When I first began blogging after moving away from a hosted online journal, I used Movable Type mainly because it seemed to be the biggest game around.  It was, at that time, a bear to install.  I always had difficulty with upgrades, too.  Updating was not easy, as I had to rebuild after each post — a time-consuming process.  Finally, I found tech support to be unhelpful or nonexistent because, as it seemed to me, MT was interested in you only if you paid for a license, which was not something I could afford to do.

I switched to WordPress in early 2006, and I have been very happy ever since.  I rarely have any problems with upgrading, and I love the ease with which I can change themes (templates).  To my way of thinking, what WP got right from the beginning that MT got wrong was going open source.  Yesterday, MT announced they are going open source.  My personal thinking is that they waited too long, but I’m glad they’re making this move.  If I had paid for a license, I think I’d be pretty angry about it.  I think MT will be a much better product as a result, and competition will only be good for WP and MT both.

[tags]mt, movable type, wordpress, open source[/tags]