This is a Guest Post by Sarah Payne. Sarah blogs at Template Faerie, a blog that aims to create a beautiful blog for you by providing high quality templates. She writes about blogging tips, blog promotion, blogging platforms and designs. Say hi to her on Twitter.
Everyone wanting to create a blog is faced with the difficult decision of choosing a blogging platform. "Which blogging platform is best?" is a common question asked in blogging forums, and it usually leads to an endless debate among members, leaving the questioner unsure about what to do. Deciding on the right platform and sticking to it is important because you're probably not going to want to go to the trouble of moving your blog to a different platform if you change your mind.
Is one platform better than another?
Despite what you may hear from other bloggers, and despite popular belief, Wordpress isn't better than Blogger and Blogger isn't better than Wordpress. When you ask the question, "which blogging platform is best?", all the answers you get are biased and useless. What somebody else says shouldn't effect your final decision, because people can only give their opinions. Each blogging platform has different features, and what a blogger needs in a platform varies. The question you should be asking yourself is, "which platform is best for me?"
Instead of taking a side in this article, I'm going to compare the features of Blogger and Wordpress to give you an idea of what each platform provides, and hopefully, help you to make your decision and be happy with it.
BLOGGER
Blogger is a free Google service, and so, as you would expect, it attracts people who don't want to spend money on a blog. It's intended to be easy for beginners, while not being too limiting for advanced bloggers.
Pros
- No fees whatsoever.
- Use the Template Designer to edit the layout, fonts, and colors of your blog without knowing any HTML or CSS.
- Use the HTML editor for advanced customization.
- Add a variety of gadgets and arrange them in a drag-and-drop interface.
- Blogger will never display ads on your blog.
- You can monetize your blog.
- Integrates well with other Google services, such as Friend Connect and Feedburner.
Cons
- Not very many templates to choose from.
- Lousy commenting system (although that can be fixed by switching to IntenseDebate or Disqus).
- You can create a maximum of only 10 static pages.
WORDPRESS
The thing to keep in mind when considering Wordpress is that there are actually two versions: Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org. They are very different from each other, and from Blogger too, and so I'm going to give you a brief overview of each to discuss the differences.
Wordpress.com
Wordpress.com is designed for people who want to create a blog quickly and easily, without having to worry about the hassle of hosting and customization.
Pros
- Easier to use than Wordpress.org, especially for the beginning blogger.
- Free web hosting.
- Choose from over 100 themes.
- More control over blog authors' capabilities than Blogger.
- Choose from a variety of widgets to add to your blog.
- The Wordpress software is automatically updated when a new version is released.
Cons
- To use a custom domain name, you'll need to pay yearly for an upgrade, in addition to the cost of the domain name.
- You can't upload your own theme.
- You can't customize your blog's PHP source code, but you can purchase an upgrade that enables CSS editing.
- You can't install plugins.
- Google text ads may occasionally be displayed on your blog.
- It's against the terms of service to monetize your blog (though it's allowed in some cases—read more here).
- No JavaScript allowed.
Wordpress.org
Wordpress.org is best for tech-savvy people, who want complete control over their blog, and who are willing to pay for web hosting. It attracts a lot of people who want to create a website or blog for their business, but it also works great for hobbyists.
Pros
- It's free, open-source software.
- You can choose from a wide variety of themes, or upload your own.
- You have full control over the look of your blog.
- Wordpress.org will never display ads on your blog.
- You can monetize your blog.
- Choose from a variety of widgets to add to your blog.
- More control over blog authors' capabilities than Blogger.
- You can install plugins for extra features.
- You can't just create blogs, but websites too.
Cons
- You have to pay monthly for a web host.
- You have to upgrade your software manually when a new version is released.
- You'll need to keep your own backups.
MY ADVICE
By determining which features in a blogging platform are most important to you, you can choose the platform that's best for you. For example, if you're looking to spend little to no money on a blog, you should definitely go with Blogger or Wordpress.com. If you want advanced customization features—without paying for an upgrade, that is—Blogger and Wordpress.org are your best bet. But, if you want to design your blog without touching any code, Blogger is your only choice.
If you're trying to decide between Blogger and Wordpress.com, I suggest you go with Blogger, because although Wordpress.com has a larger variety of themes, you're limited to those themes. With Blogger, there are hundreds of third-party templates you can download and upload to your blog for free. Or you can customize a default one with the Template Designer. Just compare the two platforms—your blog's template is only one of the things that Blogger gives you more freedom to customize.
