

Blogging platform: Wordpress or Webby? - inklesspen

I'm relaunching my blog and I'm considering two platforms, Wordpress and Webby/Webgen/staticfiles. I plan to use disqus comments for both, and my requirements include easy embedding of media and syntax-colored code.<p>Wordpress:<p>* Simple to set up<p>* Can write in HTML or use WYSIWYTYG editor. Can post from external clients that support Atom Publishing Protocol or Wordpress's XML-RPC. Can easily post from anywhere.<p>* Disqus plugin incorporates comment text into the actual page without javascript, so Google can index comments at my site<p>* Plugins provide relatively painless media embedding<p>* No good source embedding, but gist.github's secret .pibb format (http://gist.github.com/15914.pibb) provides a stop-gap solution, and I'm sure I could get someone to write a plugin to automate that.<p>* It's written in PHP and MySQL, and I hate PHP and MySQL.<p>* Since of course I will immediately become famous and widely read, Wordpress's dynamic page generation could be a performance issue.<p>Webby:<p>* More complex to set up -- I have to write posts, run the generator on them, and then upload them to the site. This can be automated, but it's still a higher level of effort.<p>* Can write in HTML, Markdown, whatever. Can write in my favorite editor easily. However, if there's infrastructure for the blog on my personal machine, I can't easily post from other machines.<p>* Disqus integration would happen via javascript; Google would index comments at the disqus page.<p>* Media embedding is more difficult, though a few custom template tags can make this easier.<p>* Excellent and very customizable source embedding.<p>* Not written in PHP and MySQL.<p>* Static files scale very well.<p>On the whole, I'm leaning towards using Wordpress, due to a lower amount of up-front effort needed, but I thought I'd get your comments, if you have any to offer.
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sidsavara
I vote for wordpress. I don't know about the source embedding, but Wordpress
performance can be significantly improved through WP-Super Cache (which
basically generates static HTML files, IIRC). I use WP-Cache, and that has
worked fine for me through a couple spikes (5K visitors one day when I hit
Hacker News, was also Stumbled, etc).

I think the main concern comes down to how important embedding source code is,
and whether there are any good wordpress plugins that do that. I don't know
the answer to that.

Also, Wordpress is relatively painless to backup, move between hosts, upgrade,
etc. I cannot speak for Webby, it may also be solid.

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dchest
Or, better, WP-Super-Cache. It makes static files.

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charlesju
I might get flamed for saying this, but I really enjoy using blogger. I have
my blog at a standard domain name, www.charlesju.com, and I have that domain
name go straight to my blogger account. I think Blogger really provides
everything you need for a good blog:

1\. Analytics through Google Analytics 2\. Some extra $$$ through AdSense 3\.
Auto-saving editing for blog posts

I just go tired of having to constantly worry about upgrading my Wordpress
plug-in or making sure I pay for hosting and all that jazz, I'd rather just
let Google take care of that stuff for me.

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dshah
I'd pick WordPress.

Sure, static files might scale better, but _handling_ traffic is not usually
the problem for most people. _Getting_ traffic is.

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hbien
I'd vote for Wordpress, just use a cache plugin which will generate static
pages.

Unless you're going to do a _lot_ of hacking on it. Because if you don't like
to work with PHP/MySQL and you're planning on hacking the internals a lot, you
should pick a platform implemented in your language of choice.

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burke
Webby is sort of cool for static sites, but it didn't make a good blog at all,
for me at least.

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shabda
Wordpress - There are a lot of awesome free and premium themes to choose from.

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matthall28
Wordpress all the way. Just use WP-Super-Cache. Scales very well.

