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Quick overview of available Blogging Platforms
Blogging has become a passion to lot of people these days (I can include myself). Technorati says a new blog appears every 2 seconds. And there are lot many novice blogger behind it. They will come across this question before they start a blog “which blogging platform to use?”
The options are wide open and choice is yours!
This article might not answer the question directly. However, I’d try to provide least information about most of blogging platforms that are available today either as a service or download.
WordPress.org
WordPress.org is the best and well-known open source Blogging platform. It is widely used commonly by popular self-hosted blogs around the blogosphere. It runs with minimal setup and it requires just PHP/ MySQL preferably in Apache. It rates high compared with other since it can be highly customized. In addition to this there are huge number of plugin authors and theme authors are there to help reduce bloggers effort. WordPress.org also has nice development community that ensures the WordPress core get better and better.
Blogger
Blogger is a free one-push blog publishing platform. Most of the novice bloggers starts Blogging with Google’s Blogger in first place. The new blogger comes in with Widget support that eradicated the use of HTML for templates. Setting up a blog in Blogger is painless and easiest of anything else. You can customize Blogger to certain extend only since they are not an open source solution. There are few popular blogs that still runs on Blogger.
WordPress.com
WordPress.com is a multi-user version variant of WordPress.org. WordPress.com have their own-hosted solution of newbie bloggers, who doesn’t have a hosting space. WordPress.com comes in with neat option for a newbie. WordPress.com comes with space restrictions; in addition to that you can monetize your blog.
Movable Type
Movable Type is a web blog publishing platform successfully developed by SixApart. It is the one who invented Trackback feature in the first hand that was later devised by other blogging systems as well and now it is more-or-less a standard. Movable Type is written in Perl and supports most of the Database as backend. Movable Type is best suited for business use.
Typepad
Typepad is a blogging service provided by SixApart and it is one of largest paid blogging service available now. Typepad is based on Movable Type and it shares most of its technical functions. Additionally, it also supports multi-user, mobile and photo blogging. Typepad is been successfully used by lot of professional writers.
LiveJournal
LiveJournal is a CMS that allows you to express your self by publishing your private journal, your blog or your forum or any of a social entity. It is the best in town for writing life journals.
Vox
Vox is a personal blogging service. It’s all about ease of use, privacy control, playing well with other web services, and staying connected to the people you care about. Vox is good platform when it comes to multimedia blogging.
Text Pattern
Text Patter is a flexible, elegant, easy-to-use content management system for all kinds of websites. Blogs works fine as well. Text Pattern also has its own list of plugins and templates.
Drupal
Drupal is a modular content management system and the blogging engine was initially indented for bulletin board system. Drupal is good for building online communities and those communities powers their blogging engine. It is written in PHP. It has a wide community support.
Joomla
Joomla is truly a content management system that forked from Mambo, a pretty good open source content management system. Joomla has won the best open source content management system of the year 2006. Joomla has a decent blogging engine and other extension.
Expression Engine
pMachine’s Expression Engine is not well know but it is a powerful and much extensible software that you may need to give a try. It is a complete content management system with much Blogging feature as well. In addition to Blogging module it comes with inbuilt gallery module. It is more suitable for heavy business blogs. Also the cost associated with it is high.
Nucleus
Nucleus is been around for sometime now and it is not much popular yet though. Nucleus is mature blogging software that comes with most of the required blogging features. Nucleus is also programmed in PHP and runs on MySQL backend.
b2evolution
b2evloution was developed from the same original code that spawned WordPress, b2Evolution is written in PHP and licensed under GPL so is always free to use. It comes with lot of features that you may need to check, which includes antispam, skins, multi-blogs, users, authors, integrated stats, its own plugin framework etc. etc.
TeraPad
TeraPad is hosted blogging solution which takes blogger beyond the blogging experience. TeraPad comes in with versatile blogging tools, image gallery, PayPal ready shopping cart, event calendar etc. TeraPad places a its ad over the site which might annoy bloggers a little but may it is need for TeraPad to keep it service Free 
This is not a comprehensive list, I might have left out few of them with or without my knowledge. You can very well indicate them by your comments.
Update (06/17) : Mayank has pointed out two more additional blogging service. I have added an overview of TeraPad; Thanks Mayank.
