Blog Platform Comparisons-Typepad vs WordPress.com Pt.1

I am doing a private research of comparisons made about some of the various blogging platforms. To start I am posting a chart and comments from a blog post done in January, 2008. Now lots can happen in just a few months on the internet. But I decided to start providing some of the information I am coming across.

This post was made by Andrew.

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The table shows that the comparison is a tricky one, in that WordPress.com and TypePad are packaged differently. Automattic offers free, ad-supported, hosted blogging at WordPress.com, and offers a few specific paid upgrades. Six Apart offers paid, ad-free blogging at TypePad.com in the form of different packages: Basic and Plus are the “smallest.”

  WordPress.com WordPress.com upgrades TypePad Basic TypePad Plus
Price (year) Free   $50 $90
Storage 3 GB (= 3000 MB) + $20 for + 5 GB,… 100 MB 500 MB
Can store JPG, GIF Yes   Yes Yes
Can store MP3, video No With storage upgrade Yes Yes
Bandwidth Unlimited   2 GB/month 5 GB/month
Domain mapping No + $10 No Yes
Ads Yes, by/for Automattic Ad-related upgrade in the works Yes, by/for you if you want Yes, by/for you if you want
Templates/themes Yes   Yes Yes
Drag and drop to customize layouts Using sidebar widgets (only within sidebar)   No Yes
Customize CSS No + $15 No No

The mapping between features of WordPress and of TypePad isn’t always a neat one. This is borne out in particular by the last rows of the table, and by the notes they prompt me to add. Custom CSS for TypePad requires the Pro package, which costs $150/year. But TypePad plus offers some customization options not available at WordPress.com, even with the CSS upgrade.

The difference is sufficient to prompt the cliche of “comparing apples and oranges.” It might be interesting to expand the comparison to include pears and kiwi fruit: that is, Blogger and Vox. In fact, Matt made the comparison with Blogger’s storage allowance in the above quote. Vox is the most recently-introduced of Six Apart’s blogging services.

For a comparison between Automattic and Six Apart, see my guest post at Read/Write Web. But note that Six Apart has since sold LiveJournal.

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