The Quest for a Blog Engine

Finding the right solution to the problem is a task which may seem pretty straightforward to some, but might prove to be very daunting to others. It depends on what field your expertise lies in. Choosing the right publishing platform might as well be such a task. That is why I have decided to share my personal experience. Since I didn't have much time for our little research, the end result might be somewhat subjective. Still, it might help you in making a final decision.

When I thinking about creating this website, I was not sure whether I should use one of numerous blog engines already on the market or we should develop our own solution, kind of a mini blog engine. The latter almost won the argument for two reasons. Mainly because I was not planning to use many of the features those engines had, and partly because that was the opportunity to learn something new while at it. Never the less, I decided to check out what was offering.

Blog Engine Criteria

The first and most important thing I was demanding of a blog engine is the ability to generate standards compliant code. The second and equally important was that it should be fairly easy to customise not only the appearance but also the functionality of the site. My intention was to use it as our portfolio and contact site as well. Ease of use was also very high on our list of priorities, since I didn't have much experience working with such tools. I didn't want to spend a lot of time just learning how to use it.

Blogging Candidates

Since my hosting company had Community Server already preinstalled on my web server, I have decided I should give it a try. First impressions were very positive but I couldn't help thinking it was offering too many features I was not going to make use of. Also, I was not sure I would be able to make heavy customisations. This might be the right choice for ASP.net developers.

Six Apart'sMovable Type was next on my checklist. It was the closest thing to what I needed, and had a full set of impressive features, templating language being one of them, which was exactly what I was hoping to find. The price of this product is ranging from free for personal use (without support) to $279.95 for up to 10 users.

I have also tried Expression Engine Core (feature-limited free version of pMachine's Expression Engine) publishing system. There is no doubt that this product is very powerful, maybe even the most complete tool of all, but it seemed too complicated to use and a little bit overkill for the purpose I had in mind. The price of full version of product is $99.95 for personal and $249.95 for commercial licence, which was also something I had to take into consideration.

Then I stumbled upon Vine Type. It didn't seem to have too many features (especially ones I didn't need) and at the same time it seemed to be easily configurable. The fact that it doesn't make use of the database but uses XML files instead was very intriguing, so we've decided to download it and give it a try. After a while I came to the conclusion that while it was really ambitious and innovative, the product still needed some polishing. The product is free for personal and $20 for commercial use.

And The Blog Oscar Goes To…

Finally I have decided to try WordPress. And hit the jackpot. It was exactly what I was looking for. WordPress has the amazing amount of features but in spite of that, it's very user friendly and not too difficult to use. Suffice to say, though I am not a full PHP programmer, I was able to do everything I have planned with no difficulties. With slight modifications you can even use it as a CMS.

It is a highly customisable solution, but most of your demands can be met by literally hundreds of plugins which can easily be installed. Maybe the most important thing I liked about WordPress was the philosophy behind it. It is an Open Source project released under the GPL licence, which means it is free, be it for personal or commercial use. And best of all, it generates fully W3C standards compliant code.

WordPress, I think this is a beginning of a beautiful friendship.

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