Whenever someone thinks about blogging he finds out plenty of options to start with like WordPress, Blogger, Tumbler, Joomla etc. But at last, the most important question remains, is WordPress or Blogger which one is best to start a blog.

Blogger and WordPress are the most popular blogging platforms on the web, hence it becomes pretty confusing to find out the best among them. Many of the users like Blogger because it needs less technical knowledge and hassles, and many others love WordPress because they find more feature and power in it.

Also read: Top Indian Bloggers and Their Monthly Income

As an experienced blogger and WordPress developer, I will always prefer going with WordPress. Yes, you are still free to choose Bloggers for learning and just for a start, but I’ll suggest that you don’t stick to it particularly. Many people also recommended that one should start with wordpress.com for the little time and learn its technology and then move on to a new blog on self-hosted WordPress which give you more control.

Before we start a comparison between Blogger and WordPress.com and WordPress.org, keep in mind that Blogger and BlogSpot are the same platform, but WordPress.com and WordPress.org (Self-hosted WordPress) are the different ones.

Blogger

Blogger, which is also known as BlogSpot is a blogging platform by industry leader Google, it can be the best platform for you if you just want to share your thoughts and you don’t have intentions related to generating income from blogging. It is obvious if you are not blogging for money, then blogger like platform can be more helpful to you because it requires less technical knowledge. It is as easy as using and managing your Facebook account as you are already doing.

Pros of Blogger Platform

• Blogger or BlogSpot has totally free of cost forever and with no advertisements.
• Blogger is the easiest platform to work with as a beginner, you can setup your blog in less than 10 minutes.
• Blogger is a platform provided by Google and runs on Google servers so you don’t have to submit your content manually to search engine for indexing. Your post will be automatically indexed by Google.
• The Blogger is an easy platform to work with, you can manage it the same way you manage your social account, i.e. no technical knowledge needed.
• You don’t have to worry about the backup of your blog posts as they are frequently backed up automatically by Google.
• Security is not a major concern for the blogger as it is also taken care by Google itself.
• You can use your custom domain with your blogger account for FREE!!
• Your blog can be monetized by some platforms like AdSense and Amazon. Adsense comes integrated with your blogger account.
• You can change your blog’s appearance with custom scripts and blog templates. You can upload your own free template or buy a more advanced one.
• Blogger is hosted on the Google cloud so you don’t have to worry about speed and storage problems, it’s fast & unlimited!!

Cons of Blogger Platfrom

• You cannot get FTP access to your account.
• There are no add-ons or plugins available to upgrade your blog.
• Technically, you cannot own your blog. If Google feels like you are violating their terms and conditions your account may suspend permanently.
• Defaults themes are not so good and whatever you do, your blog will look like the other blogs on blogger platform.
• The post permalink structure is predefined by blogger and you cannot alter them.
• Blogger lacks SEO optimization. Even it is Google’s product but you have limited control over SEO.

WordPress

When it comes to WordPress there are two choices for it, WordPress.com and WordPress.org with their own advantages and disadvantages. WordPress is a most popular CMS (content management system) and it is used by the majority of bloggers. 10% of those bloggers who use a CMS for their blog, uses WordPress as their platform.

Must Read: A Must Have Tool for Bloggers the DarkRoom Writing Software

WordPress.com is a basic WordPress platform which offers a free version of WordPress with limited features and paid version with some boosted premium features. It is hosted by Automatic (the company who made WordPress). In this version of WordPress, you don’t need to worry about security, upgrades. speed and storage.

WordPress.org is an open source blogging script based on PHP Language, which can be downloaded and be hosted on any server of your choice. Once you downloaded it you owned it now you have to manage it yourself that is why you might need some technical knowledge too. But with the complexity, it also provides you will complete control over the features, Search Engine Optimization, security and upgrades.

Now, we will go through the Advantage and Disadvantage of WordPress.com VS WordPresss.org in detail.

WordPress.com (Free)

WordPress.com is good for every beginner who want to learn to blog. It is simply because in this WordPress version you don’t need to download any software, plugin or themes, and yes you don’t need to know any coding also.

It also has a very user-friendly interface, a newbie will not take a lot of time to understand its interface and start posting. The best part of this platform is that you can upgrade anytime you want to use premium features. The premium features include using a premium theme, use your own custom domain etc.

Also read: Top 10 Essential Tips For Long Term Blogging Career

Later, if you decide that you want to more scalability and advance control over your blog or website then you can also move to a self hosted WordPress. And then I believe that you will be comfortable with the platform because both platforms share same interface and settings.

