Mesh of Technology Blog

While looking for a blog engine that I could configure on my own server I looked at a variety of Blog Engines and CMS products built in .NET (which was an important factor to me). Some people have asked me what exactly did I look at so here is the list:

Blog Engines

• Subtext: http://subtextproject.com/
• DasBlog: http://www.dasblog.info/
• Blog Engine.NET: http://www.dotnetblogengine.net/page/features.aspx (my final choice for this blog)

Content Management Systems (CMS)

• Community Server: http://communityserver.com/ by http://telligent.com/
• Graffiti CMS: http://graffiticms.com/  by http://telligent.com/
• DotNetNuke: http://www.dotnetnuke.com/

Licensing

Note though that not all of these products are free, some are only free for non-commercial use so make sure to understand the licensing agreement before using them for your own site.

Self-Hosted Is for the Pros

Of course a self-hosted option is not always the best approach due to its cost, complexity and responsibilities involved (such as maintaining servers and backups). Therefore the popular blogging solutions are encouraged for beginners, here are some that I have tried:

• Windows Live Spaces
• Blogger
• WordPress

Have other suggestions? feel free to post them as replies to this thread.