b2evolution is probably the most comprehensive blog engine you can find! It includes almost any feature you could expect from a blog tool, and more! Check out the features, not to mention third party plug-ins! Plus, it's free (instant download), it's open-source (GPL), it runs virtually anywhere (PHP/mySQL) and it's available in many languages!

1. For blogging newbies

You type something in a form and hit "post this"; in the next second it's on your website.

Your posts are automatically arranged by date and category into a skin/theme that you can chose (and customize if you wish to do so).

Readers of your website can then leave comments which will appear below your post. They can also browse through the archives and use advanced search capabilities.

Unlike online blog tools like blogger.com, b2evolution runs on your very own domain and website. You can install it as an extension to a website you already own.

Or, if you don't have your own website yet, you may get one from a webhosting company. Webhosts in our selection will allow you to easily choose your own domain name, set up your website and automatically install b2evolution so that you can start blogging on your own site in a matter of minutes. They will also offer phone support if needed, most often 24x7!

2. For average bloggers

b2evolution is an advanced weblog tool, i-e software allowing you to run your own blogs, newsfeeds or even photo strea.

It does basically the same thing blogger or typepad does, but with two main differences:

• It's free as free can be! (GNU General Public License)
• It runs on your own domain/website. That means you need a host which can run web applications written in PHP. See requirements. You can also find such hosts for free. However for best performance we recommend a few cheap web hosting solutions as well as quality web hosting solutions.

All the features you can expect are included:

• Advanced browsing (paged, calendar, categories, search...)
• Extended & multipaged posts
• Image/file upload & management
• Multiple and sub-categorie
• Draft and quick publishing
• RSS & Atom feeds
• Automatic pinging of blog directories
• Skins / Themes
• Plugins
• (more below...)

As you will find out, b2evolution goes beyond most other blog tools. Check out the features! b2evolution is the tool for bloggers who want more!

3. For advanced bloggers

You could compare b2evolution to Movable Type, except b2evo runs on the very common PHP/mySQL platform, which allows it to run easily on almost any web hosting service!

b2evolution also generates web pages dynamically from the MySQL database, so no clumsy 'rebuilding' is involved. It also means faster search/display capabilities, and the ability to serve your posts/news in different 'templates' or 'skins' without any hassle.

b2evo is probably the most comprehensive blog engine you could find, with an unique set of features including:

• Simple installation
• Multiple blog support
• Multiple user support
• Multiple skin support
• Localized in many languages
• Multilingual blogging
• Web standards compliance with integrated XHTML checker
• Clean search engine friendly permalinks
• Advanced user permission management
• Private/protected posts
• Open/closed/disabled comments
• Trackback & feedback
• Integrated hitlogs and stats
• Robust antispam features (referrer & comments)
• Plug-in architecture
• Advanced rendering plug-ins (Textile, Auto-P, BBcode... )

Check out the full features page »

4. For IT professionals

b2evolution is a medium scale CMS centered around the Blog concept, fully featured with multiple blogs, content/presentation separation, full user management, full internationalization (i18n), workflow management... and extending towards features normally provided by Wikis, Trackers or hierarchy driven CMSes.

• First release: 2001 (original Cafelog/b2), early 2003 (b2evolution)
• Platform: LAMP recommended. Minimum PHP+mySQL. See requirements.
• License: GNU GPL.
• Status: stable & production grade. Please check the downloads page for individual release status.