What a great question.. You want to judge based on something you want to spend more time on.<p>If you start from scratch, you're building it the way you like, but you aren't spending enough time on actually using it. However, you are able to get more creative with it. I built my blog up for over 10 years... just keeping true to its purpose.<p>As for using Substack or Ghost...<p>Ghost:
"Ghost is a powerful solution for modern creators who want to publish content on a domain they own and generate revenue through paid memberships. Built-in features like native SEO, email newsletters and paid subscriptions means you don't have to spend time or money on additional tools."<p>Substack:
"Most Substack writers earn money by offering paid email newsletter subscriptions. Writers can set 3 pricing tiers for paid publications: monthly, annual, and founding member tiers. The tiers start as low as $5.00 per month. As of 2023, Substack has over 2 million paid subscriptions."<p>Both allow you to monetize your blog, taking care of focusing on "how it looks" and more on what you are writing for an audience. If you start from scratch or use WordPress, you have more freedom to change the look and feel. You just have to keep up to date with the hosting. You ask yourself: free vs. paid membership.<p>You are supporting the Ghost and Substack projects and keeping them running by subscribing, ultimately supoprting them to receive more support. Depending on what you want to do with it and how you plan to use it ultimately depends on it running.<p>You decide to open up your blog up and let other people write to it too. So you need those features addressed. Substack and Ghost have their pros and cons. And so does having your own website sitting on your own server, giving you the most privacy, but also likely to disappear when you do.<p>If you are looking to get a blog up fast and monetize it, you could pay for hosting.. and do all the coding, or use existing.. build an audience who reads it, looks at it, and actually subscribes.<p>You also have to consider the SEO... substack, ghost, medium... all somewhat monetizable, but you still have to attract an audeince from there.. at least they have one to offer.. to help you build even more.<p>Blogging has been fun for me this past decade... I was about to quit a few years ago, just typing on it, but I've kept it going. Just as I was about to quit, I checked my email and got people interested in publishing articles on it. Traffic keeps it going. Emails keep me going. Enough about me... its up to you now to decide your likeness. Almost 2 million visits per month.. <a href="https://confessionsoftheprofessions.com" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://confessionsoftheprofessions.com</a><p>I'd suggest; start [all] of them at the same time. For seo reasons, write different content for [all]. see which monetizes the best or attracts the biggest audience (the fastest) while you do your own research on it. Different blogs for different topics.