I asked various 9rules members to come forward and speak openly on their chosen blog CMS. Here are their opinions in all their glory.

Kyle Neath of warpspire.com

CMS:
Wordpress (Hosted - not domain.wordpress.com)

Killer Feature(s):
Absolutely amazing framework with unchallenged extendability and flexibility.

Let Down(s):
Updates (again). But this is more a gripe with hosted software rather than Wordpress itself. For instance, Wordpress is 100x easier to upgrade than punbb and 1000x easier to upgrade than Typo.

What feature would you add to it?
Better support for tiered categories. (i.e. in_category for parent categories).

Ben Gillbanks of binarymoon.co.uk

CMS
Wordpress

Killer Features
The plugin system, almost anything you can think of you can do. The price, you can’t beat free.

Let Downs
I’m sure i could think of something… eventually - but off the top of my head I have nothing.

What features would you add to it
More support/ features for multi author blogs (multiple authors on a single blog)

John Phillips of jwphill3.com

CMS
Wordpress

Killer Features
Very easy to get used to as long as your familiar with a little xhtml/css/php markup. In my situation, I’ve learned a whole lot about php through using Wordpress.

Let Downs
A lot of poorly written plugins that are a headache to customize

What features would you add to it
Nothing that I can think of.

Volkher Hofmann of livingwithmusic.com

CMS:
Expression Engine

Killer Feature(s):
Custom fields, expandable (modules, plugins), feature-rich; there’s nothing this baby can’t do. Great community with very fast response. Continuously updated and expanded (forum, gallery, commerce module, wiki, user management) by a great team. Pretty good whitelist/blacklist spam protection. Coupled with Akismet, when I compare my EE installation with lots of visitors to my WP installation with hardly any, the spam ratio seems to be around 0.1:10 … in favour of EE.

Let Down(s):
The complexity of it for “normal” users = steep learning curve; the documentation is pretty good but I think regularly-updated and decent printable docs are a must for such a complex CMS. Other than that, none. For the average user, the price is perhaps a problem?

What feature would you add to it?
Easier way of templating, better control panel (it can be a pain in the neck trying to remember which setting is where in a multitude of sub-sections.

Derek Punsalan of 5thirtyone.com

CMS:
Wordpress (Hosted - not domain.wordpress.com)

Killer Feature(s):
Absolutely painless / pain free installation, great framework for creating a custom website to meet your needs.

Let Down(s):
Why must I install WP-Cache (plugin) in order to survive high surges of traffic like that from digg?

What feature would you add to it?
Automatic updates + the necessary framework to support plugin update notifications

James of rightonblog.net

CMS
Wordpress Hosted

Killer Features
Plugin architecture, ability to make it do ANYTHING I want it to, even things it wasn’t originally designed for.

Let Downs
The lack of an AutoUpgrade feature without installing a 3rd party plugin.

What features would you add to it
I’d improve the UI of the admin panel as shown in the WordPress Shuttle Project

Darice de Cuba of darice.org

CMS: Simplelog (Ruby on Rails)

Killer Feature(s):
As simple as it can get, clear admin with no fuss. AJAX to facilitate creating post(comments, tags, pings).

Let Down(s):
Not for “normal” people, requires some knowledge in SSH, Ruby on Rails, UNIX command line and some patience.

What feature would you add to it?
Photo upload.

Ben Gray of openswitch.org

CMS:
Textpattern

Killer Features:
Lots of built in capability.
Plugins for all the stuff that’s not built in.
It’s open source which really appeals to me.
It’s a CMS first, blogging engine second. I use it for a blog but it’ll be perfect for future more ’standard’ websites I build in the future.
You can put anything anywhere within the site, in that way it’s less rigid than WordPress.
Real template tags, not modified php calls.
Very very flexible.
Built-in caching.

Let downs:
Templating system and free ‘ready-made’ templates are lacking.
Steep learning curve coming from WordPress just because of the way the site functions.

Features I’d like to add:
A stronger templating system would be nice, but since this isn’t a ‘blogging only’ platform it would be somewhat unrealistic.

Me of fadtastic.net

CMS:
Wordpress (Hosted - not domain.wordpress.com)

Killer Feature(s):
The community. With such a great backing from the community members, coupled with the Codex, it’s easy to find the solution for every problem.

Let Down(s):
The updates. Not necessarily the amount of updates, but the time it takes to upgrade. The same goes for plugins. For a large site, it can be a draining process to seek and upgrade all your plugins on a regular basis.

What feature would you add to it?
Automatic updates and install plugins/themes from the admin panel. I’d also like the Moon…on a stick.

Over to you

What are your thoughts on your blog platform? Feel free to use the same format as above.

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