For years, Akshay Khot hunted for a meaningful Rails project—one with real users, real traffic, and real stakes. He built prototypes, but they lacked substance. Then came the epiphany: his own blog was the perfect candidate. Hosted on Ghost for three years, writesoftwarewell.com averages 15K–20K monthly visits, manages newsletters, and handles CRUD operations. But Khot craved more: custom courses, membership tiers, and tighter Stripe integrations—features Ghost couldn't fully deliver without costly workarounds.

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"I pay $480 USD to Ghost each year. Building this myself means savings and total control," Khot notes. "But more crucially, it’s about skin in the game. As a Rails consultant, I need to practice what I preach."

The rebuild isn’t just about replacing Ghost. It’s a holistic engineering endeavor. Khot will leverage Rails and Hotwire for the core stack, deploy via Kamal to Linux servers, and implement Tailwind CSS for design—finally putting his copy of Refactoring UI to work. Advanced features on the roadmap include:

  • Programmatic SEO strategies to double his 50K monthly reader goal
  • Stripe-powered memberships for premium content and courses
  • Newsletter automations built natively within Rails
  • A recruiting platform for Rails developers

For Khot, the public documentation is pivotal. "I’m tired of imaginary examples," he writes. "Every decision, bug fix, and trade-off in this rebuild will fuel future posts—grounded in reality." The project also lays groundwork for a comprehensive Rails course focused on real-world scaling, something he feels is missing from today’s offerings.

Timeline pressure adds grit: Khot’s Ghost subscription renews in February 2025, forcing a hard deadline. He’ll migrate all content and features by then, blogging each phase transparently. This approach, he argues, accelerates accountability and mirrors client work constraints.

For developers, the series promises rare insights: not just how to build a Rails app, but how to evolve one under production demands. It’s a masterclass in turning personal pain points into professional growth—and proving Rails’ viability for complex, user-facing systems.

Source: Rebuilding Write Software, Well Blog in Rails by Akshay Khot