Ghost(Pro) hosts that for you, and it's a good product. Its pricing page, checked 2026-10-20, lists Starter at $18 a month and Publisher at $29 (both billed yearly), and custom themes start on Publisher.

That's about $216 to $348 a year to publish posts that already live on your laptop. If your product already has a Next.js site, you can skip the second site and the second login.

BoringPush has a blog built in. This post covers what you get, what it leaves out, and how it helps both Google and the AI assistants people now ask for advice.

## Ghost(Pro) next to the built-in blog

| | Ghost(Pro) | BoringPush blog |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Starter $18/mo, Publisher $29/mo, Business $199/mo (billed yearly) | $0 on your own server |
| Where posts live | Ghost's database, edited in their editor | Simple text files in your own project |
| Staff users | 1 on Starter, 3 on Publisher | Anyone who can commit |
| Custom theme | Publisher and up | It's your own Next.js site |
| Domain | Your domain, their host | Same site as your product |
| Browser editor | Yes | No: you edit files and deploy |

Ghost also does memberships and paid newsletters. The built-in blog doesn't: its subscribe box collects email addresses, and sending a newsletter is up to you.

## A post is one text file

Write in plain Markdown. Add a title, a description, a date and a few tags at the top. Deploy, and the post is live at `/blog/your-post`.

Tags get their own pages automatically. Related posts show up at the bottom of each article, matched by shared tags.

## What each post gets for search

You don't set any of this up. Every post comes with:

1. **Article and breadcrumb data**, so search engines understand what the page is.
2. **FAQ rich results.** Add a FAQ section with real questions and it can appear as expandable answers in search.
3. **A sitemap and an RSS feed** that list every post.
4. **Reading time and related posts**, shown on the page.

There's also a checker you can run before you deploy. It flags a title that's too long, a missing description, missing tags or a thin post.

## What each post gets for AI assistants

More people ask an assistant "what's a free alternative to X" before they ever open a search page. BoringPush gives assistants two easy ways in:

- **An `llms.txt` page** that lists the site and every post with its title and description, following the llms.txt convention.
- **A plain-text version of every post.** Machines get clean Markdown, browsers get a readable page, and both point back to the real one.

Whether a given assistant reads them is up to that assistant, so treat these as making your content easy to fetch, not as a ranking trick. What helps most is the same as for people: a clear title, a direct answer in the first paragraph, and a FAQ with real questions.

## Publish a post in three steps

**Step 1 — Write the file.** Start from any existing post and change the title and the text.

**Step 2 — Check it.**

```bash
npm run blog:check
```

**Step 3 — Deploy.**

```bash
bp deploy
```

The post goes live with the rest of the site, and the sitemap and `llms.txt` pick it up on the next build.

## Know this first

You lose the browser editor: no scheduling button, no drafts screen, and no editor for a non-technical teammate. Posts go through git, so a writer needs to be comfortable with files, or you need to be.

You also lose Ghost's membership and newsletter tools. If your blog is the product, Ghost is built for that. If your blog supports a product, files in a folder are all you need.

## Why BoringPush is the way to do this

A blog on a separate service is a second site, a second login and a second bill. In BoringPush it's part of your product, so your posts, your pricing and your sign-up all live on one domain.

Every post comes ready for search and for AI assistants, with nothing to configure. Write, deploy, done.

## FAQ

### Do I need a database or CMS for the blog?

No. Your posts are text files, and the site turns them into pages. There's no admin panel to log into.

Raw HTML in a post is cleaned so it can't run scripts.

### Does the blog work on a $5 server?

Yes. It's part of the same Next.js app, so there's no second process and no second bill. The [Free Vercel Alternative](/blog/free-vercel-alternative-nextjs-vps) post covers hosting the app itself.

### Can I collect email subscribers?

Yes. The subscribe box on blog pages collects email addresses and hides itself once a visitor has subscribed. It stores addresses only: it doesn't send newsletters, so use your email tool of choice to write to them.

### Will AI assistants recommend my posts?

Nobody can promise that. What the site does is make posts easy to read: a list of them for assistants, a plain-text version of each, and short direct answers in a FAQ. Write posts that answer the question people actually ask, with facts you can show.

### How do I stop a bad post from going live?

Run the blog check before you deploy. It fails on a long title or description, missing tags or a short body, and it bans a list of empty marketing words.

## Keep reading

- [Free Mixpanel and Google Analytics Alternative, Built In](/blog/free-mixpanel-google-analytics-alternative) — see which posts bring visitors who pay
- [Free Vercel Alternative: Host Next.js on a $6 VPS](/blog/free-vercel-alternative-nextjs-vps) — where the blog is served from
- [Free Heroku, Render and Railway Alternative: Own Server](/blog/free-heroku-render-railway-alternative) — more on picking a host

[Get BoringPush →](/#get)