I switched blogging software this evening, from Movable Type to WordPress. I’ve been using Movable Type for a year and a half now, after moving up from some software that I’d assembled on my own. I’ve quite liked it, and I don’t have any complaints, but I wanted some more flexibility.
The biggest difference between the two, practically-speaking, is that Movable Type is written in Perl, whereas WordPress is written in PHP. I’m very, very good with PHP. Not so much with Perl. Also, I’ve come to be rather hung up on great URL structures, and I’ve been working to ensure that all of my sites have them. To have a blog with incrementing numeric filenames (001726.php) instead of human-readable URLs became a bit embarrassing. The upgrade path from crufty URLs to proper URLs didn’t exist in Movable Type, practically speaking, but a little PHP magic means that I can redirect all requests for old URLs to the new URL in WordPress. Finally, WordPress is open source and licensed under the GPL, which I’m just more comfortable with.
I feel bad jumping ship on Movable Type. Six Apart makes a good product, and I was happy to use it and happy to pay for it. It’s just not for me.