What is Ghost API?

Why Do You Need Ghost API?

Businesses have more than one digital identity these days. You may have a website, an iOS app, an Android app, and then the need for rendering your content on other embedded media. If you will create separate content for all, there might be problems, such as:

• Inconsistency in content for different identities of same business;
• Difficulty in managing content;
• Higher costs of content development;
  

To solve the same, nothing is better than Ghost API.

It is an open-source API that helps website owners and content creators seamlessly manage their content’s consistency across the platforms. So, you can display the same content for different audiences and manage the whole content from just one endpoint well.

As it delivers content to a client in read-only format and requires API key for the delivery, it is quite safe to use too. 

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What is Ghost API?

Ghost is an RESTful JSON API with a self-consuming nature. It features separate frontend and admin clients. In this type of API, an in-built Handlebars.js frontend is at work for ensuring smooth website operation. The API also highlights a highly rich editor using which writers can create captivating ghost posts, blogs, tags, and other content. 

The API is 100% cacheable. With this, we mean that end-users are permitted to fetch desired data without any limits. It’s written in JavaScript. 

Ghost APIs are available in two forms: Public Ghost API and Private Ghost API. 

• With Public Ghost API users can detect the blog’s course of action and its behavior. Read access to any kind of blog data is granted to the reader/viewer. 
• On the other hand, Private Ghost API, provides blog data access as per the pre-defined permission criteria. Public Ghost APIs can be turned into Private Ghost API by changing the type in the admin section. 
  

No matter which kind of Ghost API you use, make sure you implement robust AI security practices as their presence will lead to compromised application security, buggy performance, and attacks by threats actors. 

How Ghost Works?

The Guide to Getting Started with Ghost API

To use Ghost API when it is public, the user has to enable it in the settings by requesting the URL as under:

https://YOUR_DOMAIN/ghost/api/v0.1/posts/?client_id=ghost-frontend&client_secret=xxxxxxxxxx  

Now, your Ghost API might be public or private, as we said above. Depending upon its accessibility status, you can use one of the 2 processes for accessing the API: 

1. Accessing the Public API
   

Know the client secret details by looking into the source details of any Ghost page or take a deep dig into the Ghost installations done previously. 

It is suggested that you do not leave your API public unless it is created for everyone throughout the internet. As Ghost is a Restful JSON API, you can utilize powerful API security platform solutions like Wallarm to protect it against cyber sharks. 

Besides security, Wallarm can also help you in detecting API endpoints without any inconvenience. So, you can save your efforts and do well without much technical or Ghost API knowledge too.

2. Accessing the Private or restricted public API
   

In the given URL, the domain name and client secret will be modified as per the end-user details and installation. One can locate the client's secret details from the Ghost’s official website.

Alternatively, you can request an Auth token using the POST method to access the API. For this, your API call will contain 4 parts, which are: Method name (POST), endpoint for the token, header details, and body content with details like username and password. 

On succeeding, you will get an Auth token for use.

Using the latter method, one can also request data, such as a page’s content through Ghost API.

Fetching Data

You can fetch page content, post content, tags data, user details using the Ghost API. Not only can you access components of the previously-mentioned data sets, but also create data pieces with it.

However, it is essential to authenticate yourselves as per the blog/site settings. Use the guide above for the same.

Ghost API Output Errors 

In case you tried accessing a private API with a public API’s method, you will see an error. Similarly, using the incorrect format for API calls or unknown variables may also result in error. In general, you will get:

• Status 400 when you pitch for fetching data while using incorrect query format and encoding;
• Status 401 when your key is incorrect;
• Status 404 when data does not exist or is not available in the public domain;
• Server 500 when the server didn’t respond due to other errors.
  

Alongside the error status, you will get an error message and type details as an JSON object. So, in case it happens, try to read the details and understand what mistake you have made. Correcting the problem will help you fetch the data you want.

What Ghost APIs are used for?

Using Ghost API, the website owners can provide published content as read-only format. This blocks the copy-paste of the content and keeps it unique. The API makes content sharing possible via any third-party application or embedded platform. 

To summarize, using the Ghost platform or themes, you can showcase your content via the internet on your website, applications, and other media to your readers or user base.

Ghost Theme Layer and Themes

Ghost API can deliver its content to the Theme Layer efficiently. So, rendering the content with an HTML-CSS frontend is really simple with Ghost Themes. These themes use Handlebars templating language to ensure that the Javascript logic and HTML pages are separated well. For theme creation, you may use available layouts and partials from the express-hbs library.

Ghost themes can be used to create semantic themes with static HTML and CSS while content is dynamic. This implies, custom publishing with Ghost Themes is a good option when you have one or more dynamic client side applications. 

WordPress Vs. Ghost: What’s Better?

WordPress is one of the most commonly-used CMS due to the list of features and the simplicity it offers. Compared to Ghost, its scope is wider, but only in the case when you need to publish content for websites and mobile devices.

On the other hand, Ghost is suitable when you need to publish and manage your content for multiple frontends. This API is faster and more SEO-friendly than WordPress. However, it is costlier and requires more technical knowledge from its users.

If you ask about our WordPress Vs. Ghost verdict, the answer will vary. Honestly, it depends more on your need, technical expertise, and budget.

When is Ghost Suitable for you?

Though we have given insights on this subject in the previous section already, but let’s detail you further about Ghost API’s capabilities and limitations in an elaborate manner here:

Ghost is suitable for you when you need:

• Flawless SEO-friendliness: Ghost themes have built-in XML sitemaps, canonical content tags, AMP pages as preferred by Google Search Engine, Facebook Open Graph tags, and amazingly clean markup. Besides this, it also supports Twitter cards, which your WordPress theme may or may not support. Considering all the above, Ghost makes an awesome choice when SEO is your priority.
• Amazing Load Speed: As Ghost separates site data, HTML, and Javascript, pages created with it are lighter and load faster. So, when you can make do with a static site with HTML pages and want fast-loading pages, Ghost suits your needs really well.
• Excellent Content Consistency: Ghost API can ensure that same data could go to various frontends without hassles. So, your data can be maintained and managed in one place, ensuring unmatched content consistency for the brand/business.
• Simplified Content Management: All your content synchronization, matching, validation, and update operations for various purposes can be eliminated by introducing Ghost for content publishing.
  

Ghost is NOT suitable for you when:

• Dynamic Sites with Loaded Functionalities: If your website is not content-oriented and requires a huge number of functional capabilities, a static HTML website won’t be a good pick for you. This also implies, Ghost won’t be sufficient for your needs.
• ‍Low Budget and Technical Knowledge: Ghost needs a different environment for hosting. It is more difficult to deploy and manage than your WP site. Managing a Ghost blog will need Node.js expertise too. Also, at present, there are fewer developers and hosting service providers who can help you in Ghost deployment. Considering it all, Ghost will be costlier.

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The Final Word

Using Ghost APIs, it’s effortless to publish content with access restrictions. Written in JavaScript, this API is great for seamless content delivery. While you’re bringing this API into action, don’t forget to implement adequate API security practices as lacking at this front will put all your efforts in vain.