Which blogging/forum platform to use?

[thepoacher]

Hi all,

We're looking to set up blogs on various of our travel sites (we've currently got 6 separate sites and would like, eventually a blog/forum for each) and I'm wondering if anyone has any advice as to which platform/application is best suited to our purposes? I've looked at the various free ones which are all fine for what they are but they don't really offer enough flexibility or scope so I'm looking at buying one in and really don't know where to start.

I've thus far checked out communityserver and expressionengine, the former of which looked excellent but I'm reliably informed by my techhead that it's inflexible and restrictive.

Does anyone have any experiences they can share or any thoughts/advice on this?

Thanks in advance

Matt

[thepoacher]

I should probably add that we'd probably try this on a single site to test the validity etc. The site The Gambia Experience The UK specialist tour operator to The Gambia is already very well established and has around 1000uvs a day and it's expected that we'll be able to build ourselves a fairly extensive community...

[Overhaul]

Originally Posted by thepoacher

I've looked at the various free ones which are all fine for what they are but they don't really offer enough flexibility or scope so I'm looking at buying one in and really don't know where to start.

Does anyone have any experiences they can share or any thoughts/advice on this?

Have you looked at WordPress or Drupal?

[incrediblehelp]

love WordPress › Blog Tool and Weblog Platform

[doj464]

If you're looking for a blogging platform - wordpress is by far the best. I work in a company that uses a different CMS (cost us $600 for a license - is buggy -and we could only use designers that know the CMS elements.) - I've spent 4 months learning joomla and building a couple of sites - waay to clunky.

Wordpress kicks them all. It's simple to install and even easier to use. The amount of support is incredible, there are thousands and thousands of plugins - if you ever want to customize it - heck it's all in simple php.

I would highly suggest that you look at wordpress. It can be customized to be very professional- i've seen a number of great sites built in wordpress.

[mantawebsolutions]

To me WordPress is the best

[kelouba]

We use Wordpress for our travel blog network.

There are a few bugs that you need to sort out, but I think its the best free option available.

[sunbedkid]

We are in the process of building a travel community to go along side some travel related sites, and we are using wordpress mu. There are a few little things to overcome, and plugins that need to be added. It seems like a fairly streem lined script, with a good community to share ideas with.

[edhan]

If for my choice, I will go for Wordpress. It is easy to setup and has great plugins.

[rkfcomputers]

I'll be the lone dissenter and say Movable Type for CMS and vBulletin for the forums. I've used WordPress and Drupal as well, but MT & vB are by far my faves.

MT and WP are very close in functionality, and this is balanced even more by the plugins available for each. It does come down to a matter of preference and personal taste.

[Idea Guy]

I'll recommend Wordpress for you...

[drift]

I'm another Wordpress fan for blogging.
I've got to choose a forum option myself soon. I'm not sure bbpress bbPress » Home is the go which is by the wordpress guys. I like that it has tagging but there's other things I don't like, however if the wordpress crew are developing it I have high hopes. Else there's phpbb phpBB • Creating Communities Worldwide which has had a bad history of hacks but the latest version looks good, or maybe simple machines forum SMF Home of SMF: Free PHP and MySQL forum software
all of these are free

[nametaginc]

We use Blogger but with all the positive feedback and recommendations for Word Press, we are considering switching services.

Can anyone answer these 2 questions...

1) We already have multiple posts via Blogger -- is it difficult to transfer these over to WP?

2) Does WP have any stats/analytic capabilities? I have yet been able to find a service for Blogger that tracks visitors and pages visited, etc.


Thanks

[bj]

Go wordpress for now, it really is the best current option, though there is another alternative on the horizon that may change that. Wordpress plugins add so much versatility that it's tough to imagine using anything else. I like Movable Type too, but there isn't nearly the versatility with that script as with wordpress, though the templating with the newest version is fun!

And yes, nametaginc, (new) Wordpress imports (new) Blogger.

Wordpress has a plugin for goog analytics, and I think some other stats options available, though since I have it installed on my own hosting I just use awstats, since GA seems to slow WP sites down. I personally don't see that I need all the extra bells and whistles GA has, since I barely have time to analyse awstats in any depth.

For forum options, if you don't need heavy duty, there is a wordpress plugin that will do the job nicely and adds the ability to thread commenting, which really kicks butt. For a high traffic site you'll probably want SMF or Vanilla.

[Paul Gates]

WordPress undoubtedly

[ccpadmin]

Its safe to say Wordpress rules.

[Martinscholes]

I looked at Wordpress and several other free blog software options, but decided to use Blogger.

It does the job I want it to do and you can't say fairer than that.

[Banyo]

Wordpress. Amen.

[bobchrist]

Wordpress, blog with your own domain name.

[forez]

Use Wordpress, I love it.

[bradblog]

I would recommend using wordpress or blogger which ever you feel comfortable with

[anilg]

I so far have worked on many blogging platforms including blogger, wordpress, typepad etc but my favorite blogging platform is wordpress on which I'm currently working

[bcdxer]

i am using blogger for my travel sites