One of my New Year's Resolutions is to start blogging, but I have no idea what blogging platform to use. A free one would be great, but I could pay if needed. What blogging platform do you think I should use?
Ask HN: Best blogging platform?
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Re: Ask HN: Best blogging platform?
#2I've been using octopress on cnnr.me/b (just started it 2 days ago, so we're in the same boat), and I've really enjoyed it.
Re: Ask HN: Best blogging platform?
#3I've been using octopress on cnnr.me/b (just started it 2 days ago, so we're in the same boat), and I've really enjoyed it. http://octopress.org/
Thanks so much for your help! I will definitely try it out.
Re: Ask HN: Best blogging platform?
#4http://techpolish.com/best-blogging-platform-sites-and-softw... - here's a comparison of some popular platforms that you can personalize to get a recommendation unique to your need.
I'd say it depends on your purpose (e.g. personal blogging for your day-to-day realizations, philosophical epiphanies, etc.).
(Disclosure: TechPolish is my website.) EDIT: fixed typo. moved link up.
Re: Ask HN: Best blogging platform?
#5WordPress - 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.com) and use their one-click-install for WordPress (feel free to use the coupon code JACOBWG for $97 off one year of DreamHost... disclosure: I do NOT receive any referral money or benefits from that code - all benefits have been rolled into that code's discount).
If you're the "hacker" type, then check out http://jekyllrb.com/...
Re: Ask HN: Best blogging platform?
#6I've been using Wordpress for a couple of years. It's easy to use and extensible. If you aren't afraid of dipping your toes into some HTML/CSS/PHP than you can find a really good free/premium theme and some good plugins to make a good blog.
Just make sure you backup not only your database but themes because if you get malware, its really difficult to find out the source. Easiest thing to do is to revert to a clean copy, change passwords, and protect yourself!
Re: Ask HN: Best blogging platform?
#7Tumblr, if you are really interested in the ability to share other blogs quickly and be shared as well. It is also very easy to set-up, maintain, and can work on custom domains as well. You can even add Disqus to most themes if you want feedback and comments. I also love the +Follow feature, as it means that people are more likely to consume your content over just bare RSS feeds. Overall, it's a more expansive Twitter.
Wordpress would be the way to go if you want to have more control over your blog, but I always ended up tweaking the function of the blog more and writing less. Tumblr basically breaks that tinkering distraction and allows you to focus on your content.
Re: Ask HN: Best blogging platform?
#8Depends on whether you want to handle your own bandwidth and admin, or farm it out to someone else.
Personally, I'm very happy to be http://andrewducker.dreamwidth.org/ because I have control over whether things are public or just for a personal audience, lots of control over comments - and most importantly, threaded comments. I loathe non-threaded comment systems with a fiery passion.
Re: Ask HN: Best blogging platform?
#9If you're learning a web framework, you could always roll your own with Rails/Django/Sinatra/Flask. I think it's the most fun option.
Then you get to implement things like a sitemap, categories, comments/Disqus, page caching, and anything else you're so inspired to add. Makes for good blogging material.
No slower than any static content generator like Jekyll if you just cache everything to a static directory, too.
Re: Ask HN: Best blogging platform?
#10WordPress - 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…
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 try, and so far - so good, but the functionality is pretty minimal.