Ten Reasons Why You Should Upgrade to MT 4 Instead of WP 2.3
(Thanks for the info, Mr. Dogood.)
1. All of WP 2.3’s new features have been in MT for years. Tags are the biggest “new” feature in WP 2.3, and there’s still no way to edit, manage, or delete them. MT was one of the first blogging tools to support the Atom API, which is important if you care about supporting web standards. The other improvements to managing drafts have been in MT forever, too.
2. MT’s Dashboard is a lot more powerful and has far better plugins for showing your site data. Instead of just having simple text links, you can show your comments, entries, and tags across all of your blogs (see below) with a pretty graph. There are even plugins for Google Analytics or FeedBurner or hosting your own stats.
3. It takes tons of plugins to make WP do what MT does out of the box. Here’s a few of the ones you’d need to get some of MT4’s features: Advanced Tag Entry, Backup WordPress, Better Comments Manager, Bluetrait Event Viewer, Excerpt Editor, Front Page Excluded Categories, Get Recent Comments, Inline PHP, No Self-Ping, Order Posts, Organizer, Recent Posts, Search Everything, Subscribe To Comments, Tag Functions, Text Control, Ultimate Tag Warrior, Widgets, WordPress Dashboard Editor, WP Calendar, WP-Cache, WP-MU, WP-Vault.
4. When you get on Digg, your readers won’t see “database connection error”. Aaron wrote a great post about WP 2.3 and by the time it got on Digg’s homepage, nobody could read it.
5. You can run all your blogs in one install. Unlike WP-MU, it doesn’t take a separate version of the system to run many blogs, and all the plugins that work with MT work with all your blogs.
6. You can manage all your files and images right inside MT. MT4 has a built-in asset manager, so everything that you’ve uploaded is listed right there, where you can even add tags to your assets.
7. MT is already on version 4.01, and they don’t want to do a 4.02. So you don’t have to wait for 2.31 to come out. As if it wasn’t enough hassle when 2.2.1 and 2.2.2 and 2.2.3 came out, do you really want to go through all of your plugins breaking again like they did with 2.1?
8. MT already has a lot of the most popular WP wishlist ideas built in. Want to search both posts and pages? Need to automatically generate thumbnails for images? Want a more usable photo uploader? Want a better WYSIWYG editor? Those are all built-in already.
9. OpenID built right in. It’s not a plugin, and it even lets you sign in to comment on your blog with a wordpress.com account, or any other OpenID provider. (See my explanation of OpenID.)
10. MT can import all of the content from your WP (and WP-MU) blog right now. And then you’ll have more options of what to do with your blog. You can make PHP pages, sure, but you can also make ASP or JSP pages too.
Update: Make that eleven. (Or seven, depending on how you count.)
-
- posted on 24 September 2007
- by Jesse
- Comments (28)
- in the chapter, "CMS"
- tagged with Movable Type, WordPress
InterAction:
24 September 20072. Jesse Gardner:
@proson: Web servers were not originally created to be database machines; they're optimized to serve up pages. Every time someone brings up a WordPress blog that doesn't having caching set up properly, it's making a call to the database. If this happens too often, the site bottlenecks at the database and the ugly error rears its head. (That's why commenting on MT is sometimes slow, because that's one of the few times an MT blog talks to the database.)
As for your other questions: MT4 is just as SEO friendly as WP. Installation is probably not as easy, because WordPress comes as a push-button install for most hosts. But the install is pretty straightforward. Upload MT to your server, unzip it and then run the install; it will prompt you for all your vitals and then create the config file for you. The initial hump is well worth it as it's smooth sailing from there. I'll stop talking and point you in the right direction: http://movabletype.org.
24 September 20073. Robert Synnott:
Much though I like Movable Type, I have serious reservations about whether the photo uploader is better; I don't like it very much, myself. Good points otherwise, though.
24 September 20074. Dan Wolfgang:
It's funny 'cuz it's true!
