When it comes to popularity, MovableType is the most popular blogging software for multiple blogs, hands down. MovableType has a great framework, top developers and a plethora of plugins to enhance your blog. MovableType has carefully built up a reputation as a great blogging utility, especially for multiple blogs. However, the only downside is that this great utility isn’t free. As a matter of fact, it’s kind of expensive. The cheapest license that you can buy from SixApart (the makers of Movable Type) is if you happen to be a teacher and you’ll be using the software in one classroom ($39.95). To purchase a commercial license, you better bring some more change. The single-server, 1-5 users license costs $199.95, and the 50 user, single-server license costs a whopping $1,299.95.

Now, you can download a free, unsupported version of MovableType if it’s strictly used for personal use of 1 author and up to 3 weblogs. I tried this software out and installed some of the plugins, and decided that it worked fine. I didn’t think it was as great as WordPress, but I needed to use multiple blogs with just one login. However, once I saw the steep licensing prices, I decided to try a new, up-and-coming multi-blog software called pLog. I’m glad I did because I’ve found that it’s just as good (if not better in some respects) as MovableType. Here are a few reasons why.

To get a gauge to base my opinion on, let’s travel over to the MovableType pricing and licenses page, where it gives us what you get when you purchase MovableType. I’m going to compare the features of what you would pay for with MovableType with features you get for free from pLog.

1.“Money back guarantee for 30 days”. Well, considering you don’t buy pLog (it’s free under GPL), I’d say this one was pretty easy.
2.“Official technical support through Six Apart’s Help Ticket System”. You can get any help you need for free from the makers of pLog through their forums. They deal with topics having to do with (but not limited to); configuration and installing pLog, templates, plugins, localization, personal requests and much more. I’ve personally made about 40 posts on the forums concerning personalizing and modifying pLog, and all have been answered in a day, most within a couple of hours. Their great support is run primarily by pLog’s core development team, so you know you’re getting the best help possible.
3.“Additional online support resources and documentation”. pLog has documentation for new users, developers, administrators, template designers and more through their documentation wiki.
4.“Optional weblog promotion via the ‘Recently Updated’ list”. At pLog’s homepage you can have your site featured in their “Bloggging Related” section as well as the “Show Off” section of their forums.
5.“Access to fee-based services such as installation”. Although pLog doesn’t have this paid service, you can get ANY help you would possibly need through their extensive documents or forums, for free.
6.“Discounts on future upgrades”. Again, pLog is free… so naturally the upgrades are free as well.

So far we’ve only talked about how pLog is free, and how you can get the same services that you can from MovableType without paying a dime. Yet we’ve neglected to address the most important question: Does pLog’s quality of software match MovableType’s?

In order to fully answer that question, we’re going to have to break down the two blogging utilities into main categories of; installation, core, templates, plugins and functionality.

Installation. pLog wins hands-down on this category. It has an automatic script that you can run and it takes care of everything in a couple of steps. All you have to know is your MySQL database name and password. MovableType on the other hand has you go into its source code and change lines of code in a multiple-step process. Not recommended for the blogging newbie.
Core. MoveableType has a solid Perl source code that has been developed extensively over the years. pLog is run off of PHP and although it doesn’t have all the robust features as MovableType like static and dynamic publishing, it’s just as powerful and one of the fastest blogging utilities.

Templates. MovableType does have a great online template editor and comes with 6 basic templates. pLog also has an optional online template editor plugin that you can install to edit templates online. Also, the newest version of pLog comes with 50 additional templates, as opposed to MT’s 6.
Plugins. MovableType probably has an edge in this category. They have quite a few wonderful plugins that are written by their developers. pLog has many of the same great plugins, although not quite as an extensive of amount. However, MT’s plugins are only made by their developers. Anyone can make a plugin with pLog using their newly improved plugin structure. This is important because more plugins will eventually be made by pLog’s fast-growing community, and if you can’t find a specific plugin and you have a little programming knowledge, you can just make your own!
Functionality. Both applications have great functionality. You can check out MovableType’s feature list here and pLog’s features here. While MT may have some more advanced functionality that pLog may not (like Static and Dynamic publishing), pLog has some features that MT does not (like individual blog referrer statistics). Both have the basic, ease-of-use that is vital to blogging such as: flexible archiving, xhtml content, great syndication, commenting, xml-rpc ping notification, anti-spam filters, plus many more. pLog is nearly dead even with MT on every one of its features, and has a few other tricks up its sleeve like…
Summary.php- One of the major selling points for both applications is that a single user can create multiple blogs with just one login, and unlimited users can post to each blog. However, pLog takes this functionality one step further and adds a page (summary.php) that shows the activity from all the blogs on one page, available to the web. It features the most active blogs, newest blogs, most commented articles, most read articles, and more. Here’s a summary.php page in action. This extra functionality is ideal for anyone wanting to host an interactive blog community, such as this site.
Resource Centre- MovableType allows you to upload images in their administration, and you can download a plugin that allows you to podcast with your blog. In pLog, there is a section in the blogging administration that allows you to host podcasts, images, movies, and anything else you’d like to use on your blog, without using a plugin. It’s very easy to integrate almost anything uploaded to the resource center to your blog articles.

Wrapping it Up
Although MovableType has been around the blogging block many times and is the standard when it comes to multi-blog software, you still have to pay an arm and a leg for a license. Why pay at all when you can get everything that MovableType offers free of charge from pLog? Both applications have virtually the same basic features and personally, I think pLog is a lot easier to customize. pLog is ideal for anyone wanting to easily host a blogging community (with its summary.php page), and has added functionality for extras like podcasting built into the core. If you’re not looking to build a community, but rather to just have one or a few blogs, pLog is still an excellent choice. Oh, and did I mention the price? It’s free. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not a huge fan of spending a lot of money when I don’t have to.

So, there you have it. That’s why I think pLog is a much better blogging application than MovableType. Let me know what you guys think about the comparison between pLog and MovableType, and maybe we can share them in another article.