Derek Peden

Follow @derekpeden on Micro.blog.

Comparing Wordpress and Blot

As someone who’s dipped their toes into indieweb, and doesn’t yet feel that the water has reached my ankles let-alone my knees, I’m open to trying alternative ideas. I’ve spent a bit of time this week looking into Blot, and comparing this to Wordpress, and I have to say I’m unconvinced that it’s worth the transition.

That being said, if I stepped back 12 months and was looking at this a fresh, before setting up Wordpress and purchasing MarsEdit to create and manage the bulk my posts (including this one) then I’d be less sceptical. Blot’s growth is from it’s simplicity, and frictionless posting. But arguably users of MarsEdit already experience such ease, and the power which comes from a seemly direct relationship between the installed app and the blog. There is no dependency on middle-man like Dropbox. The equivalent intermediary in my Wordpress workflow is a local App, not an additional service.

Of course, the downside of Wordpress is its complexity. Comparing Wordpress and Blot is like comparing Microsoft Word and Apple’s TextEdit. Both can be used to create a well formatted rich text document, but Word wants to overload you with additional content, menus, options, and formatting tricks. In the spirit of being all things to all men Wordpress attempts to do the same.