Blogging Faceoff: WordPress vs. Typepad - worth a vote?

20 October 2009

Today I encountered plenty of tweets about the Blogging FaceOff at Mashable, The Social Media Guide. This week they turned their attention to blogging platforms: WordPress or Typepad.

I found this in the comment box underneath the poll:

DaveWeissDotNet Yesterday 11:47 PM 3 people liked this.

I don't think you're using a full set of criteria to appropriately judge which platform is "better".

In fact, I'd go as far as saying that the author of this post inappropriately sets up an argument without laying any groundwork as to what people will argue about. I understand TypePad inside and out - the nitty gritty details of every nook and cranny of their system and their templates and tags.

I also run a few blogs built on WordPress, customizing templates to my liking. So I understand both the WordPress and TypePad worlds thoroughly.

Here are things I think about when considering which platform is the "best" for a particular need:

Hosted Solution vs Self Hosted - As a blogger, do you have the technical ability to host your blog, and understand all the maintenance issues that go along with it? Just finding a decent hosting company can be painful. They all have their pros and cons. Backups, upgrades, technical support... A lot of bloggers just want to blog - not be a system administrator. TypePad's platform allows for a nice looking blog that can be customized to a great degree, without the maintenance issues that come along with WordPress.

Technical Support - Again, there are bloggers who just want to blog, and not have to spend time with "self help". You have a problem or issue with TypePad, you log into your account and file a help ticket. They have customer support reps to help you out.

Yes, their templating system is not as robust and flexible as you'll find in WordPress, but you don't need to know php to manipulate and customize the look and feel of your blog. Learning php, javascript, or JQuery is a big hurdle for a lot of bloggers.

The platforms are aimed at two different sets of people. If you want ease-of-use on a hosted platform, TypePad may be a good solution for you. If you want infinite control over every aspect of your installation and templates, perhaps WordPress should be your platform of choice.

The "TypePad vs. WordPress" thing is nonsense.