Blogger or self-hosted WordPress.org? It’s a question that almost every blogger that starts out on Blogger/Blogspot will consider at some point.
Blogger Pros
- Free
- Reliable (unlikely to be hacked, virtually no downtime)
- Easy-to-use for beginners
- Decent selection of templates
- Limited features (especially comments and the post editor)
- You can easily lose your template customizations.
- No premium frameworks
- Google is free to use and distribute your content.
- WordPress software is free.
- Extremely flexible & feature rich
- Highly customizable (especially with web design/development knowledge)
- Easy-to-use without coding knowledge
- Wide-variety of free and premium themes
- Can use premium frameworks like Genesis
- You own your content. No fine print.
- Requires paid web hosting and a domain name
- Some web hosts are unreliable.
- Theme customization can be difficult for beginners.
- Can be easier to hack than Blogspot blogs
If web hosting and yearly domain costs fit in your budget, WordPress is absolutely the best choice. You can easily expand your self-hosted WordPress.org blog as your readership grows and need more features.
This doesn’t mean that Blogger isn’t a perfectly good option. I used Blogger for a couple of years while I was in college (and on a college student budget). This was after I had used WordPress for a number of years.
I was a bit frustrated with Blogger’s limited features in comparison to WordPress in the beginning. But overall, using Blogger was a positive experience. I didn’t have to worry about hosting fees. I learned a new blogging tool. And I was able to create some pretty nice Blogger designs.
Which one is right for your blog?
If you have aspirations of becoming a professional blogger or making a sizable income from your blog, a self-hosted WordPress.org blog is the best option. If you are blogging as an extension of your business, WordPress is also the better option.
If you are building a feature-rich blog like a recipe blog, WordPress is best for you too. The great thing about WordPress is that it gives you the freedom to easily expand and add new features.
If you are a casual/beginning blogger or on a budget, Blogger is the better option. If you don’t need a lot of features or flexibility, it doesn’t make much sense to pay for web hosting. Even if you start out with your blog hosted on Blogger, you can always migrate your blog to WordPress later to fit your needs.
Do you use self-hosted WordPress.org or Blogger? Why is it the best option for you?
