So, whether you’re a blogger returning from a break, seeking a new home or are looking to write online for the first time, here’s our guide to what blogging platforms are out there.
In fact, the truth is that there’s never been a better time to blog. Social networks help build audiences and deliver content to readers, and more established blogs and websites often link to or aggregate smaller sites, sending swarms of viewers to read
1.WORDPRESS
Browse at WordPress.org
About:
It is second most popular Free blogging platform after blogger.
WordPress provides Free Blogging platforms. Although the you have to pay some bucks if you want more features.
The Free Basic Package of WordPress Includes:-
- Free Blog
- Wordpress.com Address
- Basic Customization
- No Premium Themes included
- No Video Storage
- 3 GB of space
- Community Support
Stats:
- Recommended for: Blogging and websites
- Founded: May 27th, 2003
- Founder: Matt Mullenweg of Automattic
- Total users: 60 million, 19% of the internet and 1 in 5 websites as of December 2013
- Total employees: 151
Pros: Elegance and ease
Cons: You need to get a domain name and web hosting first
My verdict: The best place to blog if you’re serious about it. Good for all types of review websites, mommy blogs, company sites, eCommerce sites and more.
2.Blogger
Browse at Blogger.com
About:
Blogger is Google’s free blog-hosting site. More popular at the turn of the millenium, Blogger still offers a great service but the designs are a bit elementary. Login and publish your first post for free with only a Gmail account. Try Adsense “monetization”, design a new layout and even edit your first piece of code.
Stats:
- Recommended for: Blogging
- Founded: August 1999
- Notable events: Bought by Google in February, 2003
- Founder: Evan Williams of Pyra Labs
Pros: Publish anywhere, huge community, images, video, edit HTML/CSS, template designer, track traffic stats in Blogger, Adsense at no charge
Cons: While Blogger is where many writers (including Dear Blogger) started publishing, it’s designs appear a bit childish today. Google owns your blog – they axed Reader – so acknowledge a bit less control upfront.
Costs: Pay $10/year for a domain name without the “.blogspot” extension – otherwise totally free.
Future predictions: May merge with Google+.
My verdict: Everything blogging should be and more – Blogger was the sandbox for names now headlining in tech. The only real negative comes from outgrowing Blogger, at which point many (like myself) transfer to WordPress. Less popular today – even Google’s PR Mogul Matt Cutts runs a WordPress site.
3.Tumblr
Browse at
Tumblr.com
Introduction to Tumblr:
At a time when WordPress and Blogger were neck-and-neck for new users, Tumblr showed up as the 3rd guy to the party. They received lots of sign-ups from users wanting a totally refreshing take on blogging, and have grown ever since. Tumblr was recently bought by Yahoo, who has interesting plans for the whole blog advertising thing.
Stats:
- Founded: February 2007
- Founder: David Karp
- Total users: 152 million
Pros: Ease of use and ability to share your friends’ work through re-blogging.
Cons: Less customization, just a shade less professional and not ideal for conducting business.
Costs: Free, pay Tumblr to get your own domain name without the “.tumblr” addition
My verdict: Great for photography and other forms of art. Super-simplistic designs and a whimsical vibe make Tubmlr a great choice for any new blogger.
4.SquareSpace
Browse at SquareSpace.com
About:
All over television with beautiful and encouraging ads, SquareSpace offers a nice solution for the business owner in need of a web presence. Get online quickly with a free trial, setup a cool design and start attracting clients – that’s the motto. If a more complex blogging platform were snowboarding, SquareSpace would be skiing, in the pie wedge stance :)
Stats:
- Recommended for: Individual and business blogs and websites
- Founded: January 2004
- Founder: Anthony Casalena
- Total users: ?
Pros: Elegant designs setup with a couple of clicks.
Cons: Less customization – you’ll pay for things that may come free at a place like WordPress
Costs: 14-day free trial with plans from $8 and up afterwards
My verdict: Less hands-on than WordPress but arguably better advertising and accessibility – Squarespace gets your business site up quickly. A good quick solution.
google-plus-logo
5.Medium
Browse at Medium.com
Stats:
- Founded: 2012
- Founder: Evan Williams (Twitter, Blogger) and Biz Stone (Twitter)
- Total users: ?
Pros: Story telling feel, goal to improve content quality
Cons: Still low usership
Costs: Free
My verdict: Probably won’t reach the development status of WordPress.org but definitely chomping at the heels of Blogger, Tumblr and even Twitter as it borrows several of their services, like topic searches and nostalgic photo shares from the founders themselves.
6.Hubpages
Browse at HubPages.com
About:
Hubpages started as an article network, the kind of place where you were rewarded for publishing lots of articles on any one topic like cooking, travel or home-improvement. Today, it boasts millions of informative articles and guides. However, a by-product of mass publishing is slightly lesser quality. You may find articles at Hubpages you’d wonder why anyone would ever publish. Or, you may find the best home for your blogging and writing needs.
Stats:
- Recommended for: Social networking (“social layer”)
- Launched: August 6th, 2006
- Founder: Paul Edmondson
- Total users: 74,000
Pros: Not going out of business soon.