Pros of WordPress.com

• As the blogger, it is also a free forever platform.
• It also doesn’t need to upgrade manually and any concern about security and spam control. They all are controlled by its company Automattic.
• Backups are done easily itself and you don’t have to worry about them.
• On this platform, you also have not to submit your content manually to Google search as they all be automatically indexed by Google.
• There will be an option available to you to upgrade for premium features like custom Domains.
• You can automatically share your blog posts to all your media channels.
• You can opt for a premium theme for look and styling of your blog.
• You can monetize your blog with their ad network WordAds to generate money from your blog, but from that you have to buy a custom domain name.

Cons of WordPress.com

• There will be ads for non-logged visitors to your blog and to remove that you have to upgrade your account with “No ads Upgrade” for $30 per year.
• You will not have FTP access here also.
• You cannot install third party WordPress plugins. This is the biggest disadvantage of this type of WordPress. Because WordPress is known for plugins. With those plugins, you can transform your blog like anything you can think of.
• No custom codes or scripts can be installed.
• You will not able to use third party analytics services like Google Analytics.
• Even if you already own a domain, then also you have to pay an annual fee for domain mapping which is free at Blogger.
• The footer of your blog will always show “Powered by WordPress”.
• You cannot apply your own custom ads for monetizing your blog.
• You will get a limited disk space – 3GB and if you need to have more content on your blog you have to purchase upgrades.
• After buying, a few upgrades you will realize that cost of wordpress.com gets much higher than self-hosted WordPress blog.

WordPress.Org (Self-Hosted)

WordPress.org is an open source software and can be downloaded for free and can be easily installed on any web hosting. It is highly flexible and you can transform it the way you want to. You can create an eCommerce shop, single page website, personal blog, forum, community almost anything you can think of, due to these reasons majorities of top blogs are now using WordPress.org.

To have WordPress.org you must have a domain name and a web hosting account. From your hosting control panel, you can install WordPress on your server in less than 10 minutes. Most of the hosting companies now offer one-click installation of WordPress.

I suggest Hostgator web hosting as it is very economic & ergonomic for all kinds of requirements or you can also see my list of top 5 WordPress web hosting providers article. Once you have the domain hosting ready you can install WordPress from the control panel in one-click.

Must Read: Things You Must Do After Installing WordPress: For Beginners

There are many things which require technical knowledge, at least a little! Because you have to manage domain names, FTP, Hosting, backups, Security, and spam control yourself. That’s not a major problem because there are plenty of tutorial articles and videos on YouTube which can help you.

And if you need more help, you can always hire a Good WordPress developer like Me :)

Pros of Self-Hosted WordPress

• You have the complete control of your blog and you are responsible for its content.
• You can control and change post link structure.
• You can monetize your blog the way you want to there is no limitation for this one.
• You have the control over each and every aspect of your blog.
• You can add custom scripts and codes to your blog.
• You can install any 3^rd Party WordPress plugins and themes of your choice to transform your site like hell.
• You will get access to thousands of free and premium WordPress themes.
• You can install any analytics on your blog like, Google Analytics.
• The best part is that you will be getting a huge SEO advantage compared to free hosted blogs like blogger and wordpress.com. You can control all the SEO configurations of your site, customize it, A-B test it to get the most from search engines.
• You can get support from various forums and sites which are made exclusively to help WordPress blog owners. There are tons of videos which can help you out in each of your problems and technical assistance.
• You can get support from hosting company in backup and maintenance and you will have FTP control over your site, to overcome any issue that broke your site.
• You can transform your blog into an E-commerce website or social site easily.

Cons of Self-Hosted WordPress

• You must have a domain name and a hosting account to start a blog with self hosted wordpress.org. Both domain and hosting can cost you a large sum yearly.
• You have to learn a lot of technical things for maintaining your blog.
• Setup a blog can take 5 minutes with wordpress.org but maintaining it is not that easy. It requires some basic knowledge of programming like PHP, HTML, CSS, and SQL etc.
• You will definitely get some technical problems with your blog, but yes, there is an official forum of WordPress.org that can help you a lot.
• For any misconfiguration of security and maintenance directly you will be the responsible person. You have to make sure that each plugin and files are upgraded and up to date, otherwise, that can be vulnerabilities for hackers to attack your site.
• You will need more resources, after your blog starts growing so it will cost you more in future.
• You have to fight with attacks and spams to your blog. The comment spams are a great problem in WordPress blogs, but these can be solved by suitable plugin integration.

Final Verdict

As you are now aware of how it is with WordPress.com vs WordPress.org vs Blogger and even know about their pros and cons you can make your own decision based on your requirement, uses and expectations.

Still, to a ‘complete newbie blogger’, I strongly suggest to go with Blogger, as it can be the best choice for those who just want to share their thoughts and don’t want to make money or monetize their blog.

And if you are a techy person and learn things quickly, then you should go with the self-hosted wordpress.org blog. You can also migrate from blogger.com or wordpress.com to a self-hosted wordpress.org blog, you can always contact me if you need any help.