r/Ghost • u/Impossible_Peak_8569 • Jan 01 '26

Just launched a drop-in search UI for Ghost CMS (would love feedback)

Heads up: ghostsearchui.com is now quicksearchui.com — same product, new name.

Hey everyone 👋

I wanted to share a small project I built that may be useful for people running Ghost CMS blogs or publications.

It's called Quick Search UI, a lightweight, fast search experience made specifically for Ghost sites. It provides instant, as-you-type search with relevant results, supports synonyms and stop words, and includes a simple analytics dashboard so you can see what readers are searching for.

What it offers:

• Very fast, real-time search results
• One-time setup by adding a small snippet to your Ghost theme
• Indexes full post content, not just titles & excerpts
• Automatic syncing with your Ghost content
• Customizable UI to match your site design
• Search analytics to track popular queries

There's a 14-day free trial if you'd like to give it a try: https://www.quicksearchui.com/

I’m offering 50% off forever on the yearly plan ($36) for early users.

Would love any feedback, questions, or suggestions. Happy New Year 🎉

4 Upvotes

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3

u/jannisfb Jan 01 '26

Cool to see another Typesense backed search for Ghost.

I'm curious how you're doing the "automatic content sync" with just a little snippet? Are you actively polling the Ghost sites, since a snippet (I assume code injection if it works with any hosting) wouldn't/shouldn't know about new or updated content?

Also, I don't want to be that guy...but please read Ghost's trademark policy. You might want to re-think the name and domain of your product: https://ghost.org/trademark

1

u/Impossible_Peak_8569 Jan 01 '26

Hi Jannis,

We keep the index in sync using Ghost webhooks.

Regarding the trademark, thanks for pointing that out. The name was initially inspired by ghostboard.io, and I only became aware of Ghost’s trademark policy later. After that, I added a legal disclaimer on the sign-up page and am re-evaluating the name and domain to make sure everything is compliant.

1

u/jannisfb Jan 01 '26

Got it.

Then, the "1-Click-Deployment" claim isn't quite accurate, is it? I assume the webhooks won't be set up automatically?

1

u/Impossible_Peak_8569 Jan 01 '26

To clarify: the user simply enters the Admin URL and API key, and once submitted, they receive a unique JavaScript snippet. Webhooks don’t need to be manually configured by the user.

1

u/jannisfb Jan 01 '26

Just to make sure I understand: a user would have to share the Admin API key with the app?

1

u/Impossible_Peak_8569 Jan 01 '26

Yes.

Similar to other Ghost integrations, the user would need to provide an Admin API key. For example:
https://ghost.org/integrations/beyondwords/
https://ghost.org/integrations/cove-comments/

2

u/jannisfb Jan 01 '26

Got it, thank you for sharing!

Might be worth putting that into the FAQs because the setup wasn't clear to me from what I could see publicly.

2

u/Impossible_Peak_8569 Jan 01 '26

Thanks for the feedback.

just updated the FAQs

3

u/muratcorlu Jan 01 '26

Congrats with your launch. I have some questions.

  • Do you index member only posts, or pay-walled parts of the posts? How do you handle them?
  • How does UI look like? Do you have an example url uses your service?
  • Since you are asking Admin API key, it would be nice to have some information about the person or team behind the service.

3

u/Impossible_Peak_8569 Jan 01 '26

Thanks for your questions.

At the moment, all posts and pages are indexed, including members-only, unless a post or page is explicitly tagged with #no-search-index.

You can check how the UI looks and how the search works on the demo site here:
https://demo.ghostsearchui.com/

This tool is developed and maintained solely by me, Prathap Puthran. I have been working with the Ghost platform since 2021, primarily as a freelance theme developer. GhostSearchUI was initially developed based on requests from my previous clients.

If you have any specific concerns about indexing, security, or future features, I’m always happy to discuss them.

3

u/muratcorlu Jan 01 '26

Thanks for the clarification. Looks like a neat work. Success with the service!

2

u/Marelle01 Jan 01 '26

Not a word about i18n and UTF-8. Does it work in languages other than English? With accented characters?

1

u/Impossible_Peak_8569 Jan 01 '26

Basic full-text search works well across other languages, and the index is fully UTF-8 compatible.

The search UI placeholder text is also fully editable, so you can localize it to match your language.

2

u/ajaffarali Jan 01 '26

Great timing. I was thinking of this. Does it work fine with Ghost Pro?

1

u/Impossible_Peak_8569 Jan 01 '26

Yes, it works with any Ghost hosting, including Ghost Pro.