Top Blog Writing and Editing Software
One thing all blog platforms have in common is an inbuilt blog editor. From within the editor we can compose and publish our blog posts and while they are functional, most of them are pretty useless when it comes to advanced features.
To counteract the drab of those you have at your disposal a vast range of free or paid blog editors that make writing and publishing posts a breeze, including the insertion and styling of images and videos.
Free blog editors
Qumana is a handy tool since you can use it to insert tags, images, Qumana ads and even videos. You can also write your posts offline and when you connect later to the Internet just hit publish. The application is pretty straight forward and publishing is a breeze. Qumana is available both for Windows and Mac.
Windows Live Writer is my blog editor of choice. It has so many features to make a bloggers life easier that I could dedicate a full blog post just to this application.
As you can see, I made a snap shot of the post I’m writing right now and compared to Qumana the interface is so much more versatile already. Also supports offline post composure and is only available to Windows OS.
Thingamablog is a cross-platform, standalone blogging application that makes authoring and publishing your weblogs almost effortless. Unlike most blogging solutions, Thingamablog does not require a third-party blogging host or a cgi/php enabled web host. It also doesn’t need a MySQL database. In fact, all you need to setup, and manage, a blog with Thingamablog is FTP, SFTP, or network access to a web server.
The application works both on Windows and Mac.
WBloggar has the standard features many popular editors have. But one thing makes this application stand out. They offer a portable solution for bloggers on the move. Their portable solution will make it a breeze to stay mobile by allowing you to unzip it to your pen drive.
To use your current settings and accounts with your portable w.bloggar just use the option “export accounts and settings” from the “File” menu and export the settings.xml file to the Data folder at your portable w.bloggar directory.
I find this a great option for those of you who are often on the road, looking for small low space applications. WBloggar is for Windows only.
This application has some more cool tools like a Windows API that lets you edit posts without being connected to the Internet.
ScribeFire is an addon application for Mozilla Firefox. It allows bloggers to quickly and easily post to their sites while never leaving Firefox.
While browsing sites you can drag and drop formatted text and use them directly from within ScribeFire. A great tool for bloggers who are so dedicated to their browser they never want to leave.
Paid blog editors
Blog Jet is a Windows blog editor that offers similar features as Windows Live Writer. A couple of advanced features are different however, like the Auto Replace. It lets you create a rule to automatically insert links for frequently used keywords.
To be honest, I didn’t see a reason to use a paid editor, when there are so many free o0nes available doing the job just fine.
Rocket Post is a cool tool and I think it is worth the expense. It offers automatic insertion of related posts, tags and instant photo albums at the click of the mouse. There is also a running word count which many of the common blog editors don’t have. Great for writers who get paid per word count.
Rocket Post is only available for Windows and comes in several paid versions suitable for all budgets. There is also a 30 day free version to try before buy.
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Hey Monika, excellent brief rundown of the current crop of external blog editors. I’ve found myself really enjoying Scribefire lately and it gets even better when you plug it into your blog. I love the way I can save notes and when I get online, I can publish the posts directly from within the plugin.
I tried to give Windows Live Write a try but it required the creation of a windows Live account which I didn’t want to bother with.
Missed: BlogDesk: http://www.blogdesk.org/en/index.htm
I did similar research in January, might worth a look: http://www.istudioweb.com/tag/blog-editor/
The only update that I know of is Zondry Raven that have improved so drastically I am currently using it for all my blogs.
Great roundup, Monika. I have used Scribefire in the past and now use Windows Live Writer. However, I’ve just read that Wordpress is disabling XML-RPC in the next version, which may pose problems for these tools.
My personal editor of preference is Ecto. Was Mac only, but now there is a Windows version as well. I only have experience with the Mac version. It is not free software, but there is a demo available.
Thank you for this list. I only use ScribeFire, since it’s the only blog editor that I’ve found to work on Ubuntu as well as Windows and Mac. I also don’t see the point in paying for a blog editor since neither of the paid editors do anything different from the free ones, and since they also aren’t cross-platform.
I have used Qumana for a while and by far i’m impressed.
I love scribefire, but it does not work on my Asus Eeepc because the screen is not wide enough.
Too bad there are no other Linux alternatives as far as I know of.
Lest we become too alarmed… That’s “disabled by default”, not to be confused with “gone forever!”
If you have a need, just turn it back on.
I have used both Windows Live Writer & Blogdesk (on Windows) and MarsEdit on the Mac. I find MarsEdit to be the best in terms of interface.
@ Jeffro2pt0: Thanks for giving us your feedback on Scribefire. It sounds like it has come a long way since they first released this tool last year I believe.
@ caschy: I appreciate your input. I know there are several more to be considered but I wanted to keep the list manageable.
Anyway, BlogDesk looks worth checking out for sure.
@ Sharon: Thanks for the heads up on the future WordPress release. You had me worried there for a minute until I read Chris’s comment.
Good to know for sure.
@ Chris K: I’m glad you rectified this since I was worried there for a moment.
@ Michael: I also want to move to Mac one day, I will keep Ecto in my mind when I do this. Thank you for the mention.
@ Nina @ Robin @ Willem @ bhatnaturally: Thank you all for your very valuable input. I love it when users give feedback on their favourite applications. It helps others to make up their own mind.
I have been using Scribefire and Blogjet. I tried few FREE blogging editors but was unsatisfied.
For a FREE addon on mozilla Scribefire is undoubtedly the best. In fact I highly recommend it. This addon updates quite frequently keeping up with recent changes (much props to their team).
As far as blogjet is concerned, I like its clean look
Question, with Windows Live Editor…let’s say you make a post, are the features there for the seo tags? Or do I have to login to WP and edit them there?