What do you think about these BlogWare options?

August 28, 2004 7:43 PM

BlogWare: b2,WordPress or Nucleus? My hosting provider is set up for easy auto-installs on each of these freebies. Are any of these worth checking out? What do you recommend?
posted by geekyguy to computers & internet (8 comments total)

You can test drive each of them here.
posted by sageleaf at 1:34 AM on August 29, 2004

I've tried all three (and more!), and of the three that your host is offering, WordPress is the simplest to use, and it has the most "user-friendly" support system of all three.

Have fun!
posted by davidmsc at 4:34 AM on August 29, 2004

What exactly are you looking for? I tested all three out last week for a contract I did and came up with the conclusion b2 was the best for what the client wanted to do, but that it was still severely lacking. I'd stay away from all three or simply throw a dart and pick one, none are perfect and all suck for different reasons.

pwb.

P.S. Feel free to contact me via email (email address can be found on my personal site which can be found on my MeFi profile site...)
posted by pwb503 at 12:18 PM on August 29, 2004

I have used b2 and WordPress and thought they both were shite. I LOVE pMachine. And it is the easiest of the 3 to install *and* upgrade. In addition, it is coded and maintained by a paid staff, and not some talented code moneky who just doesn't have the time to fix a bug or answer a question.
posted by terrapin at 7:17 AM on August 30, 2004

I'd recommend Movable Type or TypePad (no install at all, just sign up) but I'm paid to do so.
posted by anildash at 1:09 AM on August 31, 2004

I have tried pMachine, MovableType, b2, Nucleus, Textpattern, and Wordpress and I have to say that Wordpress is the best blogware I have ever used. It's open source, it runs in PHP, and it is alot faster than any other blogware. To any new bloggers out there I recommend Wordpress over any other blogware out there.
posted by for3v3rzero at 5:59 AM on August 31, 2004

I just wanted to take a moment and address this, "... not some talented code moneky who just doesn't have the time to fix a bug or answer a question." Before making such a broad statement you may want to consider looking at the WordPress forums and change log.

Open source doesn't imply a lack of commitment and as far as WP goes, at least, there are several people working very hard to get a new release (1.3) out the door while dealing with a flood of new users needing support. Nothing wrong with a paid staff, but do keep in mind that being for-profit is not a guarantee that company needs match those of the user.
posted by cedar at 7:32 AM on August 31, 2004

I used a messy conglomeration of my own PHP and MySQL code to run my Weblog since 2001, because all of the Weblog software out there failed miserably to meet my needs.

That's until WordPress came out with version 1.2, which did everything I could have asked and more. So I switched last month and I've been immensely happy with it. My wife's weblog also switched to WP and she loves it.

Movable Type is also worth consideration. My reasons for not choosing it: It's not free, and it's not PHP. WordPress is written in easy-to-modify PHP code and has a ludicrously easy plug-in interface. I've already coded two custom plug-ins to help run my weblog.

Caveat: I have absolutely no recent experience with b2 or Nucleus.
posted by mmoncur at 9:18 AM on August 31, 2004