Ghost is a free, open, simple blogging platform that's available to anyone who wants to use it. Lovingly created and maintained by John O'Nolan + Hannah Wolfe + an amazing group of contributors.

Visit the project's website at https://ghost.org • docs on https://support.ghost.org.

Want to report a bug, request a feature, contribute or translate Ghost? Check out our in-depth guide to Contributing to Ghost. We need all the help we can get! You can also join in with our community to keep up-to-date and meet other Ghosters.

There are a few different ways to install Ghost, take care to use the method which best suits your needs.

Please note - the downloadable zip files we provide on Ghost.org, the GitHub releases page, and via npm are pre-built packages designed for getting setup quickly. Cloning from the git repository requires you to install several dependencies and build the assets yourself.

If you just want to get a Ghost blog running in the fastest time possible, this method is for you.

For detailed instructions on various platforms, visit the Ghost Installation Guide. If you get stuck, help is available on our support site.

1. Install Node.js - Ghost requires Node v0.10.x
2. Download the latest Ghost package from Ghost.org.
3. Create a new directory where you would like to run the code, and un-zip the package to that location.
4. Fire up a Terminal, the Node Command Prompt or shell and change directory to the root of the Ghost application (where config.example.js and index.js are)
5. run npm install --production to install the node dependencies. If you see error Error: ENOENT on this step, make sure you are in the project directory and try again.
6. To start ghost, run npm start
7. Visit https://localhost:2368/ in your web browser or go to https://localhost:2368/ghost to log in

Check out the Documentation for more detailed instructions, or get in touch via the forum if you get stuck.

If you're a developer or someone comfortable getting up and running from a git clone, this method is for you.

If you clone the GitHub repository, you will need to build a number of assets using grunt.

Please do NOT use the master branch of Ghost in production. If you are using git to deploy to production, please use the latest release or the stable branch which contains the latest release.

Full instructions & troubleshooting tips can be found in the Contributing Guide.

1. npm install -g grunt-cli
2. npm install
3. grunt init (and grunt prod if you want to run Ghost in production mode)
4. npm start

Check out the Documentation for more detailed instructions, or get in touch via the forum if you get stuck.

If you want to build Ghost into a larger node app, or are familiar with using npm packages, then this method might be for you.

npm install ghost

Further setup instructions can be found in the using Ghost as an npm module wiki entry.

Upgrade instructions can be found on the Ghost Support Site

Once you have the Ghost server up and running, you should be able to navigate to https://localhost:2368/ghost/ from a web browser, where you will be prompted to setup your blog and user account. Once you have entered your desired credentials you will be automatically logged in to the admin area. The setup screen will not be accessible once the process has been completed.

Keep track of Ghost development and Ghost community activity.

• Follow Ghost on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.
• Read and subscribe to the Official Ghost Blog and the Ghost Development Blog.
• Join in discussions on the Ghost Forum
• Chat with Ghost developers on IRC. We're on irc.freenode.net, in the #Ghost channel. We have a public meeting every Tuesday at 5:30pm London time.

For transparency and insight into our release cycle, and for striving to maintain backward compatibility, Ghost will be maintained according to the Semantic Versioning guidelines as much as possible.

Releases will be numbered with the following format:

<major>.<minor>.<patch>-<build>

Constructed with the following guidelines:

• A new major release indicates a large change where backwards compatibility is broken.
• A new minor release indicates a normal change that maintains backwards compatibility.
• A new patch release indicates a bugfix or small change which does not affect compatibility.
• A new build release indicates this is a pre-release of the version.

Copyright (c) 2013-2015 Ghost Foundation - Released under the MIT license.