Ghost vs Substack
as AI assistants see them, week of 2026-09-28
Ghost and Substack land close together overall, with scores of 15 and 14 out of 100. Ghost shows up in 13 of 59 answers, Substack in 11 of 59. Both get named in every answer to "What's the best newsletter platform?" and both show up for paid-newsletter and sponsor-ad questions too. Ghost pulls ahead on self-hosted or open-source newsletter questions, appearing in all 3 answers there, a spot Substack doesn't contest. Head-to-head, they tie on 16 questions, with Ghost named more often on 2 and Substack more often on 2. Claude rates both highest of the three assistants, giving Ghost 25 and Substack 26.
Head to head
| metric | Ghost | Substack |
|---|---|---|
| score | 15 | 14 |
| questions won | 7 | 7 |
By assistant
Ghost
| assistant | score | named in, this week | usual spot, this week |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 15 | 21% of answers | #4.0 |
| Claude | 25 | 35% of answers | #3.9 |
| Gemini | not sampled this week | ||
| Perplexity | 7 | 10% of answers | #4.0 |
Substack
| assistant | score | named in, this week | usual spot, this week |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 9 | 11% of answers | #2.5 |
| Claude | 26 | 35% of answers | #3.4 |
| Gemini | not sampled this week | ||
| Perplexity | 8 | 10% of answers | #3.0 |
Where they differ
Only Ghost gets named for
- What's the best open-source or self-hosted newsletter tool?
- What's the best alternative to Mailchimp?
Only Substack gets named for
- What's the best email marketing software in 2026?
- What are the best free email marketing tools?
More comparisons
- Customer.io vs Ghost
- Ghost vs HubSpot
- Ghost vs Omnisend
- Ghost vs Loops
- Customer.io vs Substack
- HubSpot vs Substack
Not sold on either?
Scores count how often each assistant names a product, weighted by position. How the score works · Full Email marketing platforms leaderboard