CONCLUSION
Hopefully you can now see the main differences between Blogger and Wordpress, and you can choose your platform and start blogging. Blogging can be an enjoyable experience, but it will only be a pain if you choose the wrong platform. So, save yourself the trouble and choose the right one for you!
To read more insightful articles from our wonderful guest authors, you can subscribe to our RSS feed. You can also choose to receive updates via email.
Do join us on Facebook as well:
To read more insightful articles from our wonderful guest authors, you can subscribe to our RSS feed. You can also choose to receive updates via email.
Do join us on Facebook as well:
Excellent guest post Sarah ! Very informative, I have chosen wordpress self host as i have one year experience with blogging and its good for advanced users.
Hi Naser, thanks for your comment! I actually have never used self-hosted Wordpress, but I've heard a lot about it, and people say it's great when you want a lot of control over your blog. I use Blogger though. It's great for what I'm doing. :)
The post at "http://martik-scorp.blogspot.com/2011/06/blogger-vs-wordpress-comparison-chart.html" looks like it got its research from this post.
Thanks for sharing this link with us. Seems like the author "forgot" to mention the source of his "research". Its fixed now...thanks to you. :)
good post......
i would suggest blogger.com then anything
by,
kowsik,
http://mobile-galaxy-blog.blogspot.com/
thank u very much..
its very helpful
Blogger wins here because of its flexibility with HTML/CSS.
Thanks Sarah - that was an excellent insight into the Blog Platforms. Being a complete newbie with no knowledge of coding sounds like Blogger.com is a good place to start.
cheers,
Lee
good post......
i would suggest blogger.com then anything
by,
kowsik,
http://mobile-galaxy-blog.blogspot.com/
Thanks, Lee! Blogger is my favorite, so of course I think it's a great choice for you. It is indeed an excellent tool for creating a unique blog design, but unfortunately, not many people take advantage of its powerful features.
Thanks for posting on this topic Sarah. I started out with a free blogger site, but found wordpress.org much more appealing. Since I already have my own website, it was easy (and no additional cost) to self host my new blog. I'm a huge fan of wordpress, the effortless plugins, the thousands of templates and the one button content migration from blogger to wordpress.
Thanks for putting this comparison together. On the comment about comment spam, I get more spam coming through a Wordpress blog I look after that has less hits than my Blogger blog.
Hi, Marc. Thanks for your comment! I hear a lot about the WP plugins these days, and honestly, I'm jealous, because they add so many cool features. But I think Blogger's ease-of-use and the feature to edit HTML (I know nothing of PHP!) makes up for it.
Excellent post Sarah! Nice to get useful information at early stage of my blogging....
Really good post - thoughtfully written. I have used blogger for a long time, and based what you put here, I'll stick with it on my new blog.
Do you have Akismet installed? This shouled catch most of your spam on wordpress
Wordpress is best and blogger is not
i have been searching for a good comparison for a while now, having been on blogger for a year, its seem its not giving a very prof look. so im thinking of moving to wp, this has helped
Question? Can i start with blogger and then transfer my blog to a paid hosting server?
Yes, blogger lets your export your entire blog to another host very easily. You can do so from 'settings' option from your blogger dashboard.
I've got a fashion website I've been building since 2009 on an iweb template that came with my mac. I was ready to take it from a hobby site to a monitized site, and found out today that iweb is being discontinued June 2012! I'm in a state of shock, and now need to find a platform fairly quick that has similar feel and features as iweb. Features I need include blogging, space for lots of photos and video, the capability of grouping into categories (such as wordpress allows). The platform needs to allow monitizing/sponsors, and preferably be able to transfer directly from iweb to the new platform. Any ideas on which platforms are compatible with iweb?
Just beware if you use blogger - they run their spam robot removers and get a lot of false positive blogs caught in it. They delete a lot of normal blogs that have nothing to do with spam. They say they will fix it but they don't. Every month hundreds of people wait for months to have their blogs added and it doesn't happen.
blogspot or wordpress the same, which is important how we take care of
http://perangsangwanita.us/
I love you for this article and in my opinion anyway, how can we take care of the website that we manage it that much good, if wordpres or blogger so the same if we are not able to take care of and maintain as possible, the same bullshit ya not boss ?? regards http://pusatobatbius.blogspot.com/