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WordPress vs Blogger: Which one is better and why

Blogging is almost a two-decade old industry. Initially, the sites delivering content were known as “Personal Pages” or “Online Diaries”. The term “weblog” was coined by Jorn Barger to describe such sites in the year 1997 which was later changed to “blog” by Peter Merholz and Pyra Labs in 1999.

Ever since then, the “blogosphere” and the blogging industry are constantly growing. The birth and expansion of platforms like WordPress and Blogger have played a vital role in connecting more people to the blogging industry and evolving it to its modern-day state. 

While we served you the trivia just to get the ball rolling, today we are not here to trace the history and evolution of blogging. Instead, we will discuss about the two popular blogging platforms listed above that have turned into popular website builders and Content Management Systems with time.

So, let’s begin and know how the two platforms compare against each other!

Suggested Read: 7 Tips to make your blog website more aesthetic and magnetic

WordPress and Blogger: An overview

WordPress is used by around 43% of all websites in the world and has a CMS market share of 64.3%. On the other hand, Blogger is only used by 0.8% of all websites in the world and its CMS market share stands at around 1.2%. Clearly WordPress websites and WordPress apps are more popular than others.

Now you may think that this is because Blogger is dedicated to blogging whereas WordPress has evolved as a wholesome platform that powers you to build any kind of website. Well, this is only partially true as there are other multipurpose CMS platforms that suffer the same fate when it comes to market share and presence.

However, this does not undermine the significance and presence of other platforms. While WordPress does hold a big chunk of the market, there are many other CMS platforms thriving and flourishing contemporarily and Blogger is one of them.

Now WordPress is an open-source CMS software owned by Automattic whereas Blogger is more like a service offered by Google. While both are fed with extensions, plugins, themes, templates, etc., the WordPress repository is far bigger and widespread whereas Blogger is more about built-in tools.

We will explore the detailed features of the two platforms in the sections below and compare them on different parameters to understand them better. Read till the end and find out all that you need to know.

WordPress vs Blogger: A detailed comparison

Let us delve into the detailed comparison and find out how WordPress and Blogger compare against each other. You can also go through the table below and catch a quick glimpse of the details listed below.  

WordPress vs Blogger comparison chart

Starting price

Both Blogger and WordPress.org are essentially free, but WordPress requires self-hosting. This implies that you will have to find a good and reliable hosting company and pay for it. Remember, a great part of your website’s security and performance will depend on your choice of host so you cannot really compromise here.

Additionally, you may have to pay for your themes and plugins for WordPress depending on the choice of your extensions. You may also need to pay for store in the long run. While this may sound overwhelming, it actually gets you the benefit of professional assistance and help of third-party services.

You will pay for hosting and other services, but this will keep you free from many aspects of managing and securing your website. You can read our blog suggested below and get tips for choosing the right website host.

Suggested Read: How to select the best WordPress web hosting partner for your website?

Ease of use

As far as ease of usage is concerned, these two platforms are as easy as it gets. Especially Blogger as a CMS platform is really easy to use and work with. It is pretty straightforward and has several built-in tools to help you achieve your development goals.

Now WordPress is fairly easy to use and manage as well. It has an intuitive setup wizard that helps you get started and much of the process is essentially code-free. However, some less-versed people might feel that there is a bit of a learning curve.

Now while blogger gives you ease, it also takes away a lot of freedom as many of the aspects of the platform are beyond your control. This is not the case with WordPress as everything depends on your choice of extensions.

It is noteworthy that in-depth modifications and integrations may require good technical grasp and coding knowledge on both the platforms. However, this again can be managed on WordPress with plugins that are built for a code-free experience.

Design customizability

WordPress and Blogger let you create aesthetic websites. However, one drawback of Blogger is that almost all the templates it offers end up looking the same. The customization options here are fairly limited when compared to other CMS platforms.

On the other hand, WordPress has unlimited options. There are more than 31,000 themes on WordPress, and you can choose from a wide range of options. Over the years, WordPress has also evolved to handle design and media and optimize it for better results.

Above all, you get more control over the look and feel of your website on WordPress. Despite ample customization and design options, Blogger cannot beat WordPress when it comes to freedom of design and customizability.

Scalability & flexibility

Scalability on WordPress is truly unlimited. It is arguably the most flexible platform as you get tons of extensions to choose from and you can shape your website the way you want. You get complete control, and the possibilities remain endless.

As your blogging business grows, you can scale the website to meet the growing needs. Any amount of addition or subtraction of features and functionalities is possible on WordPress. Thus, it should be the go-to choice of people who want things done their own way.

On the other hand, while Blogger does offer some amount of flexibility, it is fairly limited. While the maintenance part requires less effort, the fate of your website ultimately depends upon the platform itself.

Performance & speed

Fast loading websites are important for a brand’s success. This is true for bloggers as well. Therefore, the CMS you choose should offer a conducive environment for building strong and lightning-fast websites.

With WordPress, this aspect may depend upon your choice of host, plugins, themes, etc., as sometimes the extensions can interfere with the infrastructure of your website and cause it to slow down. Despite that, we cannot ignore the fact that WordPress has evolved over the years and is home to some of the best and fastest websites in the world.

Blogger comes with the assurance of Google, and it is also not cluttered with resources like WordPress. Therefore, you should ideally be able to build strong and fats running websites with Blogger.