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#3 written by Bluelena69 4 years ago
I have seen others make note of the “high” costs associated with Expression Engine. I am a license-holding Expression Engine user. I paid something like $99 for the initial license. Thereafter, it is $19.95 per year to renew. When I signed on, I was with Go Daddy. I needed to switch hosts and I signed on with Engine Hosting, an Ellis Lab-associated outfit that gave me a discount on EE, so the initial outlay was around $75.
I tried Expression Engine before purchasing by using the 100% free “Core” version. This package will likely satisfy the needs of many in itself. You will certainly be able to see what EE does and how it works. I probably could have done everything I needed without a licensed version, but I actually WANTED to give these people money. If you want to try the complete package before purchasing, there is a 30 day, hosted trial available.
Sure, there are modules that cost money (as with most other systems) and the bulletin board module, for instance, will set you back an additional 49 bones. However, I have not seen the need to outlay additional money beyond the initial licensing fee. I don’t need a bulletin board and the included Gallery module is amazing.
My needs, for all intents and purposes, are what I would guess to be in line with the typical reader of this article. I needed a platform that provided flexibility and Expression Engine offers this in spades. I needed a system that allowed a combination of static and dynamic content, with little need to mess with serious code beyond XHTML, CSS and perhaps a little Javascript. Expression Engine meets these needs and more.
As my first EE project, I am developing a personal blog/online portfolio. I am a graduate student in Technical Communication and do a good deal of web development work. I have been in search for a system that allows me to develop a site and present clients with an interface that suits their needs. The ability to do this is limitless with Expression Engine. The key feature here is customization and this is where Expression Engine blows anything else out of the water. I love Textpattern and still consider myself a user of that amazing product. I still manage my employer’s site with it.
I have found Expression Engine to be a little more intuitive than Textpattern and others out of the box. There is a small learning curve, but not more than with any other worthwhile system I have tried. The EE community is almost as amazing the group associated with Textpattern. I have never waiting more than an hour for assistance on the forums and I regularly see the developers/company people posting. Their customer service is second to none if you happen to need more official help (you miss out on this with Core, which is unsupported).
Back to the initial issue of cost, I simply don’t understand this. Sure, there are many good, 100% free options are out there. However, I don’t see the associated costs as “high” in any way whatsoever. If you are serious about what you do or simply want something that is pleasant to use, I would recommend a look at Expression Engine.
Like any other system, Expression Engine might not be for everyone. However, I would advise anyone looking at available options to NOT be scared away by the frequent notations and warnings of the costs associated with EE. The costs are easily justified after one sees how powerful, extensible and flexible it is. A frustration I see regularly (and experienced myself) among EE newbies stems not from dilemmas related to how to do something in Expression Engine but rather which way to go about it…
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Great post Benedict. There are definitely a lot of blogging options to choose from these days. At this point in time I think WordPress.org is the best blogging platform…though I still haven’t migrated over.
I’m doing well enough that I’ve just been putting it off. Like they say, it it ain’t broken, don’t fix it!Shine on,
Aaron -
Ram – WordPress.com might not be a good choice for people who want to make money online. But again for novice users it is equally competitive with blogger and typepad.
Yes true, Joomla can’t be preferred if you’re setting up personal blog. But in case you’re running a community site or so. You can give this a try rather than trying to integrate third part blogging system and Joomla CMS in the later stage.
Shankar -WordPress is my personal favorite too
Thanks for the stumble Ram and Shankar! I appreciate it.
Bluelena69 – Thanks for the detailed comment and explanation about the cost associated with Expression Engine. Yes, what you have mentioned is true. “Expression Engine might not be for everyone”. The power to manage dynamic and static page is the major positive which I consider when i comes to Expression Engine.
Listikal – Thanks for the comments, WordPress is great and stand out of the crowd
Bush Mackel – Thank you for stopping here and comments!
Aaron Cook – Thank you
If you’re planning to move, I would recommend you to make a move before its getting too late. Later, the migration would be an added pain in the ass:-) give a though again!Vijay – Yes, the intent was to picture out the available options and hope i did that
Yep. Nuclues is a kind of matured CMS with built-in blogging feature! From the comments so far I learn WordPress is everyone’s personal favorite and it rocks! -
Madhur – Thanks dude. You might need to try service someday. Few might interest you!
