Free Blog: WordPress vs. Blogger
Want to start your own family blog? Don’t want to pay for it? I know what sites you need. The two most popular free blogging services are Blogger.com and WordPress.com. I’ve recently tried them both out to see what they offer. Here are my thoughts on creating blogs on each site:
Setup - both are extremely easy to get started. You follow the same steps for both.
- Set up an account. If you have a GMail account, you already have a Blogger account because they are both services of Google.
- Name your blog. Your Blogger blog will be named YourBlogName.blogspot.com. Your WordPress blog will be YourBlogName.wordpress.com.
- Choose the site look. In WordPress, you select a Theme. In Blogger, you select a Template. Themes and Templates are essentially the same thing (though technically the inner workings of WordPress Themes and Blogger Templates are very different).
Blog Layout - after you got your theme/template, you can design the blog layout. You choose what you want your blog to display in the sidebars (the stuff to the left or right of the main blog entry). In WordPress they’re called widgets; in Blogger they’re called Page Elements. Again, essentially the same thing.
So what’s the difference between Blogger and WordPress? Which one do I recommend?
Customization - Want to modify your theme/template? Not possible with a free WordPress account. You’re stuck with the theme as is (for a small upgrade fee, you can edit some format…but you can’t edit the HTML). However, in Blogger you can pretty much do anything you want. Don’t like the standard available templates? Do a Google search for “Free Blogger Templates” and pick from one the thousands available. Blogger has instructions on how to upload templates you’ve found on the internet. Want to slightly modify your current template? If you know HTML, that’s simple. Blogger gives you the option to edit the HTML.
Pages - Sometimes you want to have some static pages on your blog. For example, on this website we have a page called About Simple Critics. That page will rarely change (it’s static). This is super easy to do on WordPress.com blogs, and you can have multiple static pages. However, it’s not possible on Blogger to have additional pages (at least, not that I know of).
Photos Albums/Slideshows - I use PicasaWeb because it’s integrated with my GMail account. Blogger and WordPress both allow you to embed Picasa albums into your blog. However, by default, WordPress doesn’t allow you to embed a Picasa slideshow into your post. There is a workaround for posting slideshows to WordPress.com blogs, but you have to set up an account at VodPod.com (only a slight hassle).
There are some more differences, but for me those were the two biggest for creating a family blog.
Conclusion - Which one do I recommend? That’s tough. Both have their advantages. I like the Look & Feel of WordPress themes (they just look cleaner to me), but I like Blogger’s customization options and integration with other Google services. When my service expires with my current provider next Spring, I’ll most likely move my private family blog to a Wordpress.com blog.
Want more information on this subject? Check out this guy’s article on the same subject. He put together a great chart showing the differences between the two.
August 8th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Thanks for the mention, glad you found it useful for your readers.
August 20th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Pretty nice site, wants to see much more on it!
August 24th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
Thanks. Good idea. I’ll become your constant visitor and RSS subscriber.