Back in March, ChurchMag switched-out the related post plugin. We disabled nRelate and opted to use Jetpack’s built-in related posts module for multiple reasons, and now that we’ve been cruising with the new design and have given Jetpack Related Posts a fair shake, I think it’s time for Round Two (you can read Round One here).
The dust has settled and all the punches have landed. I think the score has been settled after just two rounds.
So which is better?
nRelate vs Jetpack Related Posts — FIGHT!
Round Two
If you want to simply stack-up the options between nRelate and Jetpack Related Posts, there’s hardly a comparison. nRelate certainly has more girth. But having loads of options begins to look more like bloat after a while.
With nRelate, you can choose between a lot of different display options, including putting together your own CSS style. I usually just tried to tweak it to match ChurchMag, but what I really liked, was your ability to choose how many posts you wanted it to display. While Jetpack only showed three out-of-the-box, I missed being able to display five. That was a well landed punch by nRelate, but it turns out that Jetpack has a special move of its own in this area.
While nRelate keeps all of its modifications in the WordPress plugin Admin, Jetpack has a number of options that can be leveraged via your functions.php file. In fact, since this battle began, a few more modifications have been added! So, with a few lines of code dropped into your WordPress theme’s functions.php and you can change the number of posts it displays. The funny thing, however, when I began to break-out ChurchMag 2.0, I preferred only displaying three posts anyway.
So this ended up being a mute point, but what about the next before the posts? I didn’t like the generic “Related posts” text provided by Jetpack. Sure, I could figure out the styling with modifying the CSS, but that was lame language! What if I wanted to have fun with it? With nRelate, it was easy to change in the plugin Admin.
Again, nRelate can’t take Jetpack down to the mat with this feature either. But, as Automattic Happiness Engineer Brandon Kraft teased us in the comments in Round One, this could be modified via the functions.php theme file. In fact, there have been several more options added since Round One (you can see all the customizations available here).
Jetpack Related Posts Wins
The only chance nRelate would have had to beat Jetpack Related Posts would it have been able to display a better set of related posts. All the options I want can be accessed using my functions.php which is something I am more than comfortable to do. Moreover, the idea of killing another plugin and using something that’s built into a plugin I am already using is really awesome. I’ve been watching what posts Jetpack Related Posts pulls up in comparison to which posts nRelate was displaying, and I am very pleased. I don’t have any data to prove that it does a better job, but I’ve liked what I’ve seen.
In the beginning I was really hesitant to make the switch, but I am glad I did. It’s winning in every category that’s important to me.
Jetpack wins.
What do you think about my conclusion? Do you have any questions?
Stéfan says
I used nRelate for quite some time before deciding to switch to Jetpack.
What I liked a lot with nRelate was the ease to change styling for the related posts. With Jetpack, you have to dig into CSS and php files, I’m not comfortable at all with all this.
I can’t even figure out how to change the styling of the main title of the related posts section! (default styling really sucks…)
Still, I’m sticking to Jetpack, because it’s integrated into WordPress without any doubt, and I find the results generally as reliable as what I got with nRelate.
Eric Dye says
Agreed. nRelate is easier to style. It sounds like we should look at writing up a few styling tips for Jetpack Related Posts. (Love your URL BTW. GeekDad FTW!) 😀
Tyler Longren says
Do you know if there is a way to change the location of the Jetpack Related Posts in a custom theme? Or is it just part of the content?
Wait…I just found this:
http://jetpack.me/support/related-posts/customize-related-posts/
Haven’t gone through source to find other actions and filters, though. Any chance you know which would apply to this scenario, just off the top of your head? If not, I can dig more into it tomorrow and share my findings back here.
:)
Jerome Kalafat says
I was still wondering which one I should choose ..
I’ve tried to use some times ago nRelate and It was quite simple to understand for beginners.
But as you said, when you know a bit more about php and CSS, it’s way better than what offers nRelate for now.
I’ve read some others articles about JetPack features and I’ll probably try this one for a bit !
Thanks for your article !
Eric Dye says
Awesome! 😀
Mark McIntyre says
Thanks for the reminder about Jetpack related posts. I had been comparing nRelate and Shareaholic related posts and was not happy with either one. I had forgotten that Jetpack had this capability also, so tI turned it on and it seems to provide good recommendations.
The problem I had with Shareaholic is that it recommended the same posts over and over with little variety, even after reindexing several times. nRelate was a little better but still repetitious. So, we’ll see how Jetpack does . . .
Eric Dye says
We’ve been using it for quite a while, now, and have been really happy with it. 🙂