24 September 20075. Billy:
Good post, Jesse. I used MT4 to build the latest version of my business site, and I loved it. It's a huge leap forward from the previous version of MT, and (for me at least) so much easier to work with than WP.
@Robert, you might give the "Better File Uploader" plugin a try. A lot more features and more customizable than the default file uploader.
24 September 20076. wondering:
Is mt free?
24 September 20077. Timothy Appnel:
@wondering: It is free for personal use. Before the year is out Six Apart will be releasing an GPL'ed licensed version of MT that will be free to all regardless of use.
24 September 20078. John:
1. All of WP 2.3’s new features have been in MT for years.
3. It takes tons of plugins to make WP do what MT does out of the box.
8. MT already has a lot of the most popular WP wishlist ideas built in.
9. OpenID built right in. It’s not a plug in...
Those are all more or less the same reason. We've been gypped! You still owe us 3 more reasons!
I don't understand the point you are making in #7. MT has many bug fix releases and feature changes in its history. http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/docs/3.3/h_changelog/
That change log has been sanitized! MT has also had plenty of incremental releases with oddball version numbers. MT3.1x went to 3.17 before MT3.2 came out, to include something numbered 3.121
And before that I used a MT2.661
I can't prove it at the moment, but I vaguely remember someone thought it would be funny and they released a MT3.1459.
And didn't a Six Apart employee write at the time of the 4.01 release another release was imminent and it would contain additional bug fixes?
24 September 20079. LaRosa Johnson:
now i remember why i don't use wordpress!
this was on point Jesse. sure, there's a bit of a learning curve in switching from WP to MT... but there was when i went the other way around too. overall, you have to love the fact that you don't need all those plugins to do fairly common things in MT
lj.
24 September 200710. Jesse Gardner:
@John: Hahaha, keen eye. I knew saying "ten reasons" would get me in trouble. Alright, since you asked nicely, number 11 would have to be the granular user permission controls, number 12 would be the new power of the templating language and number 13 would be the address book. And I'll give you the imminent release point: I do remember Byrne mentioning that in a email to Pronet.
24 September 200711. Grace:
WordPress is a pain when you have to manage a shared hosting. They have that plugin called wp-cache that does simply anything to relief this pain. (My own experience with some Linux servers, here, please).
I use MT since version 2 and I simply love it. MT4 is above any dreams I could have about it. Does it have bugs? Yeah, it does. But they're certainly minor.
And I get to deal with code I can understand, my clients can understand just like they did with Blogger. I think it is amazing! I like to say that with MT we are free to do *anything* we want :)
That's it!
I loved your reasons, thanks Jesse, it was a great post :)
24 September 200712. Tim:
Of course, I've run MT on two different occasions and both times the system crashed and destroyed my database within a year.
I've also used WP and have now switched both sites to WP and I've not had any corruption problems or other damaging errors.
I liked the interface with MT more than I like WP but I just can't stand another crash. I've also found that help for WP is easier to come by. I've posted on the MT forums many times and never got a response or any type of assistance. The WP forums, on the other hand, are exceptional.
24 September 200713. Jesse Gardner:
@Tim: This isn't the support forum, but what was the problem? I've run MT on a wide range of servers, from small, independent hosting companies to economy hosting, from installs with thousands of entries to tiny sites with only a dozen pages and I've never run into a database corrupted by MT. It seems to me that the fewer connections you make to the db, the less likely you are to have corruption.
But then, I'm a designer.
24 September 200715. Christophe:
Most of my experience lies with WordPress. The thing that keeps turning me away from MT is its template code, and the use of Perl rather than PHP. I feels like there is a lot more to learn with MT if you want to build a custom template/site. Putting aside things that are wrong with either platform, for those that have experience with both, which is faster to create a site with?
