Floggy next to the platforms you know
Substack, Ghost and WordPress each solve a different problem well. Here is what Floggy does differently, and where one of the others is the better answer.
How to read this comparison
Every platform on this page publishes writing well, so the differences are not about the writing. They are about what surrounds it: who runs the server, whether the content has an API in front of it, and how much of the site you can change without asking anyone. Read the row that describes the work you actually do, not the row with the most entries in it.
Where the others are the better pick
If you want an extension for everything, WordPress has had two decades of people building them and nothing here comes close to that catalogue. If your plan is paid subscriptions and you want a network to grow inside, Substack is built around exactly that. If you want to read and run the software yourself, Ghost is open source and Floggy is not. Floggy is the answer when you want the blog, the newsletter, the analytics and an API over all of it in one account, with no server to keep alive.
Four platforms, on the things that do not change often
| Feature | Floggy | Substack | Ghost | WordPress |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hosting | Hosted for you | Hosted for you | Hosted, or run it yourself | Hosted, or run it yourself |
| Source code | Closed | Closed | Open source | Open source |
| Content API for your own front end | Yes, with scoped read and write keys | Not stated | Yes, a content API and an admin API | Yes, the REST API |
| Publishing from a script | The floggy CLI and the @floggy/cms SDK | Not stated | Through the admin API | WP-CLI and the REST API |
| Newsletter to subscribers | Built in | Built in | Built in | Through a plugin or an email service |
| Plugins and extensions | None. What ships is what you get. | None | Themes and integrations | A very large plugin ecosystem |
| Bookings and a calendar | Built in | Not stated | Through an integration | Through a plugin |
Questions people ask before switching
Can I bring posts over from another platform?
Yes, and you move them yourself. Publish them here in the editor or through the CLI, read the result on your floggy.xyz address, and only repoint your domain once everything looks right. Nothing about the move depends on the platform you are leaving cooperating with it.
Is Floggy open source?
No. Ghost and WordPress are, and if reading or running the software yourself matters to you, that is a real reason to pick one of them. Floggy is a hosted product. What you own here is your content, your subscriber list and your domain, not the code behind them.
Can I use Floggy only as a CMS and build my own site?
Yes. Posts and collections read back over HTTP with a scoped key, through the @floggy/cms SDK or the floggy CLI, so you can render them in whatever framework you like. The hosted blog stays available at the same time; reading through the API does not switch it off.
What can Floggy not do?
It does not run your code. There are no plugins, no scripts of your own and no server you can reach, so anything outside what ships is not something you can add. That is the price of having nothing to maintain, and it is the wrong price to pay for a site that is really a web app.
Decide from the result, not the table
Claim an address, write one post, and see how the whole thing feels before you move anything that matters.