If you are familiar with the blogosphere, you will have noticed that most blogs are either run using Google’s Blogger or WordPress (as a framework). These two systems, along with a couple of other such as Joomla, Typepad etc. are the most commonly used CMS (Content Management Systems) and for some damn good reasons too.
Undoubtedly both of these CMSs have similarities and they both have their unique pros/cons. I want to explore both the lovely and the ugly of the two management systems and hopefully it will allow new time (and returning) bloggers to make a better and more informed decision on which system to go with.
First up, I want to make it clear that I’m not really saying “one’s better than the other” because, better is quite a vague term. It really depends on you because what is “best” for you, won’t be the “best” to the next person that reads this post. So, instead of differentiating between the two, I want to explore some key areas in blogging and “pick” whichever of the two would most ideally serve that purpose. There’s a difference! 
Also before we get into the mix of things; do notice that I’m referring to WordPress.com and not WordPress.org. The self-hosted version is far more powerful than any other free CMS and comparing it to a free-service Google’s Blogger is just complete stupidity.
I’ve seen several threads on webmasters forums asking for a comparison between WordPress.org and Blogger.com — I don’t even visit the thread, because it doesn’t deserve an extra view count. It’s that shocking. Anyways, with that in mind ~ let’s get into the comparisons!
Simplicity
Google’s Blogger gets my vote for simplicity, all hands down. If you asked anyone to give you one reason on why they think Blogger made it to the top; it would because of how simple it is. Almost anyone, regardless of how computer-illiterate you are — you could set up a blog and start posting your thoughts on the web! It’s almost “click, write, post” routine. Doesn’t get simpler.
Customization
In terms of customizing your blog; both services offer several additional services. Unfortunately for WordPress fans, most of the features cost money, especially if you want to customize it further than just the visual themes. Then again, Blogger doesn’t completely support “plugins” as such but you can add some really nifty widgets which are pretty similar.
This point really depends on your circumstances; if you want to keep expenses to a minimum; Blogger will be sufficient but if you can fork out a few dollars — WordPress will suit you much better.
Flexibility
Both CMS are very flexible and versatile. There’s no doubt about that, but this again depends on your needs for flexibility. If you a average blogger that want to K.I.S.S (Keep It Simple, Stupid) then Blogger will definately be more flexible for you, allowing you to expand to new features at your own pace. If you want to go out guns-blazing and customize you blog and can spend some money ~ WordPress will be almost god-sent.
Features
With the ever-expanding addition of new widgets, Blogger is more versatile in the number features. WordPress.com, unfortunately limits their users considerably but that’s because we sub-consciously compare it with WordPress.org; but even next to Blogger — it doesn’t stand against as a worthy competitor. Don’t get me wrong, WordPress.com has several useful “features” (mainly it’s WordPress.com Stats) but with so many official and 3rd party widgets; Blogger wins this one.
Community / User Friendliness
WordPress.com hands down. This might be a bit of a personal statement; but I just hate how Google’s comment systems and just the overall user experience is built. Commenting on a page is far more complicated than it should be on a post. Having to register with Blogger just to comment? That’s just plain stupid. The user-friendliness of WordPress.com is great and follows the lovely “Read, Scroll and Leave Comment” idea.
Search Engine Optimization
If you had asked me this before Google bought Blogger — then WordPress.com would have been my pick of the better two, but since it’s official shift (quite some time ago too) we can’t help but think that it has an effect on SEO.
Now, no statistic or factual statement proves this point; but personally I think Google crawlers favor blogs hosted by Blogger. Not to say WordPress.com is useless, it’s one of the most Search Engine Optimized platforms on the market.
Just to make things clear, a “out of the box” WordPress site (without nay customizations) is SEO’ed to almost a “perfect score.” Since there’s no facts/statistics behind Google crawlers favoring Blogger accounts; I’ll have to go with WordPress.com being the better for SEO.
Quick Note: Google Adsense
There has been a lot of speculation bubbling in the forums and other communities that new Google Adsense accounts get approved “faster” if they are proposed through Blogger blogs. What do I mean by that? Well, when you open a Google Adsense account, you need to have a stable website before you get accepted into the program.
Now, your site gets reviewed and either accepted/denied. Hence, if this intial site of yours — is a Blogger blog, they just might be that bit more lenient in accepting you. Then again, the difference is almost insignificant — if you have a spammy Blogger account but a well maintained WordPress.com account — the one that gets accepted and the one that gets rejected is quite obvious.