24 September 200716. Jesse Gardner:
@Christophe: That's a very fair question. For you, probably WordPress; for me, probably Movable Type. That being said, from an outsider perspective, I think MT's template tags are easier. Instead of needing to litter templates with PHP, you have tags that make a lot of sense like <mt:EntryTitle /> or <mt:BlogName />. Even the conditionals are pretty easy to read: <mt:IfNonEmpty tag="CommentCount">.
There's a lot to learn for both platforms. And there's a great community of developers for either platform. But I think creating new blogs, adding users and managing content is far easier in Movable Type. (Literally two clicks to create a new blog.)
Ultimately, it comes down to this. If you're set on developing and designing for small, personal blogs, you can get away with WordPress. But you should at least consider Movable Type, especially since many professional and business blogs depend on the time-tested security of Perl over PHP.
25 September 200717. Pete:
Can I easily import from WP to MT? I've got a small handful of WP installs, of various versions (none the latest), plus a WPmu that I use for myself and intended to merge the separate WP installs into. Can I put all of this into a single MT installation where I can manage the blogs, run my own, and let my friends run theirs as well?
26 September 200718. LaRosa Johnson:
@Pete:
yes, that'd be a very easy process. MT4 has a WP import utility, so you'd just have to make a backup of your entries and MT can import them.
running them all from a single install is simple enough as well, and one of the major benefits of running MT versus WP; and giving individual users access (and permissions) is painless as well; a few clicks and you're done.
lj.
28 September 200719. Michel:
Now, if Movable Type is sooo great, and WordPress is soooo way behind it, then why I've seen so much people switch to WP instead of the opposite?...
Even Mike Davidson switched to WP quite recently?...
Hmmm?... :-)
28 September 200720. neatorama:
Rebuilding static pages is too cumbersome for large blogs with lots of posts. We have over 10,000 posts on Neatorama, and we change the template around a lot.
MT would be good for smaller blogs, but not for large ones.
28 September 200721. LaRosa:
@neatorama: static pages aren't the only type of publishing that MT offers... you can also have a dynamic site as well, it's solely up to the user how they want to serve up their pages. as for me, i tend to use dynamic publishing.
lj.
28 September 200722. Steve:
I'm very intrigued by this Movable Type 4, especially from a new blogger's perspective (I started my blog on WP last year). I tried to install MT 4 on GoDaddy and had a really hard time. I think it has something to do with GoDaddy itself.
More specifically, how hard would it be to port over my current WP blog (www.beyondbehaviors.com) to MT 4 while keeping its template design?
I'm not technical enough and installing MT seems to require more technical knowledge.
19 November 200723. InvadeMyCloset:
I tried to use MT4 and found it a hassle to get used to the new tags. From your perspective was it easy to design your site using MT4?
24 November 200724. Will:
I cried when I read the new MT4 templates.
Why are they doing them in this way?
4 feels like a release where the developers went Stalin and straight up Defenestrated every single architect, front-end guy, designer and producer.
I already had my pages Moduled, Templatized, Hybridized btw static & dynamic and heading-structured according to Chris Pearson's truly great SEO advice.
I can. not. stand. the new structure. Conditionalize 85 times in one template, YAY!
Their new mess brings to mind OCCAM's FRICKIN' Razor. -Or better yet, Kaizen in manufacturing. -> Make the system Exactly as complex as it needs to be BUT Not One Bit More; => or Simplify until it breaks, then add back the last step before it did.
KHAAAAAAAAANNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
13 December 200725. Tony:
I've been using MT4 since beta and I'm just getting incredibly frustrated with it. This is coming from someone who has been using this software for years and years.
There are things I do like. I love the RSS feeds it creates based on searches and tags. I like the concept of the folder system. I like how easy it is to categorize and call archives. The asset manager is nice. WP either does not have these things or does not do them AS well.
And, really, let's face it... I'm more concerned with things running right and well than if some person on an iPhone is using my site properly. I thought what was so great about it was that you could look at sites the way they are on your browser at home? lol
WP does a few things out of the box that MT4 does not do. Custom fields, for example. People will quickly point you to Arvind's plug-in, but his documentation for it is pretty terrible and doesn't give many clear ideas of the tags required to surround it so that it actually works. Not to mention that you cannot sort by custom field in his latest version, which kind of killed almost any of my interest in it.
