I was about to write a blog post when it hit me. It was like a blinding realization… a moment of pure truth. I hate the WordPress post editor. In fact, I’m not too fond of the entire admin area, but I love wordpress as a whole package. So, why haven’t I researched desktop WordPress clients? And thus, the idea for this post was born.
To my amazement, I found that there were quite a few blog administrator applications for the desktop. For my particular application, though it had to meet a few requirements.
- It has to administer WordPress
- It has to run on windows
I narrowed my pool down to 5 lucky contestants. In order of review, I give you: Desktop WordPress Blogging!
Zoundry
Website: Zoundry.com
Price: Free
Summary: This software is excellent! This is what I had in mind when I set out to find desktop blogging software for wordpress. The usability is excellent. Initially, I expected some type of configuration wizard or walk-through. Instead, what I received was a panel that had the steps with links on how to set up my blog for Zoundry lovin’. I believe it worked better than a walk-through could have, since it taught me the way to set up another blog if I needed it. This app got out of my way and let me do what I set out to do. Zoundry was definitely built by a programmer with excellent usability experience.
Advantages:
- Automatic blog-type discovery (just provide the URL!)
- Easy to set up accounts
- Imports your blog posts
- Getting started tab guides you through blog set up
- HTML validator built into the code view (big plus)
- WYSIWYG features still usable in code view
- Includes a publish menu to finalize your decisions, tags, trackbacks, etc.
Disadvantages:
- Scroll wheel on my mouse crashed the entire app on the publish menu. Luckily, Zoundry has an autosave feature which recovered the post I had started. Nice.
- Interface is a little cluttery
Anconia RocketPost
Website: Anconia.com/rocketpost
Price: Home – $37, pro – $99 (Free trial available)
Summary: Despite being an eye pleaser, the client is somewhat difficult to use. It didn’t come off very natural or intuitive to me, and it made me work to discover some features. Overall not bad, but against this group of amazing applications, it’s going to have to work a bit harder for the kind of money it’s after. Not bad, but not amazing.
Advantages:
- Beautiful interface
- Walk-through on the first install gets you up and running fast, including offering to set up a blog
Disadvantages:
- Import of existing posts failed
- Interface is difficult to use, despite being pretty
- The option to post disappears in code view (why?)
W.Bloggar
Website: WBloggar.com
Price: Free
Summary: W.Bloggar is great… I almost want to stop testing. This tool is extremely good at what it does. It does everything I was looking for, and has no extra useless features. Pinging Technorati (and other ping services) is a nice plus, something Zoundry also did. This one edges out Zoundry with it’s clean and intuitive interface.
Advantages:
- The software seems extremely well put together
- Walk-through on intro
- Clean interface
Disadvantages:
- No auto discovery of service type
BlogJet
Website: CodingRobots.com/BlogJet
Price: $39.95 (Free trial available)
Summary: Works so well it brings a tear to my eye. This is what software should be. The usability is amazing, the interface is attractive and very intuitive. Most importantly, the software works GREAT. I’m buying this. BlogJet is a masterpiece.
Advantages:
- Easiest install of the bunch
- New user walk-through (the best walk-through of the bunch, as well)
- Offers to help sign up for a blog
- Beautiful interface
- Very intuitive
- Great usability… it feels natural. I didn’t have to hunt for anything.
Disadvantages:
- No auto discovery. I thought there would be at first when it asked for just my site address, but that turned out not to be the case
Ecto
Website: Infinite-Sushi.com/Software/Ecto/
Cost: $17.95 (Free trial available)
Summary: This program failed to connect to my blog. I’m not sure if I misconfigured, but the only thing it’s telling me is that my site returned invalid XML. This isn’t very helpful in debugging the issue (Assuming it’s configuration based). None of the other apps had a problem. Unfortunately, I can’t give this software a full review because I was unable to get the product to work.
Advantages:
- Wizard walk-through on first start
Disadvantages:
- Setup is more technical than the others I’ve tested — I need to know a lot about the technical side of my blog. API address, API type, etc.
In summary, my top choice was BlogJet. I love this software. I wish all the applications I’ve purchased were of this calibre. This software category was surprisingly well done. I expected a lot of poorly made applicatons, but found just the opposite. This is a pretty fiercely competitive category. Kudos to all involved.
- Top Choice: BlogJet
- Runner Up: W.Bloggar
- Third: Zoundry
- Fourth: Anconia RocketPost
- Inconclusive: Ecto
*Note: I didn’t feel right giving Ecto “last place”, as I never got the chance to fully test it. For some, that could mean the software is broken. It could be my mistake, though, hence the inconclusive rating.
