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balt1794
balt1794

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WordPress vs Django

After a great deal of thought, I have decided to migrate my blog from Wordpress and create a custom blog using Django.

You can check out my new blog here:

Blog

Any feedback?

I posted the entire Django Takeoff!! book/course on the website for free in a series of blog posts. Enjoy !!

These are some of the reasons why I decided to build a custom blog instead of using Wordpress.

WordPress

Pros

  • Cheaper costs since you don't have to worry about databases, serving static files, etc.
  • Allows you to focus on your writing.
  • Well-known platform to start blogging.
  • No programming knowledge needed.
  • Little maintenance required.

Cons

  • There are thousands of plugins but somehow I never got what I wanted from them.
  • Design of the website felt artificial.
  • Limited control over how to do things.
  • Great plugins = Paid plugins

Django Custom Blog

Pros

  • Unlimited control over the website.
  • Custom styling and design.
  • Easy to modify(No more annoying blocks).

Cons

  • More maintenance required.
  • Higher cost (database, static files hosting, etc).
  • Requires programming knowledge.

The above pros and cons are personal, in the end, it really depends what you want to focus on. If you want to focus on writing blog posts consistently, I'd say go for Wordpress.

If you are trying to become a developer or you blog about programming, I'd say create your own custom blog.

My goal in the beginning was to write blog posts so I went for WordPress, however, as I was learning how to program, I started creating my own custom blog.

Also I was writing blogs posts about programming, yet my blog was built using Wordpress.(Nothing wrong with doing this)

Nevertheless, to me it looked as if I was preaching something and then doing something complete opposite. In other words, I wanted to lead by example.

Twitter

Django Takeoff!! Book

Top comments (8)

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corentinbettiol profile image
Corentin Bettiol

Did you use django-cms for the content & djangocms-blog for your blog? Those are two great & powerful modules :)

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balt1794 profile image
balt1794

I didn't use any of those but I've heard about them. I'll check them out. Thanks for the suggestion

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corentinbettiol profile image
Corentin Bettiol

I made a gist that install django + django-cms + djangocms-blog easily (useful for dev stuff & testing things) :)

It will install all the project in a folder named "mydumbproject", that you can remove at anytime :)

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balt1794 profile image
balt1794

Awesome!! I'll check it out

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vijaythapa profile image
Vijay Thapa

The Blog looks nice πŸ‘
But How're you planning to manage Meta Tags and Sitemap (important for Search Engine)?

And Validate your Email Subscription Form.

Best Wishes Brother
πŸ‘

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corentinbettiol profile image
Corentin Bettiol

There's django-meta for meta tags, and the sitemap is already available in Django itself :)

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balt1794 profile image
balt1794

I didn't know that. Thanks for pointing that out!!

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balt1794 profile image
balt1794

I integrated Google Analytics with Django for that. I'm working on validating it as we speak. Thanks though!! I appreciate it