I've been looking into moving a Movable Type instance onto a managed hosted blogging platform. The obvious next step up from Movable Type would be TypePad, the hosted blogging service operated by Six Apart, the makers of Movable Type. I really like MT and Six Apart, and would normally be happy to stick to their platform.
But TypePad's slower rate of development, nonfunctional multi-author import tool, and aging look and feel are worrisome, enough to make me seriously evaluate WordPress.com, the other best-known hosted blogging platform.
I want reasonable modern business-class weblog hosting, with multiple authors, a custom domain, pretty-ish URLs, no ads, developer flexibility, FeedBurner support, and business-style billing. Is that too much to ask for? I did some research, and here's what I found (important distinctions bolded):
| Feature | TypePad | WordPress.com |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | $150/year (Pro account) | $55/year (domain, CSS, no ads) |
| Platform stability | high | high |
| Usability | high | very high |
| Rate of active development | medium | high |
| Business-friendly invoicing, etc. | high | medium |
| Disk space | 1 GB | 3 GB |
| Bandwidth | 10 GB | unmetered |
| Canned themes | "hundreds" | 70+ |
| Widgets | many, but limited growth | many |
| Category support | 1 level | multiple levels |
| Tag/keyword support | yes | yes |
| Clean URLs | medium | very |
| Spam blocking quality | high | high |
| # of blogs | unlimited | 1 |
| Custom CSS | yes | yes |
| Custom HTML | yes | limited |
| Custom JavaScript | yes | no |
| FeedBurner support | yes | no (autodiscovery URLs fixed) |
| # of authors | unlimited? | unlimited? |
| # of administrators | 1 | unlimited? |
| Import multiple authors | no | ? |
| Edit posted author | no | yes |
Some of the two platforms' gaps are puzzling. I can't comprehend why TypePad doesn't support multiple levels of categories, something Movable Type's supported for ages. And it's head-bangingly frustrating that WordPress.com just doesn't work with FeedBurner, because there's no way for administrators or widget authors to edit the feed autodiscovery URL.
In the end, I grudgingly ended up picking TypePad because it gives users full HTML and JavaScript access, allowing first class integration with 3rd party services like FeedBurner. (It's nice knowing you always have an escape hatch if the platform isn't giving you every service you need.)
It's frustrating having to make these choices. Why aren't there better options out there?
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