Substack is 10% of paid subscriptions. Gazette is a self-hosted alternative at $0.99/mo. Here's when each makes sense.
| Gazette | Substack | |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | Self-hosted, your infra | Managed SaaS (cloud only) |
| Data location | Your server, your disk | Substack's cloud |
| Free tier | 50 issues | Paid only |
| Pro pricing | $0.99/mo | 10% of paid subscriptions |
| Dependencies | None (single binary + SQLite) | N/A (managed) |
| Setup time | ~30 seconds | Account signup |
| Dashboard | Built-in at /ui | Cloud dashboard |
| License | BSL 1.1 | Proprietary SaaS |
Gazette is a single Go binary with embedded SQLite. Install it with one command, and you are running in under a minute. Your data stays on your server.
curl -fsSL https://stockyard.dev/gazette2/install.sh | sh
Substack is a strong product. There is no point pretending otherwise. Where Gazette earns its place is in situations where Substack cannot be used — airgapped environments, regulated industries, teams with strict data sovereignty requirements, or simply developers who prefer tools they can inspect end to end. If none of those constraints apply, Substack may genuinely be the better choice.
Gazette runs as a single static binary with an embedded SQLite database. There is no application server, no cache layer, no background worker. One process handles HTTP requests and reads from and writes to the database file directly. This simplicity is the entire point — fewer moving parts means fewer things that can break at 2 AM.
The migration path from Substack depends on how much history you need to bring over. If you only need active records, a manual re-entry through Gazette's dashboard might be faster than writing a migration script. If you need full history, export from Substack and use Gazette's POST API to import records. Either way, the process is measured in hours, not weeks.
Single binary. Free to start. $0.99/mo for Pro.