Not that I know of. There are alot of articles and stuff reviewing and comparing the different products. This site is more than likely biased towards MT as you can imagine. Have a look at this.

I know you said that you don't feel like "putting each of these throught the paces" but really, I think that's one of the best ways of deciding whether a software package is good for you.

I will tell you straight out that MT is a good product -- it's robust and reliable and is very powerful. At the same time, it's not as easy to set-up as other applications. Problems usually occur because of slight server configuration differences.

We don't advertise MT as an easy solution. But once you begin using and understanding the program, you start to see why people talk about it.

That said, forums are never that great of a place to get an impartial opinion.

Here's a link to a piece in German that compares some packages. Even if you can't read German, it's pretty easy to see what's going on:

Software Comparisons

I'm just wondering if anyone has ever tried to do an unbiased comparison of the various news posting/weblogging programs like greymatter, this, pMachine, coranto (or newspro), drupal, cafelog, etc, etc...

Right now I'm still designing my site, and really don't feel like putting each of these through the paces, so any insights into the pros and cons would be really useful..

I realize that people here are going to be biased, but, these seem to have the most active community, so I was hoping someone would be able to help out.

With regards to the directory - that's where I originally found these

Having just converted to Movable Type after using Greymatter for almost a year, as well as being fairly familiar with Blogger, I can honestly say that Movable Type is the best by far.

It is true that Movable Type is a bit more difficult to use, but with that complexity comes much greater flexibility. There were things with Greymatter that I tried for ages to figure out how to do that I had up and running with MT in a matter of hours after installing it.

If you're comfortable installing it, comfortable working with HTML and CSS, and willing to invest a little time learning, MT is great.

That said, there are a few features that Greymatter has MT doesn't.  With the exception of the fact that you individual users can't change their own passwords without having permission to edit all users, I think Greymatter has greater flexibility in assigning permissions to users. The default line and paragraph breaks can be customized in GM in the program without messing with the Perl. There are a few other little things that I can't think of off the top of my head, but there all small trade ups, and most of them will be addressed when MT 2.0 comes out, I've noticed.

I agree, first-hand experience is the best way to compare. But I disagree on MT being less easy than other tools. Just because you have to edit the config file by hand instead of uploading everything and running a full installation script, doesn't mean it's more complicated. You only have to edit the top part anyway, it's so simple. I just installed it, after trying, in order (when I still was using free web space with PHP but no Perl enabled): Blogger, b2, Nucleus, pMachine, Textpattern (which is still beta, and is very nice) and from what I'd gathered I had the impression installing MT was gonna be some sort of epic battle by comparison... but it was sooo much easier and faster to set up than what I'd imagined. Took me five minutes. The template system is so much neater too. Really. I think, it's more like Mena says: "we don't advertise it as easy" - but it is! so you should! tsk!

The comparison has to be on what you want to do with your site, if you need a journal, or a more complete weblog system, if you want comments, if you want search engine friendly urls, if you need to set up a proper magazine/portal etc. Those other tools I tried are all good, especially the latter three (and Textpattern is very promising) but none as advanced as MT - I think MT is just more suitable for more complicated projects, larger sites, that is, multiple weblogs and the like. well, pMachine comes close and is really excellent, but it's a bit more complicated to set up - especially the template structure, and most of all, it doesn't do friendly urls yet, which was the main turn-off for me. I don't want pages looking like page?id=0005252 if I can avoid it. (Yeah you can fix that with mod_rewrite and .htaccess but it gets complicated and nearly impossible with categories.) That, along with the fact MT build static pages, was the main reason I chose it. As well as seeing the "powered by Movable Type" on this beauty of a site cos that's exactly what I needed, more like a magazine structure than a weblog.

MT really is the best, I don't think you have to be biased to acknowledge that. There's good alternatives, but I think it's undisputed even among other developers that MT offers a lot more in the most accessible way. I really appreciate that better after having gone through those alternatives first.

Stiglar writes:


Deciding on a software solution depends on how you will use it. Here is a great article that explains the concept behind all the popular blog software available. Instead of comparing apples and oranges, this article compares apples to apples and oranges to oranges.

Fridaddy, that was a very helpful article. One of the important choices to make in choosing weblogging software is (to me) whether the pages are static or dynamically generated. I don't think it's a matter of any one system being better than another, just of personal preference. Ditto with the choice of software that is installed on one's own computer, on personal space on a server, or on a central server; it comes down to how much control someone wants over their weblog (weighed against having to install the software), and working styles.

Of course, having stumbled on MT accidentally, and installed it before I understood how it worked, I was very lucky to discover it. I think it's a beautiful system that works flawlessly.  I have no basis for comparison, but it is clear to me that MT is a very well-written, solid system for weblogging.

Beth - thanks! That article really helped me to understand the world of blogging software. After reading the article and perusing the websites of all the popular blogging software creators, I have decided that MT is the best!

I love MT!