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Ghost is a CMS platform (like WordPress) you can install on your server for free. It’s simpler than WordPress, but it has everything you need to create a blog. These are the steps to install it with Docker:

  1. Install Docker if it’s not already installed (Install Docker).
  2. Create a network (replace NETWORK_NAME):
docker network create NETWORK_NAME
  1. Run MySQL container. Replace DB_HOST with a name for the container, NETWORK_NAME with your new network name, DB_NAME with a name for the database, DB_USER with a name for the database user and DB_PASSWORD with a password for the database:
docker run --name DB_HOST -d --network NETWORK_NAME -e MYSQL_DATABASE=DB_NAME -e MYSQL_USER=DB_USER -e MYSQL_PASSWORD=DB_PASSWORD -e MYSQL_RANDOM_ROOT_PASSWORD=yes mysql:5.7
  1. Run Ghost container (wait 20-40 seconds for MySQL to set up). Replace GHOST_CONTAINER with a name for the container, NETWORK_NAME for network name, http://localhost:8080 for server public IP or domain (change local port in -p 8080:2368 if needed), DB_HOST with the MySQL container name, DB_USER with the database user, DB_PASSWORD with the database password and DB_NAME with database name:
docker run --name GHOST_CONTAINER -d --network NETWORK_NAME -p 8080:2368 -e url=http://localhost:8080 -e database__client=mysql -e database__connection__host=DB_HOST -e database__connection__user=DB_USER -e database__connection__password=DB_PASSWORD -e database__connection__database=DB_NAME ghost:4-alpine
  1. Now you can access your newly created website typing your VPS public IP and port 8080 in your browser (check your VPS provider’s firewall to open port 8080): http://<SERVER-PUBLIC-IP>:8080.

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