Dare To Be Different Vol 1 – Serendipity
Written on April 3rd, 2008 by Scott
The blogging community is abuzz with news and reviews of the recent WordPress 2.5 upgrade. Since it seems that the majority of blogs here on Entrecard are running on either WordPress or Blogger, it may come as a shock to many that there are other choices available when choosing a blogging platform.
In this series of articles I’ll be presenting some of these other options starting with my preferred system – Serendipity.
When I started My Thermos back in November of ‘06 I looked at a number of options before choosing Serendipity, and not once have I regretted that decision.
The default installation and set-up (which is a breeze to do) sets up a site perfect for a casual blogger. At it’s core though, Serendipity is a powerful, flexible framework suitable for any type of site. Easily add static pages or embed into a current site.
The plugin architecture is easy to use and allows for easy modifications and introduction of new features. The SPARTACUS system also helps keep all your plugins up to date by automatically checking the central repository for upgrades whenever you check the list. There is a good assortment of plugins available as well.
Serendipity offers 40 official templates with many 3rd party options also available. Smarty Templates combine simplicity and well documented web standards to allow you to completely customize the appearance of your site. The Bulletproof Template Framework is an outstanding step forward for allowing users to configure most theme options using just the administration panel without needing to edit core files.
The One-click upgrades are brainlessly simple – upload and extract the new files, visit your Admin Panel and run the upgrader. There is no need to disable your plugins. Of course, as with an upgrade of any sort you should do a database backup prior to modifying any files, no matter which system you use.
Image and other media handling is outstanding using the integrated Media Library.
Some other key features include:
Excellent Anti-Spam / Comment Moderation plugins – Highly Configurable
Supports a variety of database options including MySQL, PostgreSQL and SQLlite
Serendipity is Internationalized. Currently available in English, German, Danish, French and more. Also supports multilingual content.
Flexible Markups available for users and editors. Choose between HTML, Textile, Wiki, BBCode and others.
Support – The support is excellent from the community and from the developers at the User Forums. Lead Developer Garvin Hicking and the rest of the team are always quick to answer questions and help with any issues that might arise.
Some Potential Cons:
Plugins aren’t as plentiful as they are for WordPress. What is available is excellent, and there isn’t anything that I have wanted to do that I haven’t been able to, but the “hot” plugins may not have a Serendipity counterpart.
Same with themes. The bundled themes are good quality, easily customizable, and your site won’t look just like all the others – but if you want a specific WordPress port, you might have to do it yourself.
Well, there you have it. Serendipity is a fantastic application that I find to be very easy to use, very customizable, and very powerful. I use it for my blog as does my wife. I also have used it for a number of client projects because of the flexibility it offers me in combining blog functionality with traditional static pages. It can also be easily embedded into an existing site.
If you are thinking of moving from a hosted blogging service, setting up a new blog, or just want to try something different, I recommend giving Serendipity a good look. Chances are they even have an importer to get your content in place.
Dare to be different and at least look at your options before choosing – you may be surprised at what you could be missing. I would be happy to answer any questions anyone has about this, or head over to the site and forums and ask there.
Cheers!
SB
April 3rd, 2008 at 8:24 am
I guess the best comment I could give your site is “It looks like WordPress”. The front end doesn’t matter as much as the content inside. If you can create the look you want, then it meets your needs. Any performance comparisons during periods of high traffic?
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:27 am
Great article, I love looking at Wordpress alternatives even thought I still prefer Wordpress I like to see what’s out there to see if I might like it more.
April 3rd, 2008 at 11:52 am
Turnip – You bet, the platform is just a means to the end of providing content. Choosing one over the other doesn’t make the words any better.
I’m not a PHP coder by nature but Serendipity has proven to be very stable for me. I think the highest profile Serendipity Site I am aware of is the one run by Bob Parsons of GoDaddy at bobparsons.com
I’m not too keen on his particular design (and it’s firefox flaws) but it does show how extensible it is and he certainly gets some traffic for his godaddy girl videos.
Matt
Thanks. That is all I am trying to do is present alternatives. I don’t have anything against WordPress but there are other programs out there that have their own strengths and I encourage people to make an educated decision on what best suits their needs.
SB
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:17 pm
You know, I feel like most people with self hosted blogs aren’t up to switching platforms.
But for everyone out there on Wordpress.com, this is something to really think about.
Wordpress has become an industry standard, but the application is pretty basic. I’d love to try a different platform (as long as it was free, I’ll never pay for a blogging platform), and see if I like it.
Great post!
April 7th, 2008 at 9:50 am
I came to Serendipity for the easy embedding support, and wound up switching to it for my entire website. I was impressed with the speed and elegance of the code. The user forums gave me so much support that I eventually joined as a developer. And that’s a joy, because the code is so well programmed.
I might have been more reluctant if I was migrating from another blog instead of straight HTML — but even then, Serendipity imports entries from most other blogs, including WP.
And Bulletproof makes it so easy to create new themes that I even ventured into that.
Serendipity is well worth a look. And you can even get a free blog at supersized.org to try it out.
January 31st, 2009 at 3:49 pm
I love CMSs, i will try it. Let’s see if it is good enough to Wordpress or Joomla.