Blogging has been very popular nowadays. As of 2008, a new blog was created every second of every minute of every hour of every day. On 16 February 2011, there were over 156 million public blogs in existence. The numbers just keep piling up. As a result, new users are confused with which blogging platform to go with for creating their first blog site. Here we have prepared a review of using two of the most popular blogging platforms: WordPress Vs Blogger. Note that by WordPress Vs Blogger we mean self-hosted WordPress.org platform and Google’s free blogging platform: Blogger.
You may think the title WordPress vs Blogger is absurd. It is ridiculous to compare any blogging platform with tech-giant Google’s blogging platform. That Blogger will win fair and square. But wait! Before you jump to any conclusion, read this article. You may be surprised.
WordPress Vs Blogger: Pros and Cons
WordPress
It is a free and open source Content Management System. More than 27.5% of the top 10 million websites were using WordPress as of February 2017. This should speak for the popularity of WordPress.
Pros
- Your site is completely yours. This is one of the biggest advantages of using WordPress. You own the complete ownership of your website and its contents. Even though your site in hosted in a server that you don’t own right for, what happens in your website is completely up to you. Generally, this idea is enough for most to choose WordPress over Blogger.
- WordPress is versatile. You can use it to build any type of website. You are not limited to blog website and can run even a business website, e-commerce website, membership website, question answer forums etc. Anyone can easily take their blog website to the next level. As a matter of fact, when you build your website with WordPress, the only limitation is in your mind.
- WordPress provides you with thousands of free WordPress themes and plug-ins. As a result, the themes let you can create a unique, elegant, and professional-looking website of your own. Moreover, the plug-ins help you add features to your website: contact form, language translation, backup, image galleries, e-commerce shop, etc.
- WordPress is open-source. Hence, you can study, modify, extend and distribute the source code. A large group of volunteers and WordPress consultants work hard to maintain and enhance WordPress. You get free support from the members of the WordPress community and you can contribute back to the community too.
- WordPress has a large community. WordPress has millions of active users and many developers. It has a support forum that contains queries and solutions. You can search for your query to attain previously answered question. You can also post your questions without any hesitation and you are sure to get an answer. Besides, there are many other websites that provide you with support forum where you can get a solution to your problem.
Cons
- WordPress may take some time to learn and master. This is not because of its complex user interface but due to the extensive features it has. You lose time while picking host provider, and theme. Due to the numerous themes and plug-ins, there is always something new to learn and enhance your website.
- WordPress may be expensive for some. You have to buy a hosting service and domain name. Under those circumstances, you may have to spend some bucks every year to keep your website running. This is a price you’ll have to pay for all that you get in return. As a result, this can be a deal-breaker for some people.
- WordPress is not as secure as Blogger. Google hosts Blogger. Hence, you can imagine the security of Blogger. WordPress is self-hosted. For this reason, you are solely responsible for the security of your website. But with regular backups and plug-ins you can enhance the security of your website.
Blogger
Blogger is a free blog-publishing service developed by Pyra Labs in 1999 and bought by Google in 2003. Google hosts your blogs at a subdomain of blogspot.com. Unlike WordPress, Blogger cannot be installed on a web server.
Pros
- Blogger is simple to use. Simplicity is certainly the best property of blogger. It just focuses on one thing: blogging. It has limited features. Hence, you can easily set up your blog site and manage it.
- Blogger is absolutely free. WordPress is free as well. But you have to pay charges for hosting and domain name registration. On the other hand, Google will register and host your blogspot site for free.
- Blogger is highly secure. You don’t need to be concerned about the security or backups of your blog. Google takes care of everything.
- You can use your blog for monetization straightaway. You need to have a Google’s AdSense account and very good viewer traffic for this. Even if you don’t have an AdSense account, you can easily make one for free.
- You can effectively track the traffic as well as conversion on your website. This is possible by adding Google Analytics on your blog. You also have a few more tools you can choose from.
Cons
- You don’t have the ownership of your site. Google completely owns your blog site. The site you create investing your time and effort will never be yours. Google holds the right to shut down your site or deny you access to your site.
- Your blog site won’t look unique. There are built-in tools to help you change colors and layout of your website. But, you can choose from only limited number of templates. You can’t create your own layout or modify a layout.
- You have limitations in storage. Blogger allows you to only store 1GB of pictures. The page size limit for your site in blogger is just 1MB. This is a very significant drawback if you want to create a professional blog site for monetization.
- Another huge drawback of Blogger is its limited support. It has fewer options for support. You are limited to the basic documentation and user’s forum.
- Blogger is not versatile. You are pretty much bounded to a blog site. It is very hard to run a business site, e-commerce site with Blogger.
In Conclusion
We hope this article about WordPress Vs Blogger helped you understand their pros and cons. WordPress and Blogger have their strengths and weaknesses. Blogger focuses solely in blogging. On the other hand, WordPress is a Content Management System with blogging as its main feature.
The best idea would be to use Blogger if you want to start a simple blogging site for hobby only. If you just want to post simple images and share your stories or use your site for writing purposes only then go with Blogger. This way you won’t have to spend money for your hobby.
You should go with WordPress if you are thinking of making substantial amount of cash with your website. WordPress is also the better option if you want more options of customization of your website.
If you want to power your own website with WordPress then check out our beautiful, simple yet powerful free themes or premium themes. You can read this article to know about the differences between free and premium WordPress themes. This article will help you decide what the better option for you is.
What are your thoughts on WordPress Vs Blogger? Which platform do you use? Feel free to share your thoughts and experiences in the comment section below.