Reviewing Mars Edit: WordPress blogging solution
Have you ever had a centralized location for all your blogging needs? If you are like me, you are running anywhere from three up to 10 blogs at the same time.
For an awful lot of time, I was tempted by Mars Edit, 40$ Mac blogging application, and I was never a true believer that it could deliver that amount of value as a standalone desktop application. But I was wrong.
Mars Edit, in my opinion, is worth exactly as much as you’ve paid for it. Not more not less. How did Daniel manage to get the price/value ratio so well is beyond my comprehension. But for someone who is updating multiple blogs on the various different platforms (Tumblr and WordPress) this tool is a life saver, and a must-have.
Grading Factors
Now let me guide you through the common features I regularly evaluate when reviewing apps, shall we?
Functionality 4.5/5
As you know I am a huge Markdown fan, and lack of Markdown support for WordPress left me with a tiny bit of a friction. Of course, I still use Markdown, but I have to pull it through Byword or some other text to Markdown converter. If the app had native Markdown syntax support, I’d be fully happy. Perhaps I am wrong, and there is markdown support, but the deal is I couldn’t find it easily.
As a keyboard shortcuts jockey, I am particularly happy that every part of the interface is customizable through a keyboard.
Design 5/5
Native OS X design, you will feel like you’re using the Mac app. User experience is superb, there is no arguing about it. If you love the Apple stock design, you will love this app as well.
Optimization 5/5
Didn’t encounter any memory leaks while using the app. The app seems lightweight and non-intrusive on your hardware resources.
Bugginess 5/5
No bugs found what so ever during the regular usage.
Integrations 3.5/5
There is still some space for integrations. Once you finish blogging the natural next step is a promotion. Basic promotion features of publishing your articles to locations like Facebook and Twitter would be neat, App.net would also be welcome. Or a possible form of social media publishing automation. There is a Flickr integration, that made me particularly happy with it, as lately I’ve been using it lately quite often.
Now I have to add a drawback, that might be important to some people. As I was scouring to the comments in the review area, I’ve encountered some problems that people have with images. My blog doesn’t deal heavily with images, hence I didn’t encounter this, but in instances when I did use the images, they were working as intended. Perhaps, because of my Flickr integration.
Does it justify the price? 4/5
For 45$ as much as this app costs, many will wonder, is it worth it? And I can only say honestly, it’s worth it if you’re going pro as a blogger. There are different levels of interests and those that have high ambitions and desires to succeed in blogging, will want to have first-class blogging software, that will remove all publishing friction for them.
Mars Edit is that kind of software. It’s like a Porsche of blogging tools. But if you are a blogging amateur, and this is only your hobby, you might want to consider checking a free trial, and make sure that the app is the right fit for you! If you are running one blog casually, and you don’t publish on daily basis, you might not extract the full value of this tool, and feel ripped off. I recommend that you accept this application as a niche product that solves a very specific problem for digital writers: publishing.
Overall 4.5/5
Mars Edit finally managed to replace my WordPress dashboard as my default way of posting. I’ll be honest with you, I was very skeptic about this app. Wasn’t sure it would deliver what I wanted, but eventually, it did. It certainly took some getting used to, as I am very picky about my publishing and the result that the user gets. But Mars Edit hasn’t failed me so far. And it helped me with merging all my blogs in a centralized location. If blogging is earning your bread, or you intend to write and publish a lot, you won’t make a mistake of putting a bet on this app.
