Ghost Blogging: iA Writer vs Ulysses

It is no secret that my blogging platform of choice is Ghost.

For the past two years, I have been using Ulysses for all my writing needs and lately, Ulysses is predominately used for writing for MereCivilian.

However, each year, I seek non-subscription based alternatives. I find that my list of subscriptions is growing. Therefore, I go through exercises like this where I scrutinize and evaluate my subscription apps. Today, its Ulysses’s turn.

Spoiler Alert, I couldn’t find an alternative and as such renewed my subscription for another year. The closest alternative is iA Writer.

What Ulysses can do, that iA Writer does not?

• Drag and drop images: it has become muscle memory for me to drag images from the Photos app to Ulysses. iA Writer does not support this.
• Publish on MereCivilian Blog: iA Writer uploads the article as draft. There are no other options. Meanwhile Ulysses provides:
  — Title
  — Schedule post
  — Post image
  — Post URL
  — Add Tags: retrieves all existing tags from website
  — Except:
  — Action: open Ghost or do nothing

The following image shows what Ulysses does:

• Handling Hyperlinks: As evident by the two images below, iA Writer shows the actual links while Ulysses hides it. Visually, I prefer Ulysses in this regard as it keeps my writing clean. iA Writer, ironically feels cluttered.

Left: iA Writer Right: Ulysses Observe how iA Writer shows the complete Ghost link: https://ghost.org while Ulysses does not

I accept the above may not be deal breakers for some but each time, I switch to iA Writer, I miss these specific features. These are first world problems because, had I not used Ulysses previously, iA Writer would perfectly suit my needs.

Perhaps, next year there may be an alternative. Until then, I gladly pay for Ulysses and as such, earned my subscription.

Originally published at https://merecivilian.com on December 6, 2020.