I’m currently involved in creating a music feeds site and a major part of that is blogs. I’ve used Wordpress a lot recently and gotten very use to it, but for this project it wasn’t going to work. Fortunately SixApart have recently released an Open Source copy of Movable Type. As I’ve recently installed it I thought it would be worth writing up a comparison post. I haven’t covered everything I could but then the post would be four foot long, instead I’ve focused on the three biggest points;
Installation
WordPress: 5 Minutes
Movable Type: 1 Hour
Standard Features
WordPress: 7 / 10
Movable Type: 8 / 10
Resources - Themes / Plugins / Support
WordPress: 10 /10
Movable Type: 6 / 10
WordPress has been Open Source for a long time so it’s managed to build up a strong community. Movable Type has a massive amount of potential but the template system is confusing to begin with and the resources are very limited. I expect over the next few months the user base will grow and with it the number of resources available.
MT4 is still in Beta stage so that has to be taken into consideration, there are many features that could do with a tweak and the installation process needs to be simplified but it’s a very powerful application and I can’t wait for it to build a community of users.
I can foresee many plugins that will make running a blog easier, this is not a pick up and go piece of software at the moment, simply adding a link in the sidebar is a template edit.
I wouldn’t make the switch if I only had the single blog to run, at least not yet, but for a multi-blog based site or even a blog network it’s going to have a very bright future.
Remember: It’s still in Beta stage so don’t make the full switch just yet.
June 16th, 2007 at 2:47 am
Thanks for the comparison. I actually have 7 blogsites setup using typepad and am in the process of setting up what you referred to as a “network of blogs” spanning over multiple domains. Still trying to decide what software to learn, MT4 or WP. I think I’ll start with WP since the community is already established and it only takes 5 minutes to setup and it’s not in beta… I’m sure I’ll also use MT4 once some of the bugs are worked out. I have a lot of domains to develop. Thanks again for the comparison post.
June 16th, 2007 at 3:27 am
no worries Jamie, Wordpress offers Wordpress Mu which might be helpful.
Something I forget to mention is the way you have to ‘rebuild’ your files after each post or change you make to your blogs. It’s not a big deal but it eats up server resources and takes a few seconds, more an inconvenience than anything else. I love what it can do, but did it really need to be resource hungry CGI?