How is this better than any other existing solution? Specifically, how is this better than Ghost, which it seems to take heavy inspiration from?

I am not using ecrire, but I see a bunch of reasons to use that over Ghost, but it depends on each user's use cases. For me, first, Ghost is in Node. I prefer my stuff to be in Ruby, especially if I want to change stuff and/or contribute. That said, if it does not fit your needs...

Side note: I was deceived by Ghost. I was expecting their dashboard to be there on version one, but after a whole bunch of commits and a few months, with money, it is still not there. Anyways, no big deal! :)