For many modern Internet users, maintaining their own blog has become a very important hobby. When organized properly, this hobby can bring in a decent income. And if you are still thinking about and planning your project, approach this task responsibly. Carefully study the existing blog engines, their advantages and weaknesses, because you will have to work closely with these tools.
What is a website engine (CMS) and why is it needed
To assess how important it is to choose the right website engine, you need to understand the definition. In other words, what is a CMS?
What to look for when choosing a website engine
A website engine is a comprehensive content management system. The term in English is “Content Management System.” Hence the abbreviated name “CMS.” It is thanks to this system that the author of a blog can easily manage their own resource, even without special knowledge of programming languages. Adding new text, photos, or videos is a simple task. Almost anyone who is willing to devote a little time and patience to reading the step-by-step instructions can master the process.
If we look at a website engine in simple terms, it can be compared to Lego bricks, where you can assemble a complete figure from a large number of different parts. The same is true in our situation, because we are looking at a universal set of blocks that allows you to quickly and easily create a functional website, even without any special knowledge in this area.
By using a CMS engine, you will enjoy a number of important advantages:
- even without programming skills, you will be able to create a full-fledged website with high-quality design and wide functionality;
- you can easily edit the resource by setting the necessary plugin settings and installing additional components;
- you will save a lot of time and money that you would have had to pay professionals for developing, configuring, and launching a blog.
Now that there is no doubt about the relevance of using a CMS, you need to choose the best blog engine, because your decision will determine the ease of managing the resource and the quality of work on filling or editing it.
The most popular blog engines
Before we look at the popular engines, let’s outline the main criteria to consider when choosing one. Pay attention to the following points:
- Availability of necessary features. We are talking about creating a blog, which means that the ideal CMS should have a clear process for posting articles and allow users to write comments. It should also include SEO tools, text editors, and other useful options. At the same time, it is important to have access to the main features “out of the box.” In other words, you should be able to use them immediately after installing the CMS. This is a very important point, because some engines only allow you to perform certain actions after installing additional plugins, which are often paid.
- Low server load. A blog is primarily an information portal, so it does not need a large number of special features. It is only natural that a CMS should not consume a large amount of resources, forcing the owner of the resource to overpay by choosing expensive hosting service packages. Many engines have serious system requirements, so this point should be given attention;
- simple and intuitive interface. It will make working with the Internet resource as simple and efficient as possible, which is also important for bloggers who have to regularly add new content and update existing material.
Now, to choose an engine for creating a blog, it is worth considering the most popular offers on the Internet. After reviewing each of them and compiling a small comparative characteristic, you can easily determine which product is worth paying attention to.
The WordPress blog engine is the most popular today and is considered an excellent solution. This system appeared back in 2003, but it has not lost its popularity to this day. On the contrary, the demand for this development is only increasing.
WordPress was originally developed as a blog engine, so it has all the necessary features. But you can also use it to create other projects, such as online stores, regular informational websites, and so on. The advantages of this software package include:
- ease of publishing text materials;
- SEO optimization out of the box, primarily for Google;
- comprehensive information support to facilitate work;
- the ability to create multiple sites on different subdomains from a single distribution;
- wide functionality.
It is no coincidence that we reviewed this engine first. It is considered one of the most popular and ranks at the top in some ratings.
MaxSiteCMS is another fairly popular project. It was created in 2008 and continues to actively develop to this day. The main advantages of the system include high speed of operation and a convenient admin panel.
Users also have access to a large number of plugins “out of the box” that can be used immediately after installing the engine. They are sufficient for creating and maintaining an electronic resource, so there is no need to download additional paid programs. In total, MaxSiteCMS fans have 124 templates and 240 plugins at their disposal. This is significantly less than WordPress, but these capabilities are sufficient for most users.
It is also worth noting that MaxSiteCMS provides a number of additional options that are paid. But this is not the only engine with this feature.
Movable Type is another very interesting and useful project. It is a free CMS for blogs, which is its main advantage. The project was developed by Six Apart, the creators of the popular LiveJournal engine. The company has been operating for over 11 years, which also adds to the credibility of the development.
Other important advantages include frequent system updates, full support, and high operating speed. There is also a special module that allows you to speed up your work even more. There are about 40 templates available for design, and a set of special widgets allows you to change it if necessary. Initially, there is reliable protection against spam — another advantage of Movable Type.
Among its drawbacks, it is worth noting the small number of templates and the fact that it is written in Perl, which means you have to find hosting that supports the relevant libraries. But overall, Movable Type can be considered a fairly promising and functional project.
PivotX is a blog engine written in PHP with open source code. At first glance, it seems rather simple and not particularly useful, but in fact, in many respects, the project successfully competes with the more well-known systems we discussed above. To assess the validity of using such an engine, let’s look at its main advantages:
- easy to learn;
- fast performance;
- works with MySQL and files;
- supports multi-user mode;
- has a full-featured text editor for editing posts;
- delayed publishing feature: create content one day, publish it another;
- wide range of settings;
- no unnecessary features that make the system difficult to learn.
These are the most popular engines, which are very popular among bloggers. The choice is yours.
