Case Study
View Case StudyTray.ai
Migrating hundreds of thousands of pages, re-platforming and extending for the leading composable AI integration platform
We are the Contentful to Ghost migration experts
Challenges with Contentful
With all good things, there’s a “depends on how you use it and who is using it” clause. Contentful usage-based pricing can quietly snowball, especially for smaller teams or projects running on lean budgets. Its API-first approach might make developers grin, but the non-technical users might find themselves staring at setup screens, wondering, “Wait… where’s the editor?”
More often than not, the main reason Contentful sucks is because a developer has built it incorrectly, as it has a whole host of opinionation, that isn't widely known. E.g.
You need to be extremely careful with the number of documents you build, as you could very easily push yourself into enterprise from an early stage.
We'd always recommend speaking to us first, before completely writing it off.
Key pain points
Potentially high costs
Contentful isn’t a cheap CMS. As your traffic, models, or team grows, pricing can climb faster than expected.
Complex for non-technical users
Marketers and editors may need a small learning curve before they feel at home. It’s powerful but not always plug-and-play.
Integration dependency
A lot of magic happens through third-party tools. Great for flexibility, but it does mean extra setup instead of getting everything out-of-the-box.
Limited native features
Contentful keeps the core CMS clean and minimal, but that also means more building and configuring to get advanced functionality.
Learning curve for new teams
,If your team is moving from a traditional CMS, expect some onboarding time. Structured content is amazing but new for many.
Requires careful management
Because it’s so flexible, projects need good governance. Without it, content models can get messy and harder to maintain over time.
Benefits of Ghost
Ghost is genuinely great if all you want is a fast, clean, no-nonsense blogging machine. It keeps things beautifully simple: a slick Markdown editor, zero clutter, and performance scores so good they’ll make WordPress users cry into their PHP logs. If your plan is “just publish content,” Ghost actually gets out of your way and lets you do that.
The built-in memberships and payments system is also a win. You can slap a paywall on your content, charge people to read your mediocre hot takes, and do it all without duct-taping together 12 plugins. For solo creators, small publications, and anyone who wants a simple writing-first experience, Ghost delivers exactly what it promises and nothing you didn’t ask for.
Key advantages
Lightweight JSON API
Ghost’s API is fast, predictable, and doesn’t make you fight a schema just to fetch a title. It’s perfect for JAMStack setups where you want speed without ceremony. Pull content, ship pages, move on with your life.
Intuitive Markdown editor
If you enjoy writing without 19 toolbars screaming at you, Ghost’s Markdown editor is bliss. Clean, distraction-free, and actually enjoyable to use.
Built-in membership system
Memberships, paywalls, and subscriptions come built in, no plugin Frankenstein required. Hook up Stripe and you’re basically running your own mini-Substack in minutes.
SEO-friendly defaults
Ghost ships with fast performance, clean URLs, structured data, and proper metadata, without needing an SEO plugin the size of a small country. Most sites hit solid scores straight out of the box.
Native subscription support
You don’t need 3 SaaS tools duct-taped together to run a newsletter. Ghost handles email delivery, subscriber lists, and automated posts natively.
Easy theme customization
Themes are simple to tweak thanks to Ghost’s handlebars-based templates. If you know basic HTML/CSS, you can make it look exactly how you want without fighting a visual builder from 2011.
Get in touch
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