

WordPress or TypePad or....? - stevenboudreau

I'd like to start a blog and I am wondering which platform HN suggests. Thanks for voting/discussing!
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mattmaroon
I started off using TypePad, then went to self-hosted MT, and then started a
second blog on self-hosted WP. (I also have one on WordPress.com, but I don't
recommend that to anyone serious about blogging due to lack of plugins and
other advanced functionality.) I think if I were starting another blog today,
I might actually go with self-hosted MT.

I had my WP blog compromised by a security flaw and then listed as a spam site
by Google, meaning that anyone who came there in Firefox (which is most of my
readers) got a warning rather than my homepage. Never had that happen with MT.

I also had an article take off on StumbleUpon and let's just say Wordpress
doesn't handle traffic well. I later tried tossing in the most popular caching
plug-in, but it borked my RSS feed such that Feedburner wouldn't recognize it.

Long story short, the last 6 months of WP have been nothing but headache after
headache for me. I write all of my posts in Word and then publish via xml-rpc,
so I don't care much about the interface, but I think MT's and WP's are pretty
comparable.

So yeah, though a year ago I was considering converting my older blog to WP,
now I'd vote for MT. (Haven't used TypePad in years, so I can't tell you about
that one specifically.)

~~~
pageman
here's a blow-by-blow of an MT fiasco ... :((
[http://inboundpass.wordpress.com/2008/10/03/our-mt-media-
tem...](http://inboundpass.wordpress.com/2008/10/03/our-mt-media-temple-
fiasco/)

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greyman
How serious are you about your intention? My suggestion is, that if you want
to just try it out, register instantly on wordpress.com or blogger.com and try
to run it for a few weeks. The thing is, that maintaining you own installation
at your own domain takes quite a lot of time.

On the other hand, if you really want to run a successful blog, register your
own domain and install...well, you will not go wrong with Wordpress.

~~~
ionfish
> [M]aintaining you own installation at your own domain takes quite a lot of
> time.

Not sure I agree with this, at least where WordPress is concerned. What, after
all, is involved? Grabbing the source from the latest stable branch on the WP
svn repository takes less than a minute. Creating a new database is a few
seconds; adding the database details to the config file is less than a minute;
and the install routine can also be run in under a minute. That's
installation. Then there's maintenance: a cron job that updates the source
from svn every night, and a one-line svn command to switch to a new branch
when it comes out. A database backup script which, like the domain
configuration, is not WordPress-specific.

Actually, having gone halfway through this response, I'm not sure I agree with
my disagreement. Once you've sorted all of the above, you need to start doing
things specific to your installation: choosing or creating a theme, installing
plugins (preferably over svn from the WP plugin repository so you can update
them automatically), and tweaking the various settings to your liking. But
only the details are specific to WordPress, or Movable Type.

It would be more accurate to say that maintaining any reasonably complex
website takes quite a lot of time. But then, we knew that already, and it
still only takes five minutes to get WordPress installed on your server.

~~~
42flicks
I don't run my own installation (used the hosted one for about a year) but
have seen friends upgrades go not so smoothly. In keeping with various updates
I'd say it'd take a bit of time.

~~~
ionfish
The only time I've had problems upgrading was when, running off the trunk svn
build, a new tags system which changed a bunch of database tables was
introduced and then scrapped shortly afterwards. Repairing the tables was
annoying, but that's life on trunk for you; there's a reason it's not
recommended for production sites. Other than that, all of my upgrades have
gone smoothly. In my (anecdotal) experience, most problems with upgrades (and,
indeed, most problems generally) are caused by badly written or incompatible
plugins.

~~~
42flicks
Yeah I do admit I should have included that this may have been caused by
plugins.

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mc
I use both. For personal use, I chose TypePad, but my company's blog runs on
Wordpress.org.

Honestly, for personal use, I should have went with Wordpress. I thought that
by going with a hosted solution I'd save myself time and server hassles. I
also thought that new features would miraculously show up frequently.

It couldn't be further from the truth. TypePad has a horrible admin interface
and they don't seem to be making things better at all. In fact, in the 8
months I've used them, I don't think I've noticed a single new feature or
enhancement that's made me say "damn, these guys are awesome, I should spend
more money on them"

Wordpress on the other hand is becoming easier and easier to host. Now they've
got this 1-click upgrade, which makes hosting your own site a walk in the
park. In addition to countless plugins and themes, they're releasing new
features all the time.

That said, I know that at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter, if it
generates an Atom feed, I'm happy.

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arc
Squarespace obviously. <http://www.squarespace.com/>

Go ahead and try to do this in either of the others:

<http://www.squarespace.com/squarespaced>

~~~
tptacek
Gotta say, we host our own, we're DIY, we have a designer, and this thing is
still dead sexy. $25/mo is cheap cheap cheap. What's the catch?