Mayank – Agreed, this is not a comprehensive list yet. I would keep it growing as I get more suggestion like TeraPad. I have updated the post already with TeraPad. Thank you for it. I might add an overview of Live Space soon too
Listikal – Thanks for your reward thru link back
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I think, every new blogger should start with blogger.com then switch over to self-hosted wordpress blog. I think that WordPress is the most powerful platform for blogging and also it is developing with leaps and bounds with new versions coming every month. I have also tried Drupal and Joomla. They are not for only blogging, however by using drupal and joomla we can create full fledged websites. Drupal has some problems while running on shared servers as its scripts takes high CPU usage of the server. Joomla is still developing. I haven’t tried paid blogging platforms like typepad or movable type. But their biggest disadvantage is that they are not free. Thus moral of the story is that WordPress is the best…. Go for WordPress.
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Nice article. Clears a lot of things for people new to blogging. Gives you the facts plain and simple!
cyberst0rm’s tech blog
http://cyberst0rm.blogspot.com -
WordPress has a big issue with duplicated content. The fact that the posts content gets written also to the categories and archive pages, and those gets crawled by Google, can lead to a big time Supplemental Content issue.
The cure for that seem to be the duplicated content plugin, that places a no index clause on every page not being the home page and the posts.Just my 0,02
Gili -
Sydney Uni’s CS Alumni of early 80′s . Got my BSc in 1982, MSc in 1985. Probably one of the 1st women to head Public Bank’s acquired Japanese bank’s IT project in H.K in the early 90′s. But, they are all history now
-. I am semi-retire now. A full time housewife and a full time investor -. But, never lose my interest in anything computer -. A geek is always a geek no matter what - -
Great list, herold.
Personally, I like both blogger and wordpress.I started blogging with blogger for a year before blogging with “wordpress.org” . Blogger is really good for novice bloggers and non techie. But for professional blogging, I like wordpress.
Another thing I want to add one in this list, it is “Gelato” tumblelogs CMS. I’ve posted about this in my blog. Nice and good for lightweight blogging.
You’ve a nice blog Herold,
Keep it up
Myo Kyaw Htun
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Glad to see ExpressionEngine on that list. Most blog platform lists like this seem to always leave it out.
I agree with Bluelena69 in that the cost isn’t that bad though. That’s one of the main reasons I hear people talking about not using EE, because of the cost. It seems everyone is looking for the free fix when sometimes for a superior product, it just can’t be free. I don’t think $99 is to much to shell out for an a great piece of software.
As was mentioned before too, The free EE Core version will satisfy about 90% of everyone’s needs. I own a Personal License as well as the free Core version (my site runs the free version) and it does everything I need and then some.
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Deron Sizemore – You’re correct on the fact why they are missed out in the list! Sometimes, I tend to think Internet revolves around the word ‘FREE’
If you’re running a commercial blog, 99 bucks should not matter at all. BTW, you have shown the power of Expression Engine using your blog. It is great!
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Benedict: Yeah, as does the world seem to evolve around the word “free.” Don’t get me wrong, free is great and all but dang! People take it to extremes.
Well, if you are in fact running a “commercial” blog, the license fee is $250, so it’s a considerable amount more than the non commercial license, but still affordable. There is a fine line between personal and commercial according to EE and it’s difficult to differentiate the two sometimes. They say it’s okay to display ads on a personal site which pays for hosting costs, etc. But if your main purpose for starting the website is to make money, then you must buy the commercial version. To be honest I’m not sure how much this is even monitored and if I had to take a guess, I’d bet there are hundreds if not thousands of personal licenses out there being used for commercial purposes.
Thanks for the compliments on my blog! Glad you like it. I’m enjoying yours as well and I too have signed up for your feed.
See you around. -
Deron Sizemore – I’ve to agree on that part! Even paying $250 for a commercial blog won’t be that huge! (May be their one day income). I’m not sure if EE would penalize for using personal licence in place of commercial one!
I checked couple of sites powering EE; each of them looks very professional. Great work there from EE.!
BTW, You’re welcome!
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Cool!
Nice article.
Wordpress.com doesn’t allow you to monetize your blog i guess.
Joomla is a very evolved CMS, but for blogging its not a perfect tool i feel. I am not sure whether it has trackback feature or not.
Stumbled it