Set Up Ghost with Docker Compose – My Minimal Blogging Setup

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The video version is available here and you can check out the GitHub repo here.

So, I want to break into DevOps. Sounds cool, right? But here’s the catch: it’s not entry-level. Most people start from dev or ops roles, gain experience, then move into DevOps. Me? I wanted to jump straight in. 😅

To prove I can do it (with a senior supervisor watching over me, of course), I decided to start writing technical docs on my own website.

Years ago, I tried Ghost for blogging. And, well… perfectionism struck hard. Every draft felt “not perfect yet,” and I’d leave it there forever. Drafts piled up like unfinished code. This time, I said, screw it—messy writing is better than no writing. Nobody reads my blog anyway… yet.

Finding a Cheap VPS (because my homelab is noisy af)

My homelab lives in my bedroom. Fun fact: it shuts down every night because it’s louder than a rocket launch 😅. So, I needed a cheap VPS to run Ghost 24/7.

Enter hostdata.id NAT VPS — 30K/month, 2GB RAM, 1 vCPU, 25GB SSD. Small but mighty enough for my Ghost instance.

Bench.sh says:

 CPU Model          : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2680 v4 @ 2.40GHz
 CPU Cores          : 1 @ 1572.582 MHz
 CPU Cache          : 35840 KB
 AES-NI             : ✓ Enabled
 VM-x/AMD-V         : ✓ Enabled
 Total Disk         : 24.5 GB (3.5 GB Used)
 Total Mem          : 2.0 GB (747.4 MB Used)
 System uptime      : 1 days, 20 hour 24 min
 Load average       : 0.14, 0.09, 0.07
 OS                 : Debian GNU/Linux 11
 Arch               : x86_64 (64 Bit)
 Kernel             : 4.19.0
 TCP CC             : 
 Virtualization     : OpenVZ
 IPv4/IPv6          : ✓ Online / ✓ Online
 Organization       : AS141968 PT Industri Kreatif Digital
 Location           : Jakarta / ID
 Region             : Jakarta
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 I/O Speed(1st run) : 50.5 MB/s
 I/O Speed(2nd run) : 65.8 MB/s
 I/O Speed(3rd run) : 74.2 MB/s
 I/O Speed(average) : 63.5 MB/s
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Node Name        Upload Speed      Download Speed      Latency     
 Speedtest.net    4924.37 Mbps      412.77 Mbps         1.19 ms     
 Paris, FR        505.69 Mbps       443.70 Mbps         157.49 ms   
 Shanghai, CN     181.38 Mbps       342.45 Mbps         338.07 ms   
 Hong Kong, CN    870.14 Mbps       394.31 Mbps         43.04 ms    
 Singapore, SG    864.16 Mbps       413.19 Mbps         13.36 ms    
 Tokyo, JP        406.46 Mbps       425.12 Mbps         124.63 ms   

Honestly, I don’t care about SLA, speed, or fancy specs. This is for starting, not for winning any awards.

Why Docker Compose? Because I’m lazy (and smart 😎)

I might migrate Ghost to a bigger VPS later. Docker Compose is perfect: move the containers + volumes + configs anywhere with minimal headache. No “install everything from scratch” nightmares.

Minimal Docker Compose Setup

Here’s what I actually use:

services:

  ghost:
    image: ghost:6.10.3-alpine3.23
    restart: always
    ports:
      - 8087:2368
    environment:
      database__client: mysql
      database__connection__host: db
      database__connection__user: root
      database__connection__password: 96WlUp5b/p2VbBx9
      database__connection__database: ghost
      url: https://docs.anantafatur.dev
      mail__transport: SMTP
      mail__options__host: mail.smtp2go.com
      mail__options__port: 587
      mail__options__auth__user: XXXXXXXXXXXX
      mail__options__auth__pass:XXXXXXXXXXXX
      mail__from: XXXXXXXXXXXX <[email protected]>
    volumes:
      - ghost:/var/lib/ghost/content

  db:
    image: mysql:8.0-bookworm
    restart: always
    environment:
      MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: 96WlUp5b/p2VbBx9
    volumes:
      - db:/var/lib/mysql

volumes:
  ghost:
  db:

Why this works for me:

• Minimalist: no Caddy/Nginx, no analytics, no nonsense. Just writing first.
• Using volumes to persist Ghost content—your posts won’t vanish if the container restarts. I’ve got plans to cover backups and S3 in another article.
• Ghost is live at http://<VPS_IP>:8087. Easy.
• I expose it via Cloudflared, so I can access it with my domain without touching reverse proxy configs.

Lessons Learned

1. Start now, imperfectly. Drafts piling up are just “art in progress.”
2. Cheap VPS + Docker Compose = fast way to get your tech blog online.
3. Perfectionism is overrated. Seriously, just write.

Honestly, this blog isn’t for views or awards. It’s my proof to myself that I can start, finish, and publish technical work. Plus, it’s a safe place to experiment, mess up, and maybe laugh at my old drafts later.