Is there a good blogging platform to use as a framework?

Question

I'm writing a new product, and I've noticed that a lot of the features I want already exist in blogging platforms like wordpress. For example, comments and comment moderation, content editing, etc.

Is there a good blogging system that is easy to use as a foundation for something else? Something with an API, extremely customizable, and hopefully something that works well with Java.

Answer 1

You could try Liferay. It's open-source, written in Java and admittedly is more of a portal/CMS solution than a blogging engine but it does have the features you require.

Depending on what you wish to achieve, it may or may not be overly complex for your needs.

Answer 2

You appear to have hit the boundary between 'framework' and 'cms'. You could go through 3 stages to help make the decision - each at a higher level of abstraction, from coding it all yourself upwards:

1. Can you write all this yourself? If not, choose a framework (in your favourite language).
2. If you find the framework approach too complex or it lacks plug-ins/built-ins for what you need, choose a CMS.
3. If the CMS isn't flexible enough for what you want and you find yourself hacking it too much, or the plug-ins you need are buggy, drop down to the framework level again.

It is a conundrum. One developer I know even added WordPress admin backend to a Django site, because that's what the client already knew. I developed a WordPress site as a CMS, and now I don't want to update WordPress because of all the tweaks I had to make to get it as the client wanted. You could also read the answers on this related post.