More than once over the last three months I have been asked why I chose to use Discourse as my blogging platform, when there are other more “suitable” products out on the market. The reason is really three fold.
- The leading self hosted blogging platform is Wordpress. According to ZDNet, more than %90 of all hacked sites are running Wordpress. I don’t believe that Wordpress is insecure out of the box, however once you add in some plugins to add functionality, is where things get dicey. The majority of plugins are authored by individuals that may not have the best security practices in mind when coding the plugin.
2. Most other blogging platforms seem to bolt on some kind of commenting system, either via a third party system, or a solution that is not fully baked. By using forum software for the blog, the commenting system is built right in. Discourse as a product invites open and frank discussions. Here is a quote direct from Discourse.com
Discourse is a from-scratch reboot, an attempt to reimagine what a modern Internet discussion forum should be today , in a world of ubiquitous smartphones, tablets, Facebook, and Twitter.
- Discourse is %100 open source. I have access to all of the code to see under the hood how it actually works. It is this openness that allows a whole community of developers to create plugins for the platform, that are published and Github, and betted by other members of the team.
Once people here that I wanted to self host my blog, they want to know why. Again, for this, there are multiple reasons.
- $$$. The hosted options for all of the major blogging platforms cost way more than I am willing to spend on what is essentially a hobby for me.
Ghost(Pro) - Official managed hosting for Ghost
WordPress.com Pricing and Plans | Start Building Today
Both options cost more than I am paying for a VPS, that I can use for other purposes (VPN server).
Let me know your thoughts on using Discourse for my small blog.