Ask HN: Best blogging platform? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Best blogging platform?

#21

Post by dennisgorelik » Mon, Jan 02, 2012, 3:00 AM UTC

jberryman wrote: post #12

Rambling, possibly-helpful non-answer: whatever you can get up and running with the fastest, and can use with minimum of friction. Blogspot, wordpress.com or posterous would probable all fit the bill. Seems like about half of the most productive people/ most interesting blog posts I read are hosted at *.wordpress.com or someplace similarly humble. But I mostly post this because I'm just finally finishing up a migrati…

Blogspot/Blogger is a poor choice. Original founders are long gone and middle managers destroyed the team. They are not able to deal with spam efficiently, so they overreact and delete innocent blogs. + commenting requires CAPTCHA even for authenticated users, which is silly.

Re: Ask HN: Best blogging platform?

#22

Post by sbierwagen » Mon, Jan 02, 2012, 3:04 AM UTC

I use nanoblogger. (http://nanoblogger.sourceforge.net)

It's pretty primitive, not actively developed, and has no native commenting system. On the other hand, its exactly as secure as your HTTPd of choice, unlike Wordpress.

Re: Ask HN: Best blogging platform?

#23

Post by rmccue » Mon, Jan 02, 2012, 3:08 AM UTC

jacobwg wrote: post #15

colmmacc wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wordpress had 6 "mandatory security update" releases in 2011 alone - http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Versions . It doesn't seem to have had a secure design from the outset. Worse still, ordinarily one might advise "keep up to date", but wordpress had a release backdoored ( http://www.cgisecurity.com/2007/03/wordpress-websi.html ) once, so keeping up-to-date isn't without its risks too. I've been giving tumblr a…

You're going to have security holes with every piece of software, though it is true some software is more secure than others. I personally view having security updates as a plus - it shows that the WordPress team (open source community) supports their software. The fact that WordPress is running on 70 million plus websites [1], about 15% of the web [2], means that if a security hole is found, it will be fixed, and it…

In addition, WordPress has a built-in updater, so it's incredibly easy to update, unlike many other platforms which require reuploading or obscure update steps.

Re: Ask HN: Best blogging platform?

#24

Post by mattdeboard » Mon, Jan 02, 2012, 3:39 AM UTC

I use Armin Ronacher's RST blog (https://github.com/mitsuhiko/rstblog). I even wrote a guide for its use: http://mattdeboard.net/2011/05/09/more-tips-on-rstblog/

minimal static site generator. Worth it if you just want to put your content up and don't need or want pre-packaged bells and whistles.

Re: Ask HN: Best blogging platform?

#25

Post by midwestwebdev » Mon, Jan 02, 2012, 3:45 AM UTC

jacobwg wrote: post #5

WordPress - it has excellent usability as a core product, but its real power comes from the large library of free plugins - there's pretty much always a plugin for everything. You can sign up for a free hosted version of WordPress at http://wordpress.com , though it has paid upgrades, or you can download the self-hosted version for free at http://wordpress.org . You could even go with a webhost (like http://dreamhost…

The biggest issue I see with Wordpress is the free plugins. I've seen more Wordpress sites hacked by way of poorly written plugins than anything else. If they had some sort of robust security screening process for the plugins it might be OK... but as it stands, there's far too many plugins floating around written by people who seem to have zero knowledge of basic web app security.

Honestly, I think you're better off just writing your own blog software. Obscure it, close source it, lock down DB permissions and put it on your own VPS, you could knock out a simple platform in a weekend. And you're much less likely to get hit by hackers.

Re: Ask HN: Best blogging platform?

#26

Post by mwexler » Mon, Jan 02, 2012, 4:02 AM UTC

Besides full content plays like Drupal, I've enjoyed working with Textpattern (http://textpattern.com/). It's easy to format content with textile, and it has a nice mix of plugins and template atomics that give you great power over the look and feel.

Re: Ask HN: Best blogging platform?

#27

Post by humbyvaldes » Mon, Jan 02, 2012, 4:02 AM UTC

ownzee.com

Re: Ask HN: Best blogging platform?

#28

Post by Terretta » Mon, Jan 02, 2012, 4:06 AM UTC

mwexler wrote: post #26

Besides full content plays like Drupal, I've enjoyed working with Textpattern ( http://textpattern.com/ ). It's easy to format content with textile, and it has a nice mix of plugins and template atomics that give you great power over the look and feel.

TextPattern is fantastic, and really encourages separation of content from presentation. That said, we use Posterous for company and personal blogs, so the hassle barrier is essentially zero.

Re: Ask HN: Best blogging platform?

#29

Post by jacobwg » Mon, Jan 02, 2012, 4:12 AM UTC

midwestwebdev wrote: post #25

jacobwg wrote: post #5

WordPress - it has excellent usability as a core product, but its real power comes from the large library of free plugins - there's pretty much always a plugin for everything. You can sign up for a free hosted version of WordPress at http://wordpress.com , though it has paid upgrades, or you can download the self-hosted version for free at http://wordpress.org . You could even go with a webhost (like http://dreamhost…

The biggest issue I see with Wordpress is the free plugins. I've seen more Wordpress sites hacked by way of poorly written plugins than anything else. If they had some sort of robust security screening process for the plugins it might be OK... but as it stands, there's far too many plugins floating around written by people who seem to have zero knowledge of basic web app security. Honestly, I think you're better off…

Yeah, free plugins are both a blessing and a curse, though the majority of the common WordPress plugins (the common ones) are quite secure and are regularly updated. Obviously you can't install just any plugin without doing some research.

Obviously you have to be a programmer to roll your own blogging platform so that option is not for everyone, but you'd be reinventing a wheel being run on 70 million websites for the stated reason of writing something that is more secure? You'd have to be REALLY good at what you do compared to the 1000s of WP developers contributing to WP, the dedicated security team, and the hivemind of bug-reporting WP installations. Plus, when you do encounter a security vulnerability (not if you do), it will be your sole responsibility to patch the hole.

Closed-source is not a security solution - security by obscurity is no security at all.

I do not think that rolling your own blog platform is a bad idea as it's a great learning experience, but it is not a good solution if you are concerned about blog security.

Re: Ask HN: Best blogging platform?

#30

Post by jacobwg » Mon, Jan 02, 2012, 4:15 AM UTC

phzbOx wrote: post #20

jacobwg wrote: post #5

WordPress - it has excellent usability as a core product, but its real power comes from the large library of free plugins - there's pretty much always a plugin for everything. You can sign up for a free hosted version of WordPress at http://wordpress.com , though it has paid upgrades, or you can download the self-hosted version for free at http://wordpress.org . You could even go with a webhost (like http://dreamhost…

I don't agree with wordpress. Wordpress is like a middle-ground with 'lots of features' vs 'easy to use for no tech people'. If you want something really simple to get started, tumblr rocks (You'll have something running in minutes). If you want to hack your blog with lots of custom features, just pick whatever blogging library in your favorite language.

WordPress provides both a product that can be customized by non-coders (using existing themes and plugins) and a framework for blogging in the PHP language (by writing your own themes and plugins). It is both product and framework.