Domain and hosting

As discussed in the pricing section above, WordPress.org does not host your blog for you. You will need to purchase a domain name and hosting service to get your site up and running. (Note that WordPress.com is different where hosting is included.)

The cost of securing a domain name and purchasing a hosting will totally depend upon your choice of service. On the other hand, while hosting is included on Blogger, you will have to pay for custom domain name (Example: yourblog.com).

As far as WordPress hosting is concerned, there are several options available out there. You can pick a service of your choice and get started with one-click installs. With Blogger, you can be ready to roll in no time.

eCommerce support

As stated above, you can create any kind of website with WordPress. It has multiple eCommerce plugins that you can use to set up your full-fledged online store. WooCommerce, for instance, is the most powerful and popular eCommerce plugin for WordPress and it rules in its realm.

WooCommerce has all that you need to create feature-rich eCommerce websites with all sorts of functionalities. If you have a WooCommerce store you can easily build an e-commerce app with a tool like AppMySite. There are many plugins centred around WooCommerce that can help you achieve almost any kind of eCommerce goal.

On the other hand, the eco-system of Blogger is not very eCommerce friendly. Therefore, if you plan to sell goods and merchandise on your blogging platform, WordPress may be a better fit as compared to Blogger.

Security & maintenance

No CMS is 100 secure as there are numerous external threats and concerns that can affect your website and even compromise its existence. Therefore, having a platform that cares for this aspect is important. As Blogger comes with Google assurance and a controlled infrastructure, there isn’t much left for you to cover.

On the other hand, things can get a bit challenging with WordPress. Now it is essentially a secure platform. People say that most security attacks happen on WordPress, but they forget to consider the fact that the greatest number of websites are also WordPress, so the ratio is bound to be high.

However, if you choose the right hosting partner, use good security plugins, perform regular backups and checks, then you will have nothing to worry about. However, the onus of maintenance may still directly or indirectly fall upon you as you also get to enjoy complete freedom and authority with WordPress.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

The competition in the blogging industry is huge! Therefore, in order to remain visible and relevant, you must aim to rank higher on SERP (Search Engine Results Page). In order to ensure this, you should choose a CMS that is SEO-friendly.

Now one may assume that because Blogger is owned by Google, websites built on this platform may have a chance of ranking higher on its search engine. But this is not how Google’s ranking algorithm works. The ranking and performance potential of a website will ideally depend upon your SEO-oriented practices.

We can say that both WordPress and Blogger are SEO friendly and there are options of modifying the meta information. However, with Blogger the options are limited and with WordPress you can play limitlessly. There are also several SEO plugins and tools that help you in earning good visibility and ranks for your WordPress website.

Technical support

Neither WordPress nor Blogger offer direct support through conventional medium like chat, email, call, etc. However, it is also true that WordPress and Blogger are super user-friendly and advanced platforms that do not require much hand-holding.

Therefore, you may feel little to no requirement of extensive support or guidance when working with these platforms. For the bottlenecks that may arise anyway, you can refer to their support documentation. Additionally, both the platforms also have an active community and multiple forums spread across the web. Now WordPress community maybe bigger, but Blogger also has its share of dedicated consumers. You can seek help there and get all the assistance you need.

Overall experience

If you are looking for a platform for setting up your blog website, you can choose either of the two platforms as both WordPress and Blogger are amazing for sharing content online. Both are quite popular and unique in their approach.

However, the enormous popularity and expanse of WordPress cannot be ignored. Besides, it has become so much more than just a blogging or content sharing platform. It is a holistic CMS platform in the true sense and hence has always been ahead in the game.

Therefore, if you are looking forward to expanding your brand in the future and scaling to bigger heights, then go with WordPress without much ado. On the other hand, if you want something more subtle, uncluttered and straightforward, then you can go with Blogger.

Best CMS for building apps with AppMySite

Having a blogging website is great. You can share your content with your audience online and connect with them anywhere and everywhere. However, in the age of smartphones, a website alone may not be sufficient.

If you do not want your visitors to browse your site once and then forget about it, then you will have to make a stronger presence and appeal. The best way to connect with your readers and keep them engaged and loyal to your brand is to give them the convenience of mobile apps.

You can make an app for free with AppMySite for any website. While AppMySite offers deep integration with WordPress and WooCommerce websites and lets you create premium and native Android and iOS apps, it supports every kind of website.

Therefore, depending upon your goals, you can build an app for your website that is powered by any CMS platform, including WordPress and Blogger. Here, you can build your app without writing any code and preview it for free.

So, once you have your website set up on WordPress or Blogger, you can go ahead and get an app for your website in no time. It is super-easy, convenient and suitable for all kinds of websites.

In conclusion

WordPress and Blogger are both popular and amazing platforms. You can use either of the two platforms for sharing content with your online audience. However, Blogger would just remain limited to that.

On the other hand, WordPress has become so much more than just a content sharing or blogging platform. You can set up any kind of website including dating, news, eCommerce, education, food delivery, or even a real estate website.

Moreover, WordPress gives you the power to explore unlimited possibilities and scale as your business grows. Therefore, if you are looking for a simple and frill-free platform then you can go with Blogger. Else, we strongly recommend WordPress if you want a holistic experience.

While you are at it, you can also checkout our other comparison blogs on WordPress vs Joomla, WordPress vs Squarespace, WordPress vs Wix, WooCommerce vs Shopify, etc. We also share blogs on website and app development, maintenance, and marketing, and other related topics. Check them out and leave a comment below if you want us to cover a topic of your choice.

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