From Ghost to Payload

We are the Ghost to Payload migration experts

Challenges with Ghost

Key pain points

Ghost is great until you need it to do anything more than “post blog, send newsletter, and beg readers for $5/month.” The moment you step outside that happy path, the whole thing starts feeling painfully bare-bones. There’s no real visual builder, no serious content modeling, and the plugin ecosystem is basically “good luck, build it yourself.”

Hosted plans get expensive fast once memberships grow, and self-hosting turns into a weekend-killing DevOps hobby nobody asked for. If you need anything beyond a clean blog with a paywall, Ghost will politely tap out and tell you to write less ambitious content.

Blogging-centric feature set

Ghost is brilliant for blogs… and very “meh” for anything else. If you need complex content models, workflows, or enterprise-level flexibility, you’ll hit a wall quickly.

Sparse plugin marketplace

There’s no real ecosystem to lean on. Anything outside the basics usually means rolling up your sleeves and writing code yourself.

No visual page builder

If you were hoping to drag, drop, and magically design pages, Ghost politely says “no.” Everything beyond basic layouts needs theme edits.

Custom coding required

Even simple enhancements often require Handlebars or API work. Non-technical teams will run out of road fast.

Limited content modeling

You get posts and pages, that’s pretty much the deal. Anything beyond that is a workaround, not a first-class feature.

Lacks multi-site support

Running multiple sites under one instance isn’t Ghost’s thing. If you’re scaling across regions or brands, you’ll feel boxed in.

Benefits of Payload

Key advantages

Payload is genuinely strong tech. It’s fast, open-source, developer-first, and perfect if you want full control over your content model. The Next.js integration is smooth, the admin UI is clean, and it’s one of the more flexible modern CMS options if your team prefers to build things exactly the way you want them.

Just know that if you want actual features like visual editing, Vercel Blob storage, image handling, etc, you’ll be paying extra for the privilege. If you’re considering Payload or thinking about migrating into (or out of) it, reach out to us. We can help you figure out whether it’s the right stack or guide you toward a cleaner, saner (Sanity) setup.

Integration with Next.js applications

Payload works natively with Next.js, giving you clean data fetching and a smooth development flow. It removes the usual CMS friction so you can build fast, modern frontends without hacks.

Fully customizable

Everything is configured in code, which means you can tailor the CMS to your exact use case. You define the logic, workflows, and behaviour.

Supports custom data models

You can design any content structure your project needs, from simple documents to complex relational models. This gives you full control over how content is organised and delivered.

Intuitive admin UI

Payload’s admin panel is simple, clean, and fast. Editors can create, update, and manage content without training or digging through confusing menus.

Custom plugins and APIs

You can extend Payload however you like. Build custom fields, integrate external services, or add your own API routes. Perfect for teams that need deeper project-specific functionality.

Built-in authentication

Payload comes with user auth, roles, and access control baked in. No external auth service needed, and you can customise permissions to match your editorial workflow.