Ghost is an open-source content management system for publishers and bloggers that makes writing and publishing online content easy.
Ghost was created in 2013 and has evolved into a world-class CMS thanks to the features added since then. As with most software, Ghost is released under a versioning system, where each version includes a set of features added or removed, along with bug fixes.
A major version indicates essential changes (features, UX, infrastructure, etc.) to the previous one. The last version of Ghost is 6.19, and the major supported versions are v2, v3, v4, v5, and v6.
For example, a blog running on Ghost v2 has a significantly different feature set and user experience from Ghost v3, which in turn differs from Ghost v4, and so on.
Why you should know your Ghost version
Knowing the version of Ghost your blog is running on is crucial for the following reasons:
- Errors Troubleshooting: When you have an issue with Ghost, knowing the exact version will help you find a fix or have others help you by suggesting solutions targeted to your version.
- Available Features: Major versions can have different features. Knowing the version can help you determine whether a feature you want to use is available or when it will be based on the roadmap.
- API Integrations: Ghost can integrate with third-party services or enable them to integrate with Ghost via its Content API or Admin API. A minimum version is required for some integrations because some features may not be available.
- Security: Software releases sometimes have vulnerabilities. You must know your version to determine whether you are affected; when this happens, you can update to apply a vulnerability fix.
- Version Upgrade: Your blog is running on Ghost 3, and you want to upgrade to Ghost 5. Upgrading to a major version often involves breaking changes that require special steps to ensure a smooth upgrade. For example, the upgrade from version 4 to 5 dropped support for MySQL 5 in favor of MySQL 8.
How to find the Ghost version?
We will explore three methods to determine which version of Ghost your blog is running.
Method 1: Ghost admin space
Whether you use Ghost Pro or Ghost self-hosted, the process is the same and must be completed in the admin area.
However, the steps for finding it vary by Ghost major version.
As it is good practice to keep your blog up to date, this tutorial shows how to find the Ghost version on the latest major release, v6.
Log in to the administration space of your blog. At the bottom left, click on the settings button.
A modal dialog appears displaying settings; on the left menu in the modal, scroll to the bottom and click on the menu item "About Ghost."
A new modal dialog will appear, displaying information about Ghost, including the version.
That is it!! You get your Ghost version.
Method 2: browser inspector tool
With this method, you will need a link to the web page, such as a blog post you published on Ghost; below is an example.
Team Ghost
Open a tab in your browser, paste the link to the blog post, and then open your browser's page inspector tool.
The table below shows the keyboard shortcuts that depend on your browser and operating system.
| OS/Browser | Chrome | Firefox | Safari |
|---|---|---|---|
| Windows | CTRL + Shift + I | CTRL + Shift + I | Not supported |
| Linux | CTRL + Shift + I | CTRL + Shift + I | Not supported |
| Mac OS | CMD + Option + I | CMD + Option + I | CMD + Option + I |
Once the inspector tool opens, locate the section of the HTML page, then find the <meta> tag with the "generator" attribute.
This tag has another attribute, "content," whose value is the Ghost version that is serving the web page.
This method is great for finding your Ghost version and the Ghost version for other websites.
Method 3: Calling the administrator endpoint
Ghost exposes an administrator endpoint that returns basic information about the blog. Among the information, the blog version is displayed.
The administrator endpoint follows this pattern:
- For the Ghost pro version:
https://<domain>.ghost.io/api/admin/site - For the self-hosted version:
https://<domain>/ghost/api/admin/site
Replace the <domain> with your blog domain (example.com).
Now that you have the full URL, open a browser tab and paste it in the address bar. You can see the Ghost version on the page displayed.
How to find the latest Ghost version?
Ghost is open source, with its source code publicly available on GitHub.
When Ghost maintainers release a new version, they create an artifact of the source code for that release.
You can browse the release pages to view all the versions released since the beginning. Since we are interested in the latest item, the first item on the list is the latest, as the releases are sorted by release date in descending order.
From the picture above, the latest Ghost version is 6.19.1
Wrap up
Knowing the Ghost version of your blog is essential to getting the most out of Ghost and smoothing your writing experience. We saw three methods for finding the Ghost version:
- From the admin space
- From the browser inspector tool.
- From calling a Ghost administrator endpoint.
The second method is useful for viewing the Ghost version of the other website, but I recommend the first because it is more accurate. Meta tags can change at any time or be removed by Ghost maintainers, yet showing the Ghost version in the administrator space is more common in the SaaS world.