Since I never touched Node.js before, and wasn’t comfortable with any kind of installation that coexisted with my preferred mix of PHP, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Nginx, XCache, ModPageSpeed, and Apache; a separate cloud instance seemed the best way to go.
I found about about Ghost while doing some research on design/layouts. At the time Ghost wasn’t released to the wild but it was interesting; a short time later we were all able to get a copy.
It took four attempts, but found a Bitnami Ghost config that I liked:
https://bitnami.com/stack/ghost
Going this route makes setup extremely easy. At the time of this writing this is my third Ghost server, the previous were short-lived learning experiences. My next update will likely be a new instance, but with less disk space – just enough for Ubuntu Linux to function.
I’m usually a rpm-linux guy when it comes to servers, and tend to go debian-linux on personal devices. However, running 64-bit Ubuntu has been an interesting experience. My firewall setup steps were different at first but they eventually started to become familiar.
There is still a CDN/Proxy involved, mainly to cache the few images I’m using and do some basic HTML/CSS optimization. I wouldn’t consider it necessary, only if you’re accustomed to doing it for your sites already.
I’m looking forward to the possiblities with Node.js and Ghost!