I'm looking to set up a blog.
There are many "what's the best blogging engine?" questions on SO, but none totally focused on code quality.
I have done a lot of work with WordPress, and it's the #1 solution for many cases, no question. Its extendability and versatility are unmatched. But the code base is a mess, it has a huge memory footprint and extending it often isn't fun. Also, the back-end feels extremely slow on slightly older machines and becomes bearable only with Google Gears IMO. I'm getting less and less comfortable using it.
For that reason, I am looking for recommendations for a PHP-based blogging engine that is
Simple, slim, and minimalistic in build
Has good, structured, clean code, uses PHP5
Has blogging basics: Tags, Categories, Comments
Doesn't have to look good but needs to output good, semantic HTML / CSS so I can customize
Supports some sort of spam control (Captcha and / or Akismet would be nice)
I don't care whether it's database or file based
Optional:
An API would be nice but is not mandatory
Has a plugin system for extensions
Wet dream:
Not sure exactly how many things it knocks off your list but I think Habari is worth a look.
They host a demo you can mess with if you want to check it out quickly.
I would take a look at Vanilla. Mainly it's a forums script, but it also has blogging features.
I has all the things you mentioned. Except is looks good enough:
Optional: - don't know what you mean by apis - plugins and themes supported
Wet dream should be supported, at least in theory(on my old vanilla forum it worked in a manner I didn't want to, the code was html encoded, so html tags were not supported, including links, however i've seen them working on other forums), if not extensions could solve the problem.
Regarding the spam control and user comments posting you should use 2-3 plugins(Yes plugins are supported and are called Extensions).
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