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10 DIY Blog platforms you may not have visited

10 DIY Blog platforms you may not have visited

As the race between MovableType and WordPress for leadership of the DIY blogware market continues, there is any number other alternatives in the marketplace that offer similar services in a range of programming languages. Looking for something different, or always wanted to know what else was available, well heres a list of ten DIY Blog platforms you may not have not have visited, or even heard of, and in the coming weeks, time permitting, we’ll even review them one by one so you know what to expect.

b2Evolution
developed from the same original code that spawned WordPress, b2Evolution is written in PHP and provides a variety of features. Licenced under the GPL, so is always free to use.

Text Pattern
Described as a flexible, elegant, easy-to-use content management system for all kinds of websites, even blogs!. Textpattern has had a few high profile users over the years and is the creation of Dean Allen. Licensed under a BSD license and is free to use.

Serendipity
Silly URL but strong blogging platform, these guys have been making a fair bit of noise lately and each release seems to bring about even better improvements. BSD license and free.

Blosxom
described as “a lightweight yet feature-packed weblog application designed from the ground up with simplicity, usability, and interoperability in mind”, Blosxom doesn’t rely on PHP or SQL databases as many other blogging tools do, but uses Perl and flat files. If blogware were a model school, Blodxom would be the resident anorexic, with the smallest sized core files in the pack. Free to use.

Nucleus
Been around for quite a while and currently upto version 3.2, Nucleus is free to use under the GPL and has a reasonable sized user base.

BlogCMS
A Nucleus off-shot described as the “most complete, feature-packed, personal publishing system on the market”, BlogcMS comes with lots of little extras and seems to be moving ahead of Nucleus with a bigger user and support base. Free under GPL.

Blojsom
The blogware behind Apple’s OSX Tiger server, Blojsom is fairly unique in being powered by Java and was inspired originally by Blosxom. Free under BSD.

See Also
Google Helpful Content

Expression Engine
From the makers of pMachine, Expression Engine in many ways could be described as a Roll Royce surrounded by Toyota’s, if only mainly due to its cost. None the less this powerful blogging tool provides a paid alternative to MovableType that may be better suited to users who don’t mind paying for their support.

Pivot
European based development and an ugly layout on its main page shouldn’t disuade you from keeping Pivot on your list. PHP and free, Pivot maintains a loyal user base and an impressive range of features.

bBlog
another blog tool that grew from the same code as WordPress, bBlog utilises the smarty template system and is free to use.

View Comments (16)
  • I spent some time reserching and trying the CMS options out there and narrowed the field down to Mambo (1 site) and Drupal (three sites). You have neither of them on the list and I feel that you really should give them a shot.

    You can give them (and others) a very quick and rudimentary trial run at http://www.opensourcecms.com or jump on the free beta testing taking place at http://www.bryght.com using Drupal.

  • I also think that pLog should be in this list. It’s a multi-user and multi-blog tool that is getting a lot of momentum at the moment… new plog-based communities are being created almost every day!

  • I would also like to recommend Drupal (www.drupal.org) as a system that is not only excellent for blogging, but for building amazing community sites with forums, events, galleries and lots of other features. It is a very accessible backend for building webapplications in general, and is a good CMS for lots of different profiles. Especially useful is the distribution of Drupal packaged by CivicSpaceLabs.org — it has the best features pre-configured to save lots of work that typically goes into installing and configuring.

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