Most lists of Medium and Substack alternatives compare editors, themes and growth features. This guide asks what comes with you if you leave next year.
Three things decide that. Can you export your posts? Can you export your subscribers’ email addresses? And do your links live on a domain you own, so old URLs keep working after you move? A platform that gets all three right is a fair landlord. One that gets none of them right owns your work in practice, whatever its terms say.
The options below are ranked by how easy they make it to leave. Prices and features were checked against each company’s own pricing pages and help docs in October 2026.
Where Medium and Substack stand
Medium lets you download your stories as HTML files in a zip archive. You can point your own domain at your Medium profile, but only with a paid membership ($5 a month or $50 a year). The bigger problem is your audience. Since April 2025, Medium no longer shares email addresses with writers when readers subscribe. You can still export emails you imported yourself, plus the addresses of people who subscribed before that change. Anyone who subscribed since then stays with Medium.
Substack is easier to leave. One export from Settings gives you your posts, your subscriber list and your stats in a zip file. A custom domain costs a one-time $50 fee. Substack keeps 10% of paid subscription revenue, plus card processing fees.
1. Ghost
Ghost is the closest thing to a full Substack replacement that you can walk away from. It’s open source under the MIT license, so you can run it on your own server for free. Or you can pay Ghost to host it. Ghost(Pro) starts at $18 a month, billed yearly. The $29 Publisher plan adds paid subscriptions, and Ghost takes 0% of them. Payment processor fees still apply.
Every Ghost(Pro) plan supports your own domain. The export covers posts, pages and tags as JSON, and all members with their labels and subscription status as a CSV. If you self-host, the whole database is already yours.
2. WordPress
WordPress is open source (GPLv2 or later) and runs on almost any web host. Its built-in export creates a WXR file, an XML format with your posts, pages, comments, categories, tags and users. Micro.blog’s importer, for one, takes WXR files directly.
If you’d rather not run a server, WordPress.com’s paid annual plans start at $4 a month and include a free domain for the first year. The free plan doesn’t include a custom domain. For a newsletter, pair WordPress with an email tool like Buttondown.
3. A static site plus a newsletter tool
The most portable setup is a folder of Markdown files that a static site generator turns into a website. A separate newsletter service handles email. Your posts are plain files on your own computer. Your domain points wherever you tell it to. If a host or a newsletter tool disappoints you, you swap that one piece and nothing else changes.
The cost is setup time. Pick it if you’re comfortable with a little technical work. Skip it if you just want to write.
4. Buttondown
Buttondown is a newsletter tool that’s easy to leave. It’s free for your first 100 subscribers. You can send from your own domain, and hosting your archive on a custom domain is a $29 a month add-on. Paid subscriptions are a $9 a month add-on, and Buttondown says you keep all of the money you make.
Subscribers come out as a CSV, and every email you’ve sent comes out as its own Markdown file.
5. Micro.blog
Micro.blog costs $5 a month, and that plan includes hosting your blog on your own domain. Email newsletters start with the $10 Premium plan. On the web you can export your blog in WordPress format or as a Blog Archive Format zip with all your posts and uploads. The Mac app adds a Markdown export.
Micro.blog also keeps your blog online after you stop paying, as long as you’ve paid for hosting at some point and haven’t broken its terms.
6. Bear Blog
Bear Blog is a free, minimal blogging service. You can connect your own domain. As of March 2026, its backup export gives you Markdown files instead of a CSV. Upgraded blogs can collect email subscribers, but Bear doesn’t send newsletters itself. You email your list from your own account or import it into a service like Buttondown.
7. Write.as
Write.as has a free plan with one blog. The Pro plan starts at $6 a month and adds custom domains and newsletters for up to 500 subscribers. Registered users can export their posts as a zip of text files. Its docs don’t cover exporting newsletter subscribers, so check that before you build a list there.
8. Beehiiv
Beehiiv is built for growing a newsletter, and it lets you export most of what you make. Posts (published, draft and archived) and subscribers both come out as CSV files from Settings. The free plan covers up to 2,500 subscribers. Custom domains need a paid plan. Beehiiv takes 0% of paid subscription revenue, though Stripe’s fees apply.
It ranks last here because of paid subscribers. Ghost’s migration guide says the Stripe account tied to a Beehiiv site can’t be connected to any other platform. So your free list exports cleanly, but paying readers are hard to move.
Substack vs Medium
If you’re choosing between the two, Substack is the better deal for your audience. You can export your full subscriber list, and a custom domain is a one-time $50. Medium keeps the email addresses of anyone who subscribed after April 2025, and a custom domain needs an ongoing membership.
Medium’s draw is its built-in readership. Substack’s is its network of other newsletters. Both are good reasons to post there. Keep your own copy somewhere else.
Comparison table
| Platform | Custom domain | Export posts | Export subscribers | Cut of paid subs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ghost (self-hosted) | Yes | Yes (JSON) | Yes (CSV) | None |
| Ghost(Pro) | All plans | Yes (JSON) | Yes (CSV) | 0% (Publisher and up) |
| WordPress | Yes (self-hosted); paid plans on WordPress.com | Yes (WXR) | Via your email tool | Via your email tool |
| Buttondown | Sending: yes. Archive: $29/mo add-on | Yes (Markdown) | Yes (CSV) | None |
| Micro.blog | Yes, from $5/mo | Yes (WXR, archive zip, Markdown) | Not documented | — |
| Bear Blog | Yes | Yes (Markdown) | Upgraded blogs | — |
| Write.as | Pro plan | Yes (zip of text files) | Not documented | — |
| Beehiiv | Paid plans | Yes (CSV) | Yes (CSV) | 0% |
| Substack | $50 one-time | Yes | Yes (CSV) | 10% |
| Medium | With membership | Yes (HTML) | Only pre-April 2025 and imported | — |
A dash means the vendor’s docs didn’t cover it as of October 2026.
Where Freehold fits
Freehold is a proposal to apply the same idea to everything you post online, not just long-form writing. Your archive lives on your own domain, hosted by whoever you trust. If you stop trusting your host, you move without breaking anything. You can read the whitepaper or see the short version on the home page.
Whatever you use today, pick a platform you can export from, put it on a domain you own, and download your archive every few months.