thanks,

p.

I found both systems where easy to customize and design for, MT’s tags where pretty easy to use,but still require some time to learn and would still be foreign to anyone with no coding experience, WP’s use of PHP is great for anyone (like myself) who already knows the very popular scripting language.

Through my personal experience I’ve found that there are more themes and plugins available for WP, I’ve also found WP easier to update and upgrade.

Overall I think both are good systems but I prefer WP.

But comparing the WP and MT as it was done here, is commendable but to really understand both platforms and to really dig deeper than just simply installing and writing blog posts, you need to be involved in the installing, setup, design, development, management, and creative processes of each one to give a better comparison. But to also have done this a few times with different website concepts.

In my view, WP offers a fantastic blog script for personal use and for small individual business bloggers that don’t worry too much on visual impact. Movable Type on the other hand is designed more for the business and corporate world…I mean just looking at their client list of users should tell you that. MT is not for the beginner who just wants to blog, its meant for serious business. And yes, it is free, unless you want support, then sure its a cost but for business its quite reasonable, but well worth it. The only ones that will complain are your individuals and newbie bloggers who didn’t do their homework. WP does offer a forum for support but are you sure you will get the right answer and even quick response? As a business, you need FAST and accurate support, as a personal or individual business blogger, WP forums may suffice.

Overall, WP is a great simple basic and easy blogging platform for individuals and personal use. However, for serious business that needs to run more than just a simple blog but to run it more like a full cms, Movable Type wins here. Although, if you throw Joomla into the pack, Joomla beats both platforms down and leaves them in the dust!

I’ve used WP for a variety of personal sites through the years, and their progress really is amazing, it’s pretty simple to set up and use as a web site management tool. I’ve recently been exposed to MT 4.2 through my school.. and I’m ready to hurt someone.. it *has* to be the most kludgy way I’ve ever seen to implement any kind of design or style. I’m sure it works great for day to day blogging / spam / etc, but it’s seriously non-intuitive to play around with different looks and design for a site.

Just my .02.. maybe I’m just having a rough time adjusting, but maybe I’m just spoiled by having the config for WP being obvious to me.

The MT Dashboard is beautiful. And the early versions of WP 2.5 admin I have seen was a huge step backwards. Inefficient to the point that I am looking into switching all my sites over to MT or Drupal.

That’s because you’re still looking at the wrong thing, and you’ll remain confused until you stop doing it. The issue isn’t a difference between the software you download. It’s the license that changes. Support/no support is a result of that difference, not the difference itself.

Su & Anil, thanks for the corrections. I wasn’t very up on Movable Type’s open source version, and now that I’m looking into I can’t tell the difference between the free open source version and the paid-for licenses that do range from $50-1,000. Is it simply support vs. no support? If Movable Type has a five-year customer like myself confused, I feel sorry for new folks.

As for TypePad Anti-Spam, I haven’t tried it, but it’s good to hear it’s out there. Sounds like Movable Type folks should give it a try.

I think the security issues in WordPress have been adequately and promptly addressed each time a new one is discovered.

However, knowing for a fact that most users are intimidated at the updating process, it is the responsibility of the WP team to make the upgrade process easier. I know several people who are running 2.1 builds of WordPress, simply because they don’t have the time, patience, or understanding to upgrade.

This is a serious security risk.

FWIW, I prefer WordPress for a couple different reasons …

1. The template engine, and available free templates, for WordPress is far superior to the MT library. In fact, I just did a google search for “movable type templates” and did not see a single result on the first page that gave me a clear path to download a new template.

2. The installation process for MT is very difficult. I was going to give MT a try about a month ago, but gave up when I realized I couldn’t install i locally on a XAMPP server, because I didn’t have cgi or something. Not cool.

3. Caching should not be the default. Sure, MT sites run faster, but the tradeoff is the build process that you have to go through if you modify your template. If you have a lot of posts, this isn’t very reasonable.

Just my .02