Cons: Less ownership of your work.
Costs: Free
My verdict: A solid place to start writing and learn from other experts. Tightly-knit. Fun for everyone involved.
7.Joomla
Browse at Joomla.com
About:
Joomla is an advanced CMS used by developers to publish some of the websites we visits each day. Written in PHP, it uses many of the same structures as a WordPress site does. For whatever reason, developers have flocked elsewhere, but Joomla remains one of the web’s oldest and savviest places to run a blog or website.
Stats:
- Recommended for: Content Management, Web Content
- Released: August 17th, 2005
- Founders: The Joomla Project
- Total users: 35 million downloads
Pros: over 6000 free extensions, estimated as the second most used content management system (CMS) after WordPress
Cons: Smaller community, help out articles you find may be out of date.
Costs: ?
My verdict: Only really for a Joomla developer or website manager. Not an easy access point for a beginner.
8.Live Journal
Browse at LiveJournal.com
Stats:
- Recommended for: Blogging, journaling, writing a diary
- Founded: April 15th, 1999
- Founder: Brad Fitzpatrick
- Total users: 39.6 million accounts, 1.7 million active accounts
Pros: friend others to read their entries and leave comments, avatars, user info pages, to-do lists
Cons: moved design to Russia in 2009, basic plan users see advertisements
Premium features: express lane for quicker load times, call from your phone to a LiveJoural number and post voice recording to your journal
Costs: Premium version, not sure of the costs here. Anyone know?
My verdict: In mother Russia, blog write on you.
9.Quora
Browse at Quora.com
Stats:
- Recommended for: Question and answer based websites
- Released: June 21st, 2010
- Founder: ?
- Total users: 500,000 reported in 2011, more now.
Pros: Collaborative feel and separate blogging platform recently released.
Cons: Less costumization.
Costs: Free
Interesting facts: 30% of Quora users hail from India. Founded by two former Facebook employees.
My verdict: If you’re passionate about a topic but don’t have the time to maintain a blog, submitting questions and answers to Quora discussions is a great compromise.
10.Typepad
Browse at Typepad.com
Stats:
- Founded October 2003
- Founder: Say Media
- Total users: ?
Pros: Ease of use
Cons: Less costumization
Costs: Free
My verdict: Just love the news? If so, know that ABC, BBC, CBS, MSNBC and more use Typepad to maintain blogs.
Weebly platform
11.Drupal
Browse at Drupal.org
Stats:
- Recommended for: Blogging, Content Management, Web Applications
- Founded: January 2001
- Founder: Dries Buytaert
- Total users: 1 million users and 30K developers
Pros: 22,900 free add-ons, free and premium themes via the Drupal Theme Garden
Cons: Quite involved, not ideal for beginners
Costs: ?
My verdict: Fun for developers and bloggers with a real interest in building code.
12.Squidoo
Browse at Squidoo.com
Stats:
- Founded: 2005
- Founder: Seth Godin
- Total users: 1.5 million
Pros: Lenses and points systems to level up are only part of the fun.
Cons: Like Hubpages, you might not feel an ownership of your work.
Costs: Free
My verdict: A classy place to meet others before you get more serious about blogging.
13.Postach.io
Browse at Postach.io
Stats:
- Recommended for: On-the-go bloggers, note-taking
- Founded: 2013
- Founder: Evernote
- Total users: 20,000
Pros: Supports popular comment plugin Disqus, lighter feel, easy to use.
Cons: Less costumization
Costs: Free
My verdict: Too soon to form a verdict here!
14.Svbtle
Browse at Svbtle.com
Stats:
- Founded: 2013
- Founder: Dustin Curtis
- Total users: ?
Pros: New, different; aren’t we all?
Cons: Must apply for a membership and no commenting feature as of yet.
Costs: Free
My verdict: They are a “network of great people who want to make it easier for people to share and discover new ideas”. Excited to see where Svbtle goes in the next few months.
15.Sett
Browse at Sett.com
Stats:
- Founded: Early 2013
- Founder: Tynan (a blogger) and Todd Iceton
- Total users: 1,000 – 10,000
Pros: Generally bent on community, top navigation bar like Blogger, has a word-matching system that matches similar posts and will recommend users to your posts the moment they sign-up, private discussions, one click subscription system
Cons: Premium service that allows for more image hosting (does this mean normal users are limited?)
Costs: Free with premium service offered
My verdict: I’ve always believed it’s the readers who really grow a blog, not so much the blogger him/herself. 80/20. So I’m excited here. Will they win the battle for 3rd place? Either way, the web is always better with more variety, more options, more places to blog.
ghost-logo
16.Ghost
Browse at Ghost.org
Stats:
- Founded: Early 2013
- Founder: Ghost Foundation
- Total users: 10,000 – 50,000
Pros: Open-source so once you download it you own it, organized at run by volunteers and non-profits
Cons: Any service that charges based on the amount of views you get is a villain in my book or could become one. Don’t limit us, thanks
.
