Is Windows Live Writer still the best desktop blogging solution?

Saturday, January 4, 2014 By

Chris Hammond

Is Windows Live Writer still the best desktop blogging solution?

This post is really a test of sorts. If you can read it, that means that Windows Live Writer still works as a desktop blogging platform. It’s been many years since I’ve actively blogged, but so far for 2014 I’m 2 for 2 (3 for 3 if this works). In the days of old, Windows Live Writer (WLW) was a great little tool for blogging, creating and saving your blog on your PC, then easily publishing it out to your website.

This post will prove that Windows Live Writer still works, even with Windows 8.1. Does the blog answer the question though, is WLW the best desktop blogging solution still? It appears that WLW hasn’t been updated in close to two years. So you tell me, do you think WLW is the best solution to blogging from your desktop? Post a comment below.

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Recent Comments

Is there a serious alternative? Last time I did the research there wasn't. It's baffling that MS has abandoned WLW development when there is no better tool to blog with. Why can't they Open Source it? There are several online petitions to the effect, I believe.

Posted By: Peter Donker on Jan 2014

agree with peter, I haven't found any other serious alternatives (kinda surprising). it's a shame MS won't continue to improve it (or at least maintain it - or at least open source it).

Posted By: Phil Wegrzyn on Jan 2014

SmartXBlog is desktop blog editor for both windows and mac , it has WYSIWYG editor, image editor, online news, image and video search, drag and drop option, bookmarks , rss feed available from nearly 100 popular websites and you can even add your own rss, pop up alerts of your comments and you can preview and publish your post directly to your wordpress account .I think it is best available blogging desktop editor for windows and mac. Free trial can be downloaded from http://www.smartxblog.com/

Posted By: Zubaida rasool on Jan 2014

Zubaida, I am not interested in a paid option.

Posted By: Chris Hammond on Jan 2014

I think there's a serious reason why WLW is dead, will stay dead and no big company like google or facebook would develop it. It's the absense of ads in it. a) If you are an industry giant, or a small/medium web admin, why would you want someone to spend time writing a blog, and not monetize this but showing him/her some ads? basically when people are using WLW to push content to your site, they are just content makers, but when they write it on your site, they are consuming your ads and engaging more and more with your site. b) What could happen to WLW is skype ads... Remember when skype was beautiful, simple and ad free ? that's how WLW is still is today, so godforbid Microsoft gets an idea to update it, they'd just start adding ads that'd context target what you're blogging about...

Posted By: Gregory Demotchkine on Feb 2014

It's mid 2016, there are signs of life for Live Writer. Microsoft released the code so that there is an open source version under an MIT license. See http://openlivewriter.org/ or https://github.com/OpenLiveWriter. The current version is 0.6 (2016-06-27). I haven't inspected the code, but the fact that it's available means that I could even change some design decisions that I once discussed with the original developers.

Posted By: Mike Gale on Jun 2016

I am also starting my own blog. I have bought hosting and all, your blog literally helped me in understanding where to start. Will update more here, well done for the effort.

Posted By: Xavier Server on Mar 2020

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