To make an informed choice about which blogging software to go with, you need to have a good understanding of what your requirements are and what the different providers offer. A good place to start is with the Getting Started with Blogging Software guide published last month by Idealware, a US not-for-profit organisation that provides software reviews and information for other organisations in the not-for-profit sector. (Registration is required to download the document and a small fee is requested but not compulsory).

The guide reviews seven commonly-used blogging platforms: Blogger, TypePad, LiveJournal, Movable Type, Expression Engine, Text Pattern, and WordPress. Although the report is aimed at the not-for-profit sector, the overview of blog features and advice on how to choose blog software included in the guide will be useful to a much wider audience. The report provides both a summary and more in-depth review of each of the blog platforms examined, plus a handy table that compares the features offered by the different tools.