WordPress VS Blogger
Blogger and WordPress are two of the most popular blogging platforms. Blogger and WordPress are often compared to one another and the supporters of each of them try to prove that their beloved blogging platform is the best. While in many aspects this comparison is subjective, for many people WordPress is the more advanced blogging platform.
History and Ownership of Blogger and WordPress
When Blogger and WordPress are compared, it is fair to start with their history. Blogger is much older than WordPress. In fact, Blogger is one of the first blogging services and it was launched in August 1999. Its creator was Pyra Labs and a couple of years later (in 2003) it was acquired by Google, which is its present owner.
Google is a top company but the fact that Google owns Blogger is not necessarily all good news for bloggers because Google can close your account whenever they want to. Well, they don’t have the habit of closing accounts at a whim but if you want to be the real owner of your blog, this possibility should ring a warning bell in your head.
WordPress came much later to the blogging scene – in 2003, but it quickly managed to gain millions of users. WordPress is one of the most popular open source applications and it is the worldwide open source community that powers its development.
Why WordPress is Better than Blogger as a Blogging Platform
There is no doubt that both WordPress and Blogger are popular as blogging platforms and both of them do a good job but if you want a dedicated blog on your own - i.e. a blog with its own domain name rather than a blog, the URL of which is a subdomain, you’d better go with WordPress and look for a webhosting company which offers WordPress hosting. There are many such companies and in the next section we’ll briefly mention three of the top WordPress hosting companies you might want to consider.
It might be easier if you can create a blog hosted on blogger.com or on wordpress.com but having your dedicated site beats it in almost any other aspect. You can install both the Blogger script and WordPress on your site but if you use Blogger as a standalone script, you will soon discover that it lags much behind WordPress.
Nobody says that Blogger is unfit as a blogging platform but when you compare the number of features each of them offers, WordPress is the clear winner. What is more, if you compare vital features, such as plugin/extensions availability, themes, import functionalities, or tracking, WordPress is light years ahead. Yes, there might be a couple of features where Blogger beats WordPress but this is more of an exception than a rule.
Top 3 WordPress Hosting Companies to Consider
There are tons of webhosting companies, which offer WordPress hosting and the choice is not an easy one. Still, as with any other type of webhosting, if you pick an unprofessional webhosting provider, trouble is around the corner. This is why you need to carefully choose your WordPress hosting provider. Here are three companies, which are known for their 1-click WordPress installation and for their reliability as a whole:
- iPage. iPage is an excellent webhosting company and its WordPress hosting is not an exception. Many users are extremely pleased with the WordPress hosting service offered by iPage and this is why we recommend it.
- JustHost. JustHost is also a great webhosting company and its WordPress hosting service is also top-notch. You might want to try JustHost as your WordPress host.
- BlueHost. BlueHost is another webhosting provider we can recommend. BlueHost also offers WordPress hosting and you might want to give it a try.
WordPress hosting isn’t a very special type of hosting but if you are a newbie, the installation of WordPress could be a bit hard for you. To make your life easier, find a good WordPress hosting company and go with them. Alternatively, you can host your blog with WordPress or Blogger but this limits you in many ways.
Read our full WordPress Hosting guide.
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Comments (37)
I definitely agree with your points in regard to the differences of the two systems. If you’re just using a free version I don’t think it matters which choice you make, but if you ever think you might use your own URL then it becomes clear fairly quickly that WP.Org offers the best choices and value for your money.
Yours is the best point by point analysis I’ve seen though!
I prefer WordPress just because of all the great themes they have to choose from for you blog. I have not noticed the same type of great selection from Blogger.
Thanks a lot once again Simon for this great post to compare two most popular blogging platforms.
Personally I always prefer to have my own domain name because I like to have full control of in my hands; another great advantage of having a domain name is you will have an email account on the same domain. Some companies provide limited number of email accounts but many provided unlimited email account bundled with their hosting package.
Word Press provides very flexible platform and new word press Version is just Awesome and filled with Enormous features.
WordPress absolutely rocks, not only because it’s an outstanding blogging platform, but because the user community is so dedicated that they’ve extended WP so that now it’s possible to create a full CMS for nearly any type of site for absolutely no cost.
IMHO the only thing that slightly lets down WP is the occassional dodgy theme that poses a security threat – I had one of my blogs flagged as a security risk by Google because of a free theme I once installed!
I really prefer WordPress over blogger for the fact that WordPress is really flexible. Aside from the blogging features, you can basically use WordPress to create your website.
For me, as a user, it’s just easier to use WordPress blogs as a reader.
Blogger tries to hijack you into using a Google account, and all your comments drive back to that account. It’s all very self serving. Google’s aim here, like it is in almost everything they do, is to increase their own dominance in the market.
I much prefer the WordPress system. My own Gravatar. My own URL. It doesn’t matter if it’s do-follow or not… but when I leave a link, it should be my link, not Google’s.
Personally, I prefer WordPress.
I started off using Blogger and used it for about 9 months or so. I liked it, but I didn’t know of all the options that WordPress offered. Once I discovered all the things you could do with WordPress, I was instantly hooked. You could easily change themes, and put up new posts quicker. I can see many benefits to WordPress, compared to Blogger.
I have Both but I use Blogger more than my WordPress Blog but after reading this article I will start to use my WordPress Blog since I also heard it pings better and get more traffic faster.
