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About the Author
Vinnie Garcia
Vinnie is a Web developer living in Philadelphia, with over four years of experience building Websites and applications for companies in the real estate and software fields. He has also maintained his personal Website and a Web design blog for over two years.
Blog Software Smackdown: The Big 3 Reviewed
Over the past few years, Weblogs (or blogs) have taken the Web by storm. According to the Wikipedia definition, a Weblog is "a Web application which contains periodic posts on a common Webpage. These posts are often but not necessarily in reverse chronological order." Basically, if you publish content on a periodic basis, a blogging package may simplify your publishing workflow.
This article assumes that you're familiar with the basics of blogging and would like to start your own Weblog; for more information on what blogging's all about, see Aaron Brazell's article, The Blogger's Primer.
Why Have a Blog?
Part of the Web professional's job is to keep abreast of current trends in technology. Even if you never choose to run a Weblog yourself, it's good to understand the functionality blogs offer in case a client or your employer has an idea or business need that could be supported by a blogging software package. Some of the uses for blogs include:
- Personal: an individual may want a blog to help keep family and friends informed of what's going on in their lives.
- Topical: some blogs are devoted to a specific topic, such as politics or computer hardware. These often read more like magazines than blogs.
- Marketing: corporations are getting into blogging; when well-executed, this type of blog can be a great tool for corporate communications, creating excitement about products and services, or used as an internal tool to keep employees up-to-date on company news.
Why Use Someone Else's Software?
Many Web developers will scoff at the idea of using somebody else's software. This is especially true when the software differs greatly from the specific needs a client has. However, when it comes to Weblog software, there's little reason to fear using a pre-written package. Many of these packages have years of development work behind them; they were not thrown together over a weekend and are consistently stable.
Another good reason to use a pre-written package is the feature set. It would take any developer months to write from scratch every feature in today's top Weblog software packages. For most of us, this is simply not a good use of our time. Besides, if you're choosing to publish your writings on the Web, you'll probably want to spend more time writing and less time coding.
What's on Offer?
So, you're considering using a pre-written package for your blog. You may still be confused about what exactly is out there, though. In short, there are two types of packages you can use: the hosted service, and self-hosted packages.
Hosted Services
If you would like to start publishing on the Web, but you don't have any Web hosting, you may want to look into a hosted service for your needs. These services include TypePad, Blogger, LiveJournal, and more.
All of these services are managed for you, so you never have to worry about technical maintenance of your Weblog: instead, you can focus on your blog's content and appearance. You can get up and running with these services within minutes of signing up for an account, which is great if you need to publish in short order. Many of these services, like Blogger, are free, but some, including TypePad, may charge a nominal monthly fee. Since these services are well-known and their Websites explain their offerings in great detail, the hosted services will not be the main focus of this article.
Self-Hosted
If you have Web hosting available (or are willing to purchase hosting) and feel that the benefits will outweigh the drawbacks of maintaining your own blog installation, you'll want to consider a self-hosted package. These include Movable Type, WordPress, and Textpattern, all of which I'll review in this article.
As I said earlier, these packages will require you to perform installation and maintenance tasks. Some hosting companies have made the installation process a little easier, allowing one-click installation from a browser-based control panel. Check with your hosting company to see if this functionality is available to you. Like hosted services, these packages may be offered free of charge, or for a fee, depending on the package you select and the reason why you're using it. Let's look at some of the market's major offerings now.
Movable Type
Movable Type is the brainchild of Ben and Mena Trott of Six Apart. In 2001, Mena was maintaining a Weblog by creating and editing HTML pages manually. Movable Type was created to make publishing and managing her Weblog a much simpler process. Version 1.0 was released in October of 2001; the current version as of this writing is 3.17.
Features
Movable Type was the first major package available for Weblogs, and is arguably the most popular package in use today. It is written in Perl, a popular scripting language that runs on nearly every operating system, and can use a variety of databases to store blog content, including MySQL, SQLite, Berkeley DB, or even PostgreSQL. A wealth of plugins that can bring new functionality to your basic installation are available for Movable Type.
Movable Type is quite easy to manage. It features a template editor that allows you to alter the look and feel of your Weblog, and offers an intuitive template tag language to provide greater control over the type of content that's displayed on your templates. Movable Type has the simplest administration interface of the three packages reviewed, offering easy access to commonly-used features, and in-depth documentation. And, of the packages reviewed, this is the only one that can run multiple blogs from the same installation. This means that you can run many blogs simultaneously (for example, on a group site at which each member has his or her own blog), yet you can manage them all from one location. Six Apart also offers paid support for Movable Type, which is great for those who use blogs in a corporate setting. Below is a screenshot of the Moveable Type admin interface.
Licensing
Movable Type is not an open source project like the other packages reviewed, but an unsupported, personal use license is available at no cost. This version of Movable Type limits use of the software to one author and three blogs per installation. If you need more authors or blogs, or would like to purchase support, versions of the software that include these features start at US$69.95. Various pricing levels are available for business, educational, and non-profit licenses: check the Movable Type pricing page for details.
Possible Pitfalls
No blog software is perfect. Since the Movable Type software is ubiquitous, it's also a more likely target for spam and other attacks than some of the less widely-used packages. Plugins are available to help bloggers fight spam, and no Movable Type installation should be without one. It's because of the potential for spam and other attacks that a few hosting companies still will not allow the installation of Movable Type on their servers: check with your hosting company to see if Movable Type is allowed.
Movable Type's static publishing functionality is both a blessing and a curse. The benefit of static publishing is that it provides bloggers a physical output of their Website, which can be backed up easily. However, making changes, such as modifying templates, can become a tedious process across a static blog, since you have to wait for every file to be updated before you can perform another task. Once your blog contains more than a few entries, rebuilding it will take a very long time.
Movable Type also has the unfortunate honor of being the most difficult package to install. The installation instructions that come with the package are clear, but a lot of configuration needs to be done before you can log in and publish content. Installation of Movable Type takes about an hour, on average, to complete, while the other packages reviewed here were installed in under 15 minutes.
Example Movable Type Blogs
There are many great examples of Movable Type blogs all over the Web. Here are a few: