Serendipity vs WordPress, day 1

All my other blogs were running the blog software Serendipity when I shifted to WordPress for Drawing on the Web uses.

Both Serendipity and WordPress are free for use.

WordPress is released under the GPL. Serendipity has its own custom license, which also allows free use and redistribution.

As I started configuring and posting to Drawing on the Web, I immediately noticed the some differences between Serendipity and WordPress.

Themes

Serendipity is distributed with about 20 different themes (layouts), while more are easily downloaded and added from within Serendipity. WordPress, on the other hand, is distributed with only two themes.

With WordPress, you download themes via your browser, unzip the files, move them into the WordPress themes folder and then upload them to the web site.

Advantage: Serendipity

Interface

WordPress has a much smoother, more powerful interface than Serendipity. WordPress makes it easier to do the things it can do.

Advantage: WordPress.

Capabilities

Serendipity has a lot more functions built into it.

With WordPress, I’m still searching for plug-ins by visiting web sites and blogs — and don’t know if they exist or not.

Advantage: Serendipity

Distribution

WordPress is far more widely used. Many more people are developing plug-ins for WordPress and there are many more sites to use as examples.

Advantage: WordPress

Search Engine Optimization

WordPress uses a SEO-poor URL stucture for individual blog entries, for example, http://www.drawingontheweb.com/?p=5 . Fortunately, although this is the default, it can easily be changed to one using the date and entry title as keys in the Permalink.
Serendipity uses Search Engine-friendly URLs like http://blog.terryscomputertips.com/index.php?/archives/334-My-new-PC-security-blog.html that include the title of the blog entry.

Advantage: Serendipity

Customization capabililies

If you can do HTML and CSS, modifying WordPress’ web pages is easy. Serendipity is more of a challenge, as it has been structured in a more obfusticated manner.

WordPress uses .php files. Serendipity uses .php files for programming and .tpl template files for all display functions. Unfortunately, .tpl pages can not include PHP scripting, just static HTML code.

However, Serendipity has a plug-in for SMARTY markup in templates, which will allow calls from the .tpl pages or from blog entries to PHP scripts in a special template file.

The Final Answer (2007):

Advantage, ease of use: WordPress
Advantage, power: Serendipity

Update to 2010:
I haven’t used Serendipity on any of my sites since 2007. I quickly switched over to WordPress and never looked back. Now, I’ve started using the Genesis Theme Framework from StudioPress. It’s made site configuration and design much, much easier.