The last post was about some free options to create your own blog, and today, let’s see some of the popular self-hosted blogging platforms.
If you are still wondering what the self-hosted blogging platform is, let me simplify it.
To create websites, you’ll write a lot of HTML pages, create relevant links and store them in Internet server (your hosting folder). Its really more complicated than appears to create websites like this.
HTML pages will allow you to build simple static websites. For dynamic websites like blogs you’ll need to use server side scripts like PHP.
To make life easier, there are some CMS (Content Management Systems) that you can download and install to start a new website or blog instantly.
All you need to do is, copy the downloaded files into your folder and run the installation.
Therefore, self-hosted blogging platforms are simply web software that you can install in your server and customize it to make your unique blog!
Many hosting providers offer one click installation for most of the popular platforms. I will talk about it in my coming posts. For today, let me discuss about some of the popular self-hosted blogging platforms:
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Self-hosted blogging platforms
I will discuss the five most popular self-hosted blogging platforms in this section and will list a few other candidate platforms.
You simply get introduced with these platforms and download the files. I will tell you how to install them in your local server in my coming post and later will show you how you can install it in your Hosting too!
WordPress
It won’t be wrong to say WordPress is the King of blogging platforms. There are numerous blog providers powered by WordPress and the good thing is that you can install WordPress and host your own blog.
WordPress is the most popular and probably the most used of self-hosted platforms. Its popularity is due to its extreme flexibility and the active community to provide excessive plugins – both free and premium. WordPress themes are always superb!
Download a copy of latest WordPress
For now, you download WordPress and keep it safe. In my next post, I will tell you how to create your local web server and install WordPress there.
Installing WordPress in local server is a good idea to test and customize before it is ready to get published.
WordPress is the ultimate self-hosted blogging platform I will be explaining in this ‘How to blog’ series.
Movable Type
Movable Type is another popular self-hosted blogging platform like WordPress. These two have a lot in common as well.
Movable Type is in fact a fully-functional web site and content management system that offers plug-ins to customize the experience for both the blogger and the reader, including Twitter and Facebook integration, code sanitization and photo galleries.
A major reason for you to choose Movable Type is the built-in support for multiple blogs running on one install. You can quickly create as many blogs as you wish, creating blog networks instantly.
Download Latest Version of Movable Type
After you know how to install WordPress in your local machine, I hope you’ll be able to install Movable Type too!
Expression Engine
“ExpressionEngine is a Publishing Platform that helps you create & manage flexible and full-featured websites.”
ExpressionEngine is a very robust blogging platform. The downside can be the fact that it isn’t free.
Why people love the ExpressionEngine is due to its feature to publish multiple websites – be it using different subdomains, or across multiple domains.
The software has an extremely clean and simple backend. As a blogger you’ll feel most convenient to use ExpressionEngine when Designers and developers love it because they can hand over a site and have the client update their own blog.
Click here to check price and buy ExpressionEngine
Joomla
Joomla is another free platform for your blogs and websites. It is somehow similar to the community-friendly Drupal, and gaining more attraction every day.
Drupal is geared more towards developing community-flavored sites and blogs but Joomla seems to be geared more towards ecommerce.
Joomla is suitable for anything from a simple site to a community blog in minutes. Their vibrant development community is praised for the excellent extensions.
You’ll find it perfectly suitable a blogging community site, or add ecommerce functionality to a blog.
Download the latest version of Joomla
Drupal
Many blogs use Drupal for blogging software, however, it is not just blogging software but a community software. It has an incredible community behind the code.
Drupal comes packaged with a robust user system, but also a lot of features like:
- Community-friendly features like forums
- Books for creating documents in a “book” structure
- Tracker – allows you to follow updates and content that other users have published recently.
Drupal also comes with a large community of developers and modules. You can build any type of site or any sort of functionality to Drupal installation with these modules.
Download the latest version of Drupal
I introduced some major and strong players. However, there are many other web software to create your blog. Following, I list some of the other platforms, you can check them if it interests you.
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Twitter: techbappa
December 19, 2012 5:52 pm
Suresh, Creating self design and coding is very time consuming, you have listed very good blogging platforms, this are the best hosted platforms & already using wordpress, joomla & Drupal, will try out other platforms in the list.
lokesh recently posted…Yahoo! Axis Web Browser for iPhone, Desktop and iPad
Twitter: bivori
December 20, 2012 5:48 pm
Thank you Lokesh for the comment and +1 it. Truly appreciate that.
I found Joomla a great platform to create websites. I feel is more suitable for sites rather than blogging. For blogging, nothing con compete with WordPress.
However, looking through the SEO eye, I found Joomla is easier!
Suresh Khanal recently posted…Self-Hosted Blogging Platforms – How to blog series post #3
Twitter: bihar
December 20, 2012 4:17 am
Again a very interesting post on self hosted blogging platforms. I tried a hand at Joomla once and I gave up and then decided to go for Wordpress. Perhaps it was a better idea. I have heard of Movable Type, mostly good things about it but never tried it.
Shalu Sharma recently posted…Funny Indian pictures
Twitter: bivori
December 20, 2012 5:50 pm
Joomla is not bad, not a bit. I will recommend it to anybody who are designing websites and company profiles. However, for blogging, WordPress is the real King.
Thank you Shalu for following the series. I hope the posts will be useful to learn about blogging.
Suresh Khanal recently posted…Self-Hosted Blogging Platforms – How to blog series post #3
Hi Suresh
I came here from your Guest post on Ileana’s blog.
Great post on self hosted platforms. I have not heard of Movable type and expression engine.
I started my blog on ASP.NET platform but I gave up after 2 months of development, as I was investing more time in development and less in blogging and for each feature I had to code from scratch wherein wordpress I found a plugin for everything I desire for.
Finally gave up ASP.NET and moved to WP.
Thanks for sharing the 2 new platforms.
Sapna
Twitter: bivori
December 22, 2012 2:33 pm
Hi Sapana,
Thanks to Ileane
Having your own code for your blog has some awesome benefits over using WordPress or any other platform. Your blog is most secure and free from the kind of attacks designed for WordPress. But developing custom platform for blogging is really huge job.
Suresh Khanal recently posted…Self-Hosted Blogging Platforms – How to blog series post #3
When you decide to start your own blog, there are many choices to be made. The very first choice is which platform to use. The most popular blog platforms are Blogger , Typepad , and WordPress . This article will explain the basic differences of these platforms and the pros and cons of each.
Twitter: bivori
January 31, 2013 7:34 am
You summarized it very well Harriet. Thank you.
Suresh Khanal recently posted…Solved Auto-Spammed Comments Problem