What blog software do you use and why

[KristineS]

I'm partial to Wordpress although I do use Blogger for one of the blogs for which I write. I'd like to move that blog to Wordpress though.

What blog software do those of you that write blogs use, and why did you choose to use that software?

[vangogh]

Definitely WordPress for me. I prefer to host my own blog since it gives you more control over things. Blogger at least lets you use your own domain, but I think there are still issues if you want to move everything somewhere else later.

Plus WordPress has an active developer community around it. Most of the time if you wish it could do something someone else has already figured it out and written a plugin.

WordPress (hosted on your server) is really flexible and the more I work with it the more I realize what you can do with it. I played around with bbPress, which is forum software developed by the same people who developed WordPress.

I thought it might make a quick solution for us here, but it's not mature enough yet. I think in a year or two it will give vBulletin a run for its money.

[orion_joel]

I also have gone for WordPress for both of the blogs i write. Literally there was one key it comes down to. I one day went through Fantastico and installed each of the Blog scripts available and played with each for a bit and Wordpress was the one that i liked the best, and also offered me just what i wanted.

Probably not the ideal way to find the best one, however i think i did come out ahead as it is that i did end up choosing WordPress

[thehunterswife]

I researched what the majority of bloggers were using and it was Wordpress. Many recommendations were that Wordpress gives you so much flexibility with your site and it is easy to use.

I would definitely recommend Wordpress.

[KristineS]

I'd say Wordpress is winning by a large margin at the moment. I can't say I'm surprised. I use it too.

[vangogh]

I'm not surprised either. There's a reason why it's so popular. It's easy to install and use and it also happens to be free. If you don't mind working with code it's fairly easy to customize and it's very flexible and extensible with an active developer community writing plugins.

[Aaron Hats]

I use Wordpress because my webmaster recommended it after researching a few different apps. It's all I know so I can't compare it to others but I like it.

Aaron

[the goat]

Wordpress for sure here. The only other I have tried is joomla and I find WP to be way more user friendly.

[KristineS]

Wordpress is definitely a clear winner so far. I'm not even sure I know what other blog software is out there. I think Typepad is still around, but what else besides that?

[vangogh]

I've seen people talk about Expression Engine and both Drupal and Joomla (which are billed as full CMS) have blogging capabilities.

I think most people are blogging on either WordPress of Blogger, though Blogger isn't something you can add to your own site. The more I learn about WordPress the more I see it can do a lot more than just blogging too.

[KristineS]

I have seen web sites built on a Wordpress platform. I'm not sure how easy that would be to do.

[the goat]

I am redesigning my skate ramp site with wordpress now that I have become familiar with it and I think it is coming out nice: Ready Ramps (http://www.readyramps.com). The Rolling Stones Poster site in my sig is an affiliate store I built with wordpress also, and believe me when I tell you I am a total novice.

[vangogh]

Kristine it's not as hard as you think. My site is currently built entirely on WordPress, though I did do some funky things to make it happen that I wouldn't recommend. Since building my site I've learned a few things that would have made accomplishing the same thing easier.

How you use WordPress depends a little on the type of site, but through the use of pages you can really set up what appears to be the typical static website. Various plugins can expand the functionality of your site. For example say you wanted to add an ecommerce store there are plugins to enable it.

@goat - both sites are looking good and the difference in the way they look shows some of what you can do with WordPress.