Choosing a CMS/Blogging Platform…

• Posted: February 4, 2008
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• Author: Christina
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• Filed under: software
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• Tags: blogging tools, cms, drupal, head-to-head, joomla, movable type, software

I'm working on a more thorough analysis for Download Squad, but after reading Linda's comment, I thought now might be a good time to share some of my own evaluations/thoughts on the different blogging platforms/Content Management Systems...

OK, this is where I kind of write a bit of a mea-culpa for last night's bitchfest. See, for 6 and a half years or so, I kept a personal journal/blog on LiveJournal¹ and though I eventually did start treating it like a more traditional "blog" in the post-2003 sense of the word (commenting on articles, news events, and other external commentary), it was often used as an outlet for me to vent some of my frustrations, grievances and other stream-of-conscious writing.

What I hadn't really taken into account, until I saw Linda's comment, was that stuff that I write as merely an exercise in venting my frustration, can potentially impact how people perceive a product/tool. Whoops. I'll try to clearly mark that kind of stuff in the future. I don't intend to use this site/blog the same way I used my journal all those years, but I also don't intend to stop writing about the more mundane blatherings/bitchings.

I'm working on a more thorough analysis for Download Squad, but after reading Linda's comment, I thought now might be a good time to share some of my own evaluations/thoughts on the different blogging platforms/Content Management Systems. Aside from actually kicking myself in the ass enough to do it, choosing a blogging platform was as much of a roadblock for me to start this site as finding a good design. In fact, I'd say those two things were the two elements I let allow me to put off starting this pseudo-professional space for as long as I have.

Every six or seven months for the past couple of years, I kept coming back to the question, "what blogging platform should I choose?" I would type in comparisons for WordPress and Movable Type, hope to find something recent, try to read up about how something worked with my host, hope that that was recent, etc., etc. I would dabble with a few here and there, but because I love to procrastinate (and am great at rationalizing my procrastination), it took me a long time to get to where I am.

In the last month or so, I have taken a much closer look not only at WordPress (which I am using to run this site), but also the newly released Movable Type 4.1 OS, the RC2 candidate for Drupal 6 and the recently released Joomla 1.5

Read on to see some of my brief thoughts on each. As I said, I hope to have a more thorough evaluation up on Download Squad soon. Worst case scenario, I'll just do the series here.

1. WordPress (.org)

Pros:

• Free
• HUGE user community for support/plugins/themes
• Very, very easy to set-up, especially for people who still get squeamish over FTP (to those people: start getting comfortable or go with a hosted solution -- you have to use FTP if you want to maintain your own site/blog)
• Supports multiple users with WordPress MU
• One installation can run multiple blogs
• The commercial counterpart, WordPress.com (and its company, Automattic), just got a huge bankroll in Round "B" funding. Yes, they are separate entities, but that kind of funding means that the commercial arm will be around for a long time, and by extension, have a vested interest in continuing to develop WordPress.org. This isn't going to die from lack of updates.

Cons:

• Not as secure as some of the other options, namely Drupal. It is imperative that you always keep your installation updated, and updating is a bit more difficult than just installing.
• The Dashboard kind of sucks. It's supposed to be updated in the forthcoming 2.5 release, but right now, it's ugly and not always easy to manage
• Because the community is so large, it can be difficult separating the good from the useless. Parsing all the information into something usable and useful can be difficult.
• As soon as something becomes successful, you see the grifters come out from under their rocks. Meaning you can find plugins with ad-code for the creator invisibly inserted, themes with hidden ads, etc., etc.

Bottom Line:
For new users, this is probably the best of mainstream options simply because of how much support exists. The number of tools and plugins available dwarfs the competing platforms and development is always active. If you have the time to code your own stuff and don't rely on plugins as much, looking at other options might be beneficial, especially when it comes to web-based management and security.

2. Movable Type 4.1 Open Source

Pros:

• The first stable release of Movable Type Open Source (MTOS) is now available, a return of sorts to the pre-2004 licensing brouhaha.
• Once installed, is very easy to manage from the Dashboard.
• Lots of plugins and themes are available (be sure to check that they are compatible with your installation)
• MTOS and MT 4.1 have some really great built-in features like multi-user support, OpenID, custom fields, author avatars, etc.
• Again, the company behind the project is self-sustaining and not likely to disappear anytime soon.

Cons:

• The installation is a bitch. A total, total bitch. I've finally got it down so that I can get it running as fast as I can get WordPress set-up, but it took far too much time and too much documentation to figure it out. You have CHMOD all the CGI files, which is fine, but then you have to make sure that your server can support CGI enabled folders, otherwise the CGI has to go in a separate place. Then there's the whole "mt-static" quandary. I didn't have to move my CGI scripts or the "mt-static" folder, but the documentation wasn't overtly clear about how those two steps are not always required. Install is a total, total bitch.
• They are still trying to push the commercial vein for Movable Type 4.1. I get and understand that, but I have questions about how frequently MTOS will be updated and what kind of community support it will truly have.
• The development community isn't as active as WordPress and many of the styles and plugins are for older versions of the software.

Bottom Line:
After it's installed, this is a pretty elegant CMS with a nice interface and lots of available options. It isn't as supported by the community as WordPress but many of the built-in features take care of some of those problems. If you truly want your blog to be an extension of your web page and manage both together, MTOS seems to do a better job, especially with Static Content, than WordPress.

3. Drupal

Pros:

• Free
• Very secure
• A true CMS, very dynamic/scalable
• Active development community (caveat, not the same as active style/theme community)
• Very easy to manage more than one site or multiple users

Neutral:

1. No, I'd prefer no to link to it -- I did reference it in an earlier post and am working on importing the best of the 1000 or so entries into a "Christina's Past Writings" section, but you really don't want to read about my various dramatic experiences starting at the end of high school and going through college -- well, my traditional college experience; the fact that I'm taking forever and a day to graduate is neither here nor there. [↩]

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