ghost-mysql-compose

easy Ghost self-hosting with docker-compose

Prerequisites

You will need docker and docker-compose

For running this configuration you will need a machine with atleast 1GB of RAM. If your blog has estimate of less than 100K hits/day you will be fine with sqlite instead, consider using ghost-sqlite-compose which is more lightweight

SSL

SSL Certificate will be generated and refreshed automatically by Traefik. You only need to specify your domain and mail address for ACME notifications in a config file .env.

Setup

1. Clone this repo and create default config from template

git clone https://github.com/linnik/ghost-mysql-compose.git
cd ghost-mysql-compose
cp env.template .env

2. Fill config file named .env with credentials for mail sending and DB access. Leave no empty values!

3. Launch!

docker compose up -d
docker compose ps

Upgrading

1. Update the version variables in your existing .env (or copy env.template to .env again and re-enter your values). Verify what compose resolves with docker compose config | grep image:

2. Back up your database first:

docker compose exec mysql sh -c 'exec mysqldump -uroot -p"$MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD" "$MYSQL_DATABASE"' > ghostdb-$(date +%F).sql

3. Pull new images and restart:

docker compose pull
docker compose up -d

The v5 → v6 migration runs automatically on first boot and is one-way — a migrated database can't run on a 5.7.0 image again. On larger sites it can take a while: expect a slow first boot and possible 404s while the migration runs; watch docker compose logs -f ghost. Your existing Let's Encrypt certificates carry over to Traefik v3 — no re-issue needed.

Each Ghost version bump is tagged in git, e.g. git tag -a 6.56.0 -m "Ghost 6.56.0".

Ghost 6 notes

• Requires MySQL 8 — this stack uses 8.4 LTS (the 8.0 line reached EOL in April 2026)
• Node.js 22 is bundled in the image — no action needed
• ?limit=all no longer returns all items; API responses are capped at 100 — integrations must paginate
• AMP feature removed
• Admin session/ API endpoint removed