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CaptainMorgan
If you don't want the programming and behind the scenes nature, maybe
Wordpress or Typepad to get you up and running quickly without a fuss.

If you don't mind getting your hands dirty with ultra-customizing every facet
of your blog without closed-source woes, Joomla or Movable Type. The latter of
which I've been using for about 1.5 years now and am absolutely in love with.
That's not to say you can't get up and running quickly with these, but the
level of customization they offer are top notch and take a little more time
and patience. You can get right into their source code and make your own
plugins... in my opinion these also have that "professional"-ism attribute as
well.

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sidsavara
I recommend Wordpress. The main reason I went with it was really group think -
so many of my favorite blogs use Wordpress. Looking for comparisons online, it
didn't appear like either was a clear winner or had some killer feature. I
have been using it for my blog and am very happy with it - I find plugins for
just about anything I want, or just customize the PHP if needed. I also like
that there are two multiple blog projects (Wordpress MU and Lyceum) so that if
I ever decide to go that route for a new site, it should be comparable and I
can leverage some knowledge I have from my current install - and perhaps
plugins, though that is more hit or miss.

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tptacek
Strongly advise against hosting your own blog. The code quality on both MT and
WordPress is very, very low. WordPress, for instance, is probably worth at
least another 4-5 game-over security flaws in the next 6 months, and that's
before you take the plugins into account. Kids scan the Internet for
installations to drop with PHP zero-day.

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fnazeeri
I'd like to hear why folks prefer Wordpress...I use Typepad for Altgate.com
and I have to say that I'm not terribly impressed. I also use Blogger for a
company blog (virid.us/blog/) and it's fine.

On a related note, has anyone done a Typepad-->Wordpress conversion? How'd it
go?

~~~
mattmaroon
I did a MT to WP conversion and it went great. Haven't used TypePad in a very
long time though, so couldn't tell you there.

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eurokc98
I would go with Wordpress if you are just looking for a blog. If you want
something more robust then you should look at Drupal. Steer clear of Joomla
unless you just like messing around with platforms. (I have used Joomla for a
few projects and have grown to hate it)

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rantfoil
We'd love for you to try posterous.com -- it's a YC 2008 company and we're
growing fast.

It's great for a beginning blogger. It's dead simple blogs by email, and it's
the easiest way to post a ton of photos or video straight from your digital
camera.

~~~
pierrefar
Interesting. How do you control against spoofing of the From email header?

~~~
tptacek
Wondering the same thing here.

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PeeDee
I shopped and tinkered, and eventually went with WordPress. Be sure you use
the subversion install so you can easily update down the track. Choose a
simple skin and away you go.

Very happy with it (technologyinvestment.info)

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johntabet
I've heard (and found from experience) that wordpress is a bit more
professional and polished. Not having used TypePad a bunch, I couldn't give a
very detailed comparison. But those are my two cents.

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nreece
WordPress is great! Another cutting-edge blogging platform is Habari -
<http://www.habariproject.org/en/>

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wehriam
I've used both and like Tumblr + Disqus. It's simple, customizable, and a joy
to use. It's also free to use your own domain.

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dylan
If you have hosting, Chyrp is an interesting newcomer:

<http://chyrp.net>

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bbgm
Wordpress. Have used WP, Typepad and Drupal, but Wordpress is what works for
me.

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matthall28
Wordpress or Chryp if you want something lighter. But Wordpress all the way.

~~~
LKM
I like Chyrp, too.

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sonink
blogger works for me. WP has been a headache, sometime back the edits wont
reflect in the published site until much later.

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geoship
wordpad. sorry i couldn't help myself =)

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amour
if you want to try ruby on rail-based blog, try typo. it's pretty decent.

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rob
TypePad.

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stevenboudreau
TypePad

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oronno
WordPress.

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stevenboudreau
WordPress

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andrewhyde
wordpress

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42flicks
tumblr

