Ghost(Pro) can be used as a Headless CMS with other third-party front-end frameworks, such as NextJS and Gatsby for example. Setup guides for the most popular frameworks can be found in our developer documentation.
Using Ghost(Pro) as a Headless CMS does come with some limitations, and would require a more technical background to rebuild features that come “out of the box” with a standard Ghost(Pro) site.
For example, you would need to rebuild structured data, sitemaps, tag & author archives, AMP templates and custom routing.
Other limitations to consider when using Ghost(Pro) as a Headless CMS:
- Portal is not available to be used for subscription management with a headless setup
- “View in Browser” links contained in email newsletter templates will always lead to the ghost.io site
- Unsubscribe links contained in email newsletters will always lead to the ghost.io site
- A headless setup requires a custom theme, to not expose content to search. You can find an example of a theme for use with a headless setup here.
- You will not benefit from Ghost(Pro)’s CDN, provided via Fastly.
These limitations aren’t listed to sway you away from using Ghost(Pro) as a headless CMS, but more so to make sure you are aware of the work involved to use Ghost in this manner.
If you're unsure of the technical aspect required to setup your Ghost(Pro) site in a headless environment, checkout our Expert Directory.