Where to blog: WordPress vs Blogger vs Posterous
Last updated: 2nd February 2012
Blogging platforms are like cars. They all get you from A to B but some cars get you there quicker, some are easier to drive and they all come in different colours. Things that all blogs have in common include:
Authoring, editing and publishing of entries – called posts – which all have:
- Title (or headline)
- Body – the main content of the post
- Permalink – a unique website address that can be accessed and linked to directly
- Date and time when the post was published
Blog posts can include:
- Comments – visitors can post comments and discuss the posts (usually moderated by the blog owner)
- Categories (and/or tags) – to help sort and categorise large numbers of posts. This also helps site navigation.
- Trackback and/or pingback – these show when other sites link to a post
Blogs also produce one or more RSS feeds (for posts and usually comments). RSS feeds enable you (and other sites) to ‘subscribe’ to the blog and automatically receive updates when new posts are written.
Blogs should also enable you to create static pages, such as ‘About’ or ‘Contact’ pages. The structure of these can make the sites much more sophisticated, make them look less like blogs and more like traditional websites, yet still be easy to update and include all the features of blogs.
Three of the most popular free blogging platforms we encourage people to use are WordPress, Blogger (owned by Google) and Posterous.
WordPress
There are two versions of WordPress.
You can use the hosted version on WordPress.com where a free blog can be set up in minutes. There is a selection of about 160 templates (called themes) to choose from and most are free to use. Some, though not all, themes can be adapted to change colours or header images (to include a logo, for example). Additional widgets – such as polls, links, tags and text – can be easily added into the blog’s sidebar(s) to help navigation and improve layout.
For more advanced users, the WordPress software can be downloaded from WordPress.org and installed on a web server for free (it is open source). The options for adapting the blog are almost limitless. There is a vibrant developer community producing thousands of themes and plug-ins to add features to your blog.
Pros
- Free blog can be started at WordPress.com and they host it for you.
- Multiple ‘static’ pages can be used to build flexible website structures.
- Themes can be made to look ‘un-blog-like.’
- Very effective spam comment protection using Akismet.
- Straightforward to add other people as contributors to your blog.
- Lots of help documentation, tutorials and lively support forums available.
- Lively developer community building themes, plug-ins and active online support.
- You can use your own domain name instead of the default yourname.wordpress.com domain (though this is a paid upgrade).
- Useful, understandable statistics on your blog traffic.
Cons
- For beginners, the writing interface can be overwhelming at first.
- Free WordPress.com themes are not totally flexible and require paid upgrade and skills to change.
- Using embed code (such as Google Maps) and Flash in posts and pages can be restricted on WordPress.com (see the list of supported embed codes). In the self-hosted version, some embed code can be restricted and need extra plug-ins in order to work, which again requires skills to maintain.
Example sites based on WordPress
Blogger
Blogger is owned by Google and is the most popular free blogging platform. Blogger is popular because it’s easy to set up and run. The entry bar is low. However, there are limits to adapting your blog, which you may find restrictive when you want to add more features or customise the look and feel.
Pros
- Good integration with other Google products such as Picasa photo sharing.
- Blogger App makes it easy to update your blog using your Google Android or iPhone smartphones.
- Code can be inserted into the templates (for example, Analytics) for quick fixes but can be difficult to maintain.
Cons
- No onward path for development. There is just a hosted version available, no self install.
- No development community per se, so lack of plug-ins.
Example sites based on Blogger
Posterous
Posterous is a free blogging platform which is focused on sharing online quickly. In September 2011, Posterous was relaunched as ‘Posterous Spaces’ – a Space is basically their term for a website – and is aimed at providing a simple tool to run a public blog, private website or a discussion group.
Posterous’ main attraction originally was its low entry bar. You can publish to your blog by sending an email to it. However, all the major free blogging platforms now let you publish via email, so this attraction is now largely moot.
Still, it’s quick to set up and, for people with little experience of using the internet beyond email, a great way to start blogging.
Pros
- Easy to publish to your blog by sending an email to it.
- Attach video, audio, photos or documents to an email, send it to your blog, and they are automatically embedded in your posts.
- Ideal for quickly setting up a private discussion group.
Cons
- Limited number of high quality themes available.
- Limited options to customise themes without having to delve into code.
- Posterous Spaces is still relatively new and it still feels buggy, particularly around managing members on multi-author blogs.
- Very limited options to control layout.
The good news is that even if you do start using one platform, you can import and export posts, pages and comments from one platform to another (for example, from Posterous to WordPress).
Resources
Detailed comparison of Blogger vs WordPress
Detailed comparison of WordPress vs Typepad
Pros and cons of hosted vs self-hosted platfoms