Today we are very proud to announce the first public release of the Ghost blogging platform to the public.

Following three weeks of intense testing after launching to our 6,000 Kickstarter backers, today we are releasing an updated Ghost 0.3.2 to everyone in the world.

It was less than a year ago that I first published my idea for a simpler blogging platform. I can't believe how far we've come already, and the incredible support we've had at every step of the way.

This first public release of Ghost represents code contributions from over 20 people, from every continent on earth with the exception of Antarctica (we're working on that one). We have successfully created the world's first fully functioning blogging platform built entirely with JavaScript.

The future of Ghost is incredibly bright and we welcome you to join us on the journey of this, its first chapter.

With that, we have an absolute ton of news about today's launch which is incredibly exciting:

Open Signup on Ghost.org

The most important piece of news, of course, is that Ghost.org is now open for signups from everybody. Get over there, create your account, grab your username, download Ghost, and check out the forums.

Our Hosted Service

As announced in the Kickstarter campaign, we have set up a world-class hosted platform for Ghost which allows you to set up and run a Ghost blog with just a couple of clicks of your mouse.

Last week we started rolling out access to our hosted platform to a few beta testers - and we will now continue to add people each week as our testing progresses. We will be rolling this out first and foremost to Kickstarter backers, and hope to open it up publicly to everyone in a couple of months.

To answer the two most frequently asked questions: Yes, you will be able to use a custom domain name with it - and we will be announcing pricing details in the coming weeks.

This means that for now - you will need to download and install Ghost manually in order to use it. That process has been a little bit complicated until now... but wait...

Auto Ghost Installers Galore

We've been working away with a number of incredible companies for the last few months to make getting Ghost up and running as easy as possible. Today we're very, very excited to announce just a few of those which are available, right now:

Bitnami Ghost Installer

Bitnami are an incredible company who make auto-installers for every popular platform under the sun (almost). We worked with Bitnami to create a set of Ghost installers which mean that you can download, install, and run Ghost on your computer with just a few clicks and zero programming knowledge. They also have services to allow you to deploy your Ghost install to a live server.

Check out the Bitnami Ghost Installers to get started.

Digital Ocean Ghost Droplet

Digital Ocean are one of the most popular VPS hosts in the world, offering people fully functioning cloud servers at the crazy-low price of just $5/month. We worked with Digital Ocean to create a Ghost Droplet which allows you to deploy a live Ghost blog incredibly quickly with just a few clicks inside their installer.

Check out the Digital Ocean Droplet to get started.

Rackspace Ghost Deployment

Rackspace are one of the largest enterprise hosting companies in the world, who offer rock-solid, performance web hosting. We worked with RackSpace to create a Ghost Image which automatically configures and deploys a new Ghost install in a matter of moments.

Check out the Rackspace Ghost Deployment to get started.

and many more to come

We've been working with many amazing people for the last months and it won't be long before you see Ghost installers popping up for many, many more hosting companies out there.

Envato Announce $5,000 Ghost Theming Competition

Our launch partners Envato today announced a $5,000 Most Wanted Competition to seed their brand new Ghost Themes category on ThemeForest.

There will be a $5,000 bounty for Ghost Theme submissions:

$3,500 for the first approved 20 Ghost Themes

$250 for the each of the first 10 approved items

$100 for the each of the following 10 approved items

$1,500 of "Best Theme" bonus prizes

$1,000 Bonus Prize for the best original Ghost Theme

$500 Bonus Prize for the best Ghost Theme converted from an existing theme or site template

Additionally, the first 10 approved items will be part of a featured collection that will appear on the ThemeForest homepage for 60 days

The first 10 approved items will also be a part of a featured collection that will mentioned in the December and January Envato Newsletter

Each of the two bonus prize winning items will also be individually featured on the ThemeForest homepage and the Ghost Marketplace for one week.

0.3.2 Maintenance Release

Finally, today we released a maintenance update to Ghost to address some final issues prior to the public launch:

[Fixed] Tag class handling in post_class and body_class

Tag class handling in post_class and body_class [Fixed] Potential XSS vulnerability in admin

Potential XSS vulnerability in admin [Fixed] Handlebars template files being served on front end

Handlebars template files being served on front end [Fixed] Incorrect mail example in config.example.js

Incorrect mail example in config.example.js [Fixed] Mail 'from' address is now configurable

Mail 'from' address is now configurable [Fixed] Issues with adding images via URL

Issues with adding images via URL [Added] Support for sockets rather than ports

Support for sockets rather than ports [Added] SECURITY.md for reporting security issues

This update is available now.

The Github Repository

For those of you who are developers, the Ghost Github repository is now available for starring, forking, and pull requesting.

Thank you to everyone who has been involved with this project already, and here's to the years to come.

John, Hannah and the whole Ghost Team.