WordPress Vs. Textpattern

Aug 4, 04:25 PM By: rmspangler

I’ve always used a custom built solution for my blogging, originally just with some custom PHP, then I eventually added the FCK Editor but last month I decided that it was finally time to move on.

Lets Try WordPress

My initial thought was WordPress, I had a bit of experience with it from Shirts That Matter (which I have yet to complete…) so it seemed like the logical choice; However, I just kept running into more and more problems, and needing more and more plugins (which didn’t always work as promised).

Lets Try Textpattern

So I started to think Textpattern, one of my secret mentors (secret as in: I stalk his blog but he doesn’t really know who I am), Nathan Smith, co-authored an amazing book called TextPattern Solutions. I pre-ordered the book through Amazon as soon as he mentioned it but never really got around to reading it until now (now that I needed his TXP wisdom).

It was a bit difficult! I definitely didn’t pick up on Textpattern as quickly as I picked up on WordPress, I spent few late nights staring at my MacBook with a puzzled face. It did however pay off, Textpattern is extremely customizable, The thing I like most is how the “Articles” work, you can post them anywhere—so it took me just a couple minutes to make my resources section completely dynamic, which is huge for me!

The Breakdown (Pros and Cons)

There are a lot of things I like about both, and I always find it easier to compare things with bullet points, so here’s a breakdown of my pros and cons for the two:

WordPress

Pros

Beautiful! The Admin interface is very intuitive and aesthetically pleasing
Themes are easy to make and copy
Easy Plugin Installation
I can use my favorite HTML editor and just upload the files

Cons

You can only have one blog and post entries to that one blog page
Very buggy, I ran into several oddities with the navigation and a few other minor things
A lot of plugins with a lot of false promises and bugs
Not very flexible

Textpattern

Pros

Amazing Article system, you can post articles anywhere and use Forms to present them as you want them presented
Very flexible, there’s even a case study in Textpattern Solutions about an entire eCommerce site built off of TXP
Amazing Plugins – I had no problems installing / using plugins on the fly

Cons

The admin interface is a bit unattractive
Bigger learning curve
I’m not a huge fan of Textile yet

Conclusion

Well, I hope you found this helpful – I did not start out to become a Textpattern advocate but I feel that after building my website/blog in WordPress and then in TextPattern I’m sold on it.

Note: Building my site in WordPress and then rebuilding it in Textpattern happened in the span of a month, using WordPress 2.2 and Textpattern 4.05.

Also, if you’re going to use Textpattern, buy Textpattern Solutions.

Comments

Aug 6, 10:31 AM
Armen said:
Nice summary. I’m still a WP fan, and if I was to move, it would probably be to EE.

I really don’t get the reasoning behind Textile, but then maybe I should read up on it, there might be a good reason. It seems inaccessible in my opinion.
Aug 6, 11:02 PM
Robert Spangler said:
Yeah EE is definitely one that I want to get into a bit more and I do agree with you about Textile; maybe because I haven’t fully adapted to it yet, but I know my clients would prefer to press a bold b button rather than typing in asterisks.
Aug 26, 05:25 AM
Nathan Smith said:
I think you summarized the differences, pros/cons of WordPress and Textpattern pretty accurately. WordPress is great for blogging, but not much else. Textpattern is flexible enough to be used for anything, blogging included, but so much more. I’m glad you liked the TXP book, and that it proved useful in the long-run!
Sep 11, 02:55 AM
steve lam said:
just to clear up any confusion, i use textpattern for all of my sites and not once have i had to resort to any textiling. its purely optional and there for convenience, though i will be the first to admit that i hate textile (but i love txp!)
Feb 21, 03:33 PM
Mark said:
I have been doing some research on CMS:s, in order to be able to choose the best for me. I am a seasoned php coder who is simply too lazy to build himself what can be obtained ready, and I’m looking for good customization/integration capability. Would Textpattern suit to my needs best? What about EE?
Feb 23, 10:55 AM
Robert Spangler said:
@Mark: I would say it definitely depends on your specific needs.

For example If you’re running a business site with the need to post multiple articles, look more into TextPattern; if it’s a simple blog, probably go with WordPress; if it’s enterprise level, ExpressionEngine may be the better solution. Your best bet is to run through each system’s features and make your decision from there. I don’t think there’s really a silver bullet CMS that I’ve seen so far (unfortunately!)
May 27, 12:31 AM
Leo Tolstoy said:
WordPress is very flexible and I think you can do more than just blog. I’ve tried using TextPattern first but the time I have to study it is just not worth it. But when I started using WordPress, I’ve found out that it’s not just another blog software. By using the loops you can customize it and feature different blogs according to your specified category.
Nov 7, 12:33 AM
hassan said:
Recently Chris Coyer at CSS-Tricks created an screencast about using wordpress as a CMS. I think wordpress in enough flexible to fit any need. Also, for us that our language is not english, localized is important. which, wordpress is localized for Farsi and TXP not.
Thanks for your breakdown!
Dec 18, 02:34 PM
Jim said:
Thanks for your helpful post. No need to get hung up on Textile; there’s a TinyMCE plugin for TXP that provides WordPress-like WYSIWYG editing:

http://www.hakjoon.com/code/haktinymce