Slingshot Bio
Roboto converged Slingshot Bio's WordPress and Shopify sites into one headless Shopify build on Next.js and Sanity, instrumented end to end and AI-ready.
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From Ghost to KeystoneJS
We are the Ghost to KeystoneJS migration experts
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The process
How we migrate from Ghost to KeystoneJS
- 01
Access and gating audit
First we check the existing Ghost and see whether the data is clean enough to move straight over to KeystoneJS, and plan around any auth walls or bot protection in the way.
- 02
Rendering assessment and extraction
Then we work out how Ghost renders its pages and pull the content out, even without CMS access.
- 03
AI-assisted sanitization
Everything extracted runs through our sanitization pipeline, which flags slop, normalizes structure, and leaves us clean content to work with.
- 04
Content-model design with the client
Before anything moves, we agree the KeystoneJS content model with you, shaped around how your editors actually work.
- 05
Transform and soft-migrate
We transform the content to the agreed schema and run a full dry run, so mappings and edge cases prove out before production.
- 06
Execute the real migration
Once the dry run is clean, everything moves into KeystoneJS in one controlled cutover.
- 07
Redirect mapping and throttled sitemap submission
Every old URL gets mapped to its new home with the right redirect, so rankings and link equity survive the move.
- 08
Agentic-browser QA
Finally, automated browsers sweep the new site for data issues, design regressions, and missing SEO signals.
- Ready when you are. We'll bring the moving boxes.Start my migration
Challenges with Ghost
Key pain points
Ghost is great until you need it to do anything more than "post blog, send newsletter, and beg readers for $5/month." The moment you step outside that happy path, the whole thing starts feeling painfully bare-bones. There’s no real visual builder, no serious content modeling, and the plugin ecosystem is basically "good luck, build it yourself."
Hosted plans get expensive fast once memberships grow, and self-hosting turns into a weekend-killing DevOps hobby nobody asked for. If you need anything beyond a clean blog with a paywall, Ghost will politely tap out and tell you to write less ambitious content.
Blogging-centric feature set
Ghost is brilliant for blogs… and very "meh" for anything else. If you need complex content models, workflows, or enterprise-level flexibility, you’ll hit a wall quickly.
Sparse plugin marketplace
There’s no real ecosystem to lean on. Anything outside the basics usually means rolling up your sleeves and writing code yourself.
No visual page builder
If you were hoping to drag, drop, and magically design pages, Ghost politely says "no." Everything beyond basic layouts needs theme edits.
Custom coding required
Even simple enhancements often require Handlebars or API work. Non-technical teams will run out of road fast.
Limited content modeling
You get posts and pages, that’s pretty much the deal. Anything beyond that is a workaround, not a first-class feature.
Lacks multi-site support
Running multiple sites under one instance isn’t Ghost’s thing. If you’re scaling across regions or brands, you’ll feel boxed in.
Benefits of KeystoneJS
Key advantages
KeystoneJS is one of those tools that really clicks if your team thinks in code. It's a schema-driven, open-source headless CMS built on Node.js, and the developer experience is genuinely good. You define your content models in TypeScript, Keystone generates a GraphQL API and an admin UI for you, and you're off. There's very little magic or abstraction hiding what's happening under the hood, which we appreciate when building complex projects for clients.
The Prisma ORM integration is a real highlight. Automatic migration generation, type-safe database access, and support for PostgreSQL, MySQL, and SQLite mean you're not fighting your data layer. If you've ever had to wrangle a CMS into supporting a non-trivial relational content model, you'll understand why this matters. Keystone lets you express those relationships cleanly and query them with a proper GraphQL API.
The document field editor is also worth mentioning. It's one of the more thoughtful rich text implementations we've seen in a headless CMS. You can embed custom React components directly into the editor, which means content teams can work with your actual design system components rather than generic blocks. For teams that care about structured content, Keystone gives you real tools to enforce it.
Where Keystone really shines is in projects where the development team wants full ownership of the stack. There's no vendor lock-in, no proprietary query language, and no surprise pricing tiers. If you want a CMS that feels like a well-designed library rather than a platform, Keystone delivers on that promise.
Schema-as-code with full TypeScript support
Define your entire content model in TypeScript with strong type inference throughout. The schema drives everything from the database to the admin UI to the GraphQL API.
Automatic GraphQL API generation
Every content type you define automatically gets a full CRUD GraphQL API with filtering, pagination, and relationship resolution. No manual endpoint wiring needed.
Prisma-powered database layer
Built on Prisma ORM with automatic migration generation and type-safe queries. Supports PostgreSQL, MySQL, and SQLite out of the box.
Flexible document field editor
The rich text editor supports custom embedded components that map to your design system, giving content editors structured authoring without sacrificing flexibility.
Granular access control
Fine-grained, field-level access control defined in code. You can write custom logic for create, read, update, and delete operations per field or per list.
Fully open source with no vendor lock-in
MIT licensed with no paid tiers or proprietary features gated behind a subscription. You own the entire stack and can host it wherever you want.
Common questions
Ghost to KeystoneJS migration FAQs
Answers to the most common questions about Ghost to KeystoneJS migration
If you're self-hosting, yes. Ghost runs on Node.js and requires regular updates, database maintenance (MySQL), and server monitoring. Major version upgrades can break themes and integrations, and someone technical needs to handle those. Ghost 6, for example, raised the minimum Node.js to v22 and removed API behaviour like ?limit=all that older themes and custom integrations relied on. On Ghost Pro, maintenance is handled for you, but customisation still requires a developer. Custom themes use Handlebars templating, and anything beyond basic styling means editing theme files and redeploying. If your team is purely non-technical and you want to go beyond Ghost's default themes, you'll need developer support on an ongoing basis.
Get in touch
Tell us what you're building. We reply within one working day. Jono or someone on the team picks up every message personally.