The page system would be great if I could make subpages. Instead, I have to use the folder system. The folder system is great in and of itself (I love that I can say if this folder is ___, do ___). But for page sorting, it winds up being a major headache and I constantly find myself having to do so much coding for the pages to be sorted how I want that I might as well just hard code it. The different sorting options for creation time on pages do not seem to work like they are supposed to. Meanwhile I can pick a page order by default in WP... a two second change.
What I like about WP is that if I need to get a plug-in to do something, I can pretty much guarantee that it's going to work and it's going to be updated. And if it isn't, one just like it exists somewhere else. MT4, by comparison, is pretty barren and some of the best things require me to pay money (which I'll do for $15, but not $250 for 10 blog setups -- I just use one).
The conditionalizing issue becomes incredibly frustrating and keeping the templates even remotely readable results in a ton of white space once the template spits them out.
And maybe these things (and others I won't get into) work if you do this or that. The problem is that the documentation for it is TERRIBLE. It tells you about constant tags, but then doesn't tell you what any of them down or how to properly utilize their attributes. It quickly becomes a major guessing game until you stumble upon the thing that worked right... which would be far easier if I could ever get dynamic publishing in MT to work 100% (a lot of plug-ins simply crap out with it enabled). Instead I'm constantly rebuilding things.
I could just go on and on about it. A lot of these issues can be fixed rather easily, I would imagine. All I know is that as of 4.1 it's not there yet and if they don't plan on doing a 4.2, as you say, then no thanks. I was excited about this and tired of working with WP (my work relies more on that) and wanted to show the strengths of MT off... but unfortunately the new components of MT4 just aren't all they're cracked up to be.
The problem is that MT4 does things I wish WP did and WP does things I wish MT4 did. They both have their completely obnoxious qualities.
4 February 200826. Jonathan:
Does anyone know where I can download the last release before MT4? I would like to install it, as I know how it works, but it seems to have gone missing from MT's site altogether.
Thanks in advance! for any help!
3 April 200827. Jesse Gardner:
Those of you who found the modularized and conditionalized templates frustrating—your cries have been heard! In an effort to help lower the entry level for Movable Type, they are including extremely simple non-modular, non-conditional templates by default. What that means is that when you create a new blog, you have an option to select the compact modular templates, but the unpacked, documented, non-complex templates are selected by default. I think this will go a long way toward helping beginners.
20 April 200828. Conor O'Neill:
Can you point me to the Feedburner plugin that works on MT4 because everything I've found so far only works on MT3? It's a dealbreaker for me in switching one of my blogs from WP.
YourThoughts?
(Minutia)
This entry was written by Jesse on Monday, September 24, 2007 at 8:29 AM and appears in the CMS chapter. The previous article was entitled, "The Social Graph in Plain Language", and the next entry is called, "Essential CSS Tricks: Image Frames". Bookmark the permalink, save it to del.icio.us or Digg it.
GetUpdated
ElseWhere
AllChapters
- 2 articles in the chapter Accessibility
- 1 articles in the chapter Announcements
- 2 articles in the chapter Blogging
- 4 articles in the chapter CMS
- 3 articles in the chapter CSS
- 6 articles in the chapter Design
- 2 articles in the chapter Downloads
- 1 articles in the chapter Gadgets
- 4 articles in the chapter Journeys
- 1 articles in the chapter Miscellany
- 1 articles in the chapter Print
- 1 articles in the chapter SEO
- 4 articles in the chapter Social Networking
- 1 articles in the chapter Standards
24 September 20071. proson:
I did see a lot of database errors on digg tonight when I tried to look for some information. Can you tell me a bit more about MT4? Is it SEO friendly? Is it easy to install or no? Thanks.