Textpattern and Greymatter were both strong in the running with their multitude of features, and I have to say this was a tough one to judge. While I was impressed with both of them, it still only came down to one winner. Let’s get this review started!

Textpattern
For free, Open Source blogging software, it couldn’t have been any better. I installed thinking one thing, and I uninstalled thinking another. Installing was, of course, easy. The admin interface was beautiful. The best I have touched yet. In my opinion, even better than WordPress.

For the most part, it is very customizable. You can make it look basic or individualize it to your own design (like Chris’s Web log). I didn’t find any security holes in it - that’s good thing.

A nice feature is that you are able to import content from other blogging software into Textpattern.

Textpattern is very clean and simple. Recommended to new and not-so-new users, alike.

My Rating: 7.5/10

Greymatter
Overall, this was a great piece of blogging software, yet the installation will be tough for non-techie users. I enjoyed the Karma feature, and the interface was nice and clean.

A major flaw, in my opinion, is that there is not any RSS/Atom support along with it. In this day and age, RSS/Atom is something that every blog or Web site needs, simply because most users rely on it to keep them up-to-date.

The security, as far as I could tell, far-passed impressive. No leaks to get in - Couldn’t get any more safe.

The template system is tremendous, as well. Customizable and easy to use, with tags that add in certain things to your Web log interface.

A bit of a bear to install, but once up and running, it can be a fast friend.

My Rating: 7/10

We just witnessed Textpattern eliminate Greymatter. Up next we will have LiveJournal and TypePad (both currently owned by the same company) up against each other. Afterwards we will have the showdown to see who is the Web log Champion.

To view how the show down will work, please visit this post.