Costs: Free with premium service offered
My verdict: Got to respect their lofty ideas. But, I suspect they are trying to KO WordPress and possibly backed by BlueHost based on their web design, so I oppose :)
17.Posthaven
Browse as Posthaven.com
Stats:
- Founded: Early 2013
- Founder: Ghost Foundation
- Total users: 10,000 – 50,000
Pros: Post by email. Oh and “they’ll never get acquired, never shut down” as long as you pay them.
Cons: “Simple, easy blogs for $5 a month, forever.”
Costs: 5 bucks
My verdict: They’re a group of engineers who want to build blogs for us. Love this idea and wish them the best. But as a company you just can’t get ahead in an open environment like blogging by trying to control things, at least not upfront. Their technology might be great and “durable” but most of us will never know, because their marketing is a zero and their homepage design is really weak.
18.Blog.com
Browse at Blog.com
Stats:
- Recommended for: Blogging
- Founded: 2004
- Founders: ?
- Total users: 2 million
Pros: Free themes, multi-author blogging, social media widgets, video
Cons: Less customization
Premium features: Your own domain name, advertising network
Costs: ?
My verdict: You’d hope a domain name as strong as blog.com would produce a winner…
19.Zoomshare
Browse at ZoomShare.com
Stats:
- Founded: ?
- Founder: ?
- Total users: < 50K
Pros: Still has a community
Cons: Shifting 100% of users to paid version
Costs: “As of May 22, 2013 our free website service has been discontinued. If you would like to convert to the paid service click here and upgrade for the low cost of $6.95 a month.”
My verdict: Not enough information to form a verdict.
20.Xanga
Browse at Xanga.com
Stats:
- Founded: ?
- Founder: ?
- Total users: < 50K
Pros: Resembles WordPress
Cons: Unclear timeframe of new software releases
Costs: ?
My verdict: Not enough information to form a verdict.
21.WEEBLY
Browse at www.weebly.com
About:
Weebly is also one of the popular blogging Platform. There are more than 12 million people using weebly.
The Features provided by weebly are:-
- Drag & Drop Website Builder
- Powerful Hosting Included
- Free Professional Themes around 100
- Easy Blogging
- Tons of Multimedia features
- Support for IPHONE article posting
- Detailed Traffic Stats
Stats:
- Founded: 2006
- Founder: David Rusenko
- Total users: hosts 15 million websites
Pros: Drag and drop feature so easy a monkey could use it.
Cons: Less control for the user
Costs: ?
My verdict: I’ve heard a lot of positive reviews here. For a company owner who needs a website but despises tech, it’s Weebly or Squarespace, and both are sound choices.
22.WIX
Browse at www.wix.com
About:
Wix is also one of the famous blogging platforms. Around 28,612,131 sites have been created using it.
Features:-
- Easy,Fast & Beautiful
- Easy to use Drag & Drop Faciltiy
- Easy to customize
- No coding
- 100s of Free Templates
- Google friendly
- Free top Grade Hosting
- Fully Mobile Supported
23.WEBS
Browse at www.webs.com
About:
Webs is another popular blogging platform. You can easily make a Free professional looking website using it.
Features:-
- Free Blog
- Webs.com Address
- Easy Website Building Tools
- Free Professional Website Templates
- Powerful Business Applications
24.JIMDO
Browse at www.jimdo.com
About:
Jimdo helps in making a free website in minutes with the Jimdo website builder.Using it you can Add text, galleries, videos, even create an online store.
Features:-
- Free Blog
- Free Address
- Easy to use
- Drag & Drop facility
- Awesome Templates
- E-commerce website
- Social media Support
- Search Engine Friendly
25.WEBNODE
Browse at www.webnode.com
About:
Webnode is also a popular Blogging platform. According to them, More than 7 500 000 companies, students, artists and bloggers from around the world have already become our satisfied users.
Features:-
- Free hosting
- Free web address
- Easy to use Website Builder
- Fast and easy Creation of Website
- Support for Custom Domain
- Drag & Drop
- 100s of Templates
- Can be used for E-shop website
- Mobile Portable
26.YOLA
Browse at www.yola.com
About:
Yola is a free website Builder. It can be used to Create a professional free website within few minutes
Features:-
- Easy to use
- Easy Customization
- Powerful & Flexible
- Easy Publishing facility
- Custom Domain support
- Customer Support
- Website Reporting
27.JIGSY
About:
Jigsy is also a very good website builder. Using it you can build an amazing website.
Features:-
- Hundreds of website templates
- Drag and Drop Website Editor
- Free Stock Photos and Beautiful Fonts
- Can be used as Ecommerce website
- Good Search Engine Optimization & Google Friendly
- Real-time Statistics
28.GOOGLE SITE
Browse at sites.google.com
About:
Google Sites is also a popular website Building Platform.It is a free and easy way to create and share webpages.
Features:-
- Easy to create rich web pages
- Good looking templates
- Free hosting & web Address
- Easy Customization
- Drag & Drop
If you have any doubt in your mind, you may ask via comments or contact form.
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