I would like more info could some one keep in touch with me
and we can correspond and swamp stories
I think both of them are ok.But for the fact considering the features,i think wordpress tops the blogger.And the advanced version of wordpress is really mind blowing.One other advantage of wordpress over blogger is that the tags which we use in wordpress helps us searching for the other sites for commenting purpose.
Does Blogger allow the keywordluv plugin? I was under the impression that it didn’t, and if that is indeed the case, than it is easy to see why WordPress blogs are more popular for people who are trying to rank their blogs. I have come to the point where I will rarely leave a comment unless keywordluv is available. It communicates that not only does the author know his or her time is valuable, but that my time is valuable as well. that alone places wordpress above blogger in my mind.
I really do not understand how anyone can prefer blogger to word press. There is just no comparison. It is like comparing a tin of tuna to caviar.
WordPress much better than blogger. But now I used Joomla.
Having started with blogger it is easier to use in almost every way, but if you are serious about blogging then WP is the only tool
I recommend Word Press. If you were into serious blogging, however, WordPress would be much more advisable. By upgrading your account and paying a certain amount, you can get total control on various customization of your blog site. Using this you can do lot of business online.
bloggers blogs are much better than wordpress blogs i ever prefers blogger.it is really good for beginners.
Great post and breakdown.
Nothing beats WordPress. There are so many great plugins as well.
Blogger does get pretty good SEO sometime though. I wonder why ??? Might have to ask his big brother GOOGLE. lol
I like wordpress much better compared to blogger. Blogger can’t beat wordpress when it comes to professionalism, flexibility and ease of use. Although I’ve heard blogger is a good option for beginners.
I’m a wordpress fan myself, although I do use blogger too. My money making sites, the ones I build my business around are on self hosted WordPress sites. I use hostgator as my hosting company (surprised it wasn’t in the list). I use blogger to create promotional sites for my main blogs. It’s a great way to provide backlinks and I won’t be too devastated if Google decides that my sites aren’t up to their terms (which they can do if they want to).
Most small business owners I know have switched away for Blogger to a hosted WordPress solution. They do not want one of the main assets of the business dependent on another party, even if this is “Do No Evil” Google. I have been very pleased with over ten WordPress blogs hosted with Hostgator, which basically means they deliver excellent uptime and performance for the money.
I started off with Blogger, then I switched to WP and never looked back. The benefits are just too many to mention. Joomla looks attractive, but right now, northing beats WP. I’m also satisfied with Bluehost.
I think your opinion is kind of personal, because you are a developer and of curse you would like to have your own domain, but many people are just getting started, in fact all they want to do is to operate a simple blog. Not all of the people are professional developers, and not all newbies will become professionals in the future. WordPress is for a different kind of people, who want their own domain, and want to get their hands dirty, and blogger is for simpler tasks, you get it packed up and ready to go. So both platforms are very popular, which means both kinds of people exist equally – the kind that wants things to get dirty, and the kind that prefers to stay out of the mess, there’s no better/worse for everybody, there’s better/worse for YOU.
so I’m new to blogging and have used WP for everything that I have done… I don’t have any experience with Blogger or else I would be able to help compare the two.. from what I understand WP is the industry standard and there is no reason to use anything else
WordPress is vastly superior to blogger in my opinion. The diversity of the plugins available mean that you can do pretty much anything with it that you would ever want to do with a blog.
WordPress seems to have a lot more freedom and options, and blogger seems to be for someone that is new to blogging. I set my sister up with a blogger because she never knew how to blog before, and eventually after a couple of months she wanted some features that you could only get with wordpress so I exported the blogger to wordpress and now she is satisfied!
Goodness, how much better wordpress is then blogger. Dont get me wrong, blogger isnt a complete worthless cms, but wordpress is by far better. There is so much more you can do with wordpress.
For me WP is still better than blogger, I think there are a lot of people that would agree to me because in WP there would be a lot of better plugins that would make your blogging experience easier.
Hi Simon, I prefer WordPress over blogger. I currently have five sites running on WordPress and I love it. It’s easy to use and flexible. You can use WordPress to blog or to create a standard website with pages. Also, a big benefit is all the plugins.
Great post and keep up the good work.
I like wordpress much better compared to blogger. Blogger can’t beat wordpress when it comes to professionalism, flexibility and ease of use. Although I’ve heard blogger is a good option for beginners.
I’m really a big fan of WordPress. Just easier for me to use and seems they offer more themes for your blog. This is just my preference though.
WordPress is so user-friendly, even first time bloggers won’t have such a tough time exploring and getting used to its features. Plus, WordPress plugins are such helpful tools.
everyone that I know who is anything in the blogging world uses wordpress. Interesting that Blogger is older though and WordPress was able to take over the market how they did!
I think blogger is much better for beginners because it makes setting up a new blog very simple.
WordPress has gotten to be so popular, powerful and useful these days. I hardly come across a blogger who isn’t using WordPress anymore.
So i would have to say that WordPress is much better then blogger. You also rank faster on wordpress and i think it is easy to use. I mean there is always a learners curve but not bad.
I love WordPress’ user-friendliness. Any new blogger would not have much of a hard time figuring out its features. As well, the availability of support for WordPress is overwhelming in the blogging community. I think it is a great choice for new bloggers.
I think that Bluehost is the best host among the three that you have mentioned. BlueHost and HostGator are my personal favorites.
Thanks!