ExpressionEngine vs. Serendipity vs. LifeType

General Features ExpressionEngine Serendipity LifeType
Version
1.6
1.1
1.2.6
Release Date
2004-04-22 (20 years ago)
2006-12-27 (17 years ago)
2008-01-31 (16 years ago)
Last Update here
2020-02-05 (4 years ago)
2020-02-05 (4 years ago)
2020-02-05 (4 years ago)
Author
EllisLab, Inc.
Garvin Hicking, Jannis Hermanns et al
The LifeType Project
URL
Free and Open Source
No
Yes
Yes
License
Proprietary
BSD
GPL
License Cost/ Fee
From 0$ - 249.95$
0
0
Development status
Mature
Mature
Mature
Interface Languages
0
0
0
Multi-User Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Multi-Site Deployment
Yes
Yes
Yes
System Requirements ExpressionEngine Serendipity LifeType
Programming Language
PHP
PHP
PHP
Operating System
Linux, Windows, OS X, BSD, Solaris
Windows, Linux, Mac, Unix, others
Linux, Windows, Solaris, Mac OS X
Webserver
IIS, Apache
Anything with PHP (Apache, Lighttpd, IIS)
Apache, IIS
Root Access
No
No
No
Other Requirements
PHP must have XML support
Database (PostgreSQL, MySQL) or PHP5 (SQLite)
Datastorage ExpressionEngine Serendipity LifeType
Text Files
No
No
No
MySQL
Yes
Yes
Yes
PostgreSQL
No
Yes
No
Oracle
No
No
No
SQLite
No
Yes
No
BerkeleyDB
No
No
No
MS SQL Server
No
No
No
Other
No
New DB layers can be created easily, if the target DB supports ANSI-SQL
Anti-Spam ExpressionEngine Serendipity LifeType
Akismet Support
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Word Blacklist
Yes
Yes
Plugin
IP Ban List
Yes
Yes
Plugin
CAPTCHA
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Other Anti-Spam mechanisms
Email Banning, secure forms, randomized Trackbacks, Bad Behavior extension
URL checks, Author name checks, remote HTML link checks,
BadBehaviour, DNS Blacklists, Built-in Bayesian filter, auto-closing comments for old posts, hidden fields in comment input form
User Access Features ExpressionEngine Serendipity LifeType
ACL
Yes
Yes
Yes
Audit Log
Yes
No
No
LDAP Authentication
No
Plugin
No
Other Authentication
No
The so-called "user data providers" allow LifeType to access user data from other sources transparently, be it an external application or an LDAP or ActiveDirectory directory
Support ExpressionEngine Serendipity LifeType
Commercial Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Online Help
http://expressionengine.com/support/
http://www.s9y.org/33.html
http://wiki.lifetype.net
Issue Tracker
http://expressionengine.com/bug_tracker/
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=542822&group_id=75065&func=browse
http://bugs.lifetype.net
Books
None
None
None
Support Forum
Mailing List
IRC-Channel
Blogging Features ExpressionEngine Serendipity LifeType
Categorization
Multiple
Multiple
Single
Tags
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Archiving
Yes
Yes
Yes
Trackback
Send+Receive
Send+Receive
Send+Receive
Pingback
No
Send+Receive
No
Ping Service Support
Yes
Yes
Optional
Link- / Blogroll
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Protected Posts
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Blog by Email
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Blog by SMS/MMS
Yes
No
Plugin
Blog API
Blogger, MovableType/Metaweblog
MovableType, Blogger
Atom, Blogger XMLRPC, metaWeblog, Movable Type
Post Editing ExpressionEngine Serendipity LifeType
Multi-paged posts
Yes
Yes
No
Spell Checker
Yes
Plugin
No
WYSIWYG Editor
Plugin
Optional
Yes
Undo
Yes
Optional
Yes
Syntax Highlighting
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
File Upload
Yes
Yes
Yes
Asset Management
Yes
Yes
Yes
Emoticon Images
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Comment Features ExpressionEngine Serendipity LifeType
Comment Layout
Flat
Threaded
Threaded
Feeds for Comments
Optional
Yes
Plugin
E-Mail on Followup
Yes
Yes
Yes
Gravatars
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Open-ID Support
None
None
Client
Extended Features ExpressionEngine Serendipity LifeType
Plugin System
Yes
Yes
Yes
Photo Gallery
Yes
Yes
Yes
Polls / Surveys
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Search Engine
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom Pages
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Google Sitemap
Optional
Plugin
Plugin
Workflow ExpressionEngine Serendipity LifeType
Content Approval
Yes
Optional
Plugin
Versioning
Yes
Yes
No
Article Publishing
scheduled
scheduled
scheduled
Comment Moderation Queue
Yes
Yes
Yes
Interoperability ExpressionEngine Serendipity LifeType
Content Import
MovableType, pMachine, RSS, CSV
WordPress, Textpattern, Moveable Type, bblog, ...
Content Export
MySQL
Dump to RSS, Database export
Unicode Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
WebDAV Support
No
No
No
HTML Output
XHTML 1.0 Transitional
XHTML 1.1
XHTML 1.0 Strict
Friendly URLs
Yes
Yes
Yes
Administration ExpressionEngine Serendipity LifeType
E-Mail Notifications
Yes
Yes
Yes
Themes / Skins
Yes
Yes
Yes
Trash
No
No
Yes
Web Statistics
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Web-based Style / Template Management
Yes
Yes
Yes
Comment Administration
Yes
Yes
Yes
Syndication ExpressionEngine Serendipity LifeType
RSS 0.9x
Yes
Yes
Yes
RSS 1.0
Yes
Yes
Yes
RSS 2.0
Yes
Yes
Yes
ATOM 0.3
Yes
Yes
Yes
ATOM 1.0
Yes
Yes
No
Podcasting/Videocasting ExpressionEngine Serendipity LifeType
Podcast Feeds
Yes
Plugin
Yes
ID3-Tag Editor
No
Yes
No
YouTube Support
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Media Converter
No
No
No
Phone2Podcast Support
Yes
Plugin
No
remove ExpressionEngine remove Serendipity remove LifeType