This little tip SHOULDN’T effect your decision between Blogger or WordPress.com but it’s something to keep in the back of your head!
As you can see, those were just some of the aspects of blogging and just my 2 cents. Share your thoughts and your additions below in the comments? If you had a choice between the two — who would ultimately get your vote?
56 Discussions
Glad to see your back Janith! Good post, I definitely prefer Wordpress over Blogger. I think all bloggers who think they have the slightest chance of spending money should go with Wordpress. I can’t believe Blogger doesn’t even have categories.
teenwebguru’s last blog post..My Step by Step List
Are you serious!? How can a blogging platform NOT have categories? I knew Blogger was limited, but I didn’t know it was that limited. Wow. o__o
There currently is a hack that allows blogger users to create categories with a manual setup but it takes a lot of coding, there’s like 3 different sets of codes I believe. One simple way I know is to use del.icio.us to tag your posts and then insert the tags into your sidebar and use them indvidually as categories.
Blogger does suffer from some of the basic blogging requirements that we’ve become so used to but for those of us that have been using Blogger since it started and the people that are completely new to the arena – Blogger is perfect for them as it is, because of it’s simplicity.
Not having categories is somewhat an issue, not from a SEO point of view but it is quite annoying. As Evans suggested below with Technorati, De.li.cious and other tags – there’s so many ways around not having categories.
BTW ~ Glad to be back too, TeenWebGuru
Cool post, Janith
Personally I much prefer Wordpress… why? Because I dislike Blogger. I don’t know why, but there’s just something about seeing ‘domain.blogspot.com’ that really makes my blood boil.
Simon | Teenius’s last blog post..Interview with Alex Fraiser (15 Year Old Blogger)
To be honest Simon, any URL with “domain.freeblog.com” annoys me. I can’t stand being limited like that. It’s my blog, so I should be able to do whatever I want with it.
You could always sign up for a co.nr redirection if you hate it that bad.
I know blogger works pretty well with redirection, it’s fast an easy to set a redirection url up.
I think CO.NR is worse man.
It looks way worse IMO.
For me, pretty much anything other than .com/.net look bad! .org are alright IF you actually run an organisation. infos look completely spammy too. If you’re going to start a blog, do it properly and get a domain!
Simon | Teenius’s last blog post..Interview with Alex Fraiser (15 Year Old Blogger)
You can thank the inconsiderate companies that sold (are still selling, in fact) the .info domains for $0.99
It’s perfect for spammers, instead of having to pay ~ $10 per domain purchase.
My experiences with CO.NR has been horrible! When I first got into making sites and with $0 funds – I was forced to host it on free services and use the Co.Nr redirection.
Unfortunately, the system was so buggy and all my pages were cloaked as “www.mysite.co.nr” instead of for example “www.mysite.co.nr/aboutme” and so on.. I think, from that experience – I would immediately leave a site if I see it’s cloaked
I’m usually okay with either .com or .net. I feel like both of them should be equally looked at as “trusted” sites.
I feel just the same, Simon! Haha, but in writing this post- I tried my best to stay away from being bias and analyzed each one’s benefits. In my opinion; Wordpres.com sh*ts all over Blogger but then again looking at the bigger picture – we have strong supporters for both the platforms.
Just a thought – maybe we are so anti-Blogger because of the countless spam blogs on the Blogger network, that just smack on some content to get Adsense on it?
Yes, and I feel that’s a big part of the problem. A big part of the general image of any platform depends hugely on the users. I mean, out of 10 spammy blogs I see, 8-9 of them are probably on Blogger. I reckon about 2% of all spammy blogs are on WP, and some of them are on .info.
Simon | Teenius’s last blog post..Interview with Alex Fraiser (15 Year Old Blogger)
I also prefer Wordpress over Blogger, and I’ve had experiences with both. Blogger also doesn’t let you create pages for your blog, there is hack to provide navigation links to your blogger profile but they are not actual pages of the blog. Also the commenting on blogger made me worry about future community building.
Great post!
So to top it all off, you can’t even create pages? How do these services get so popular without those basic features of creating pages and categories? Man, I pity Blogger users right about now. I never knew this stuff.
I guess it was just all the power of Google to promote it and also it came into business quite some time again – when blogging was still “Your doing what now?” kinda thing
Oh my, I completely forgot about not being able to make pages. Oh my!
However, Blogger can be “hacked/modified” quite a lot, in that case – Wordpress is almost completely un-hackable and you have to work with; what they provide you.
This just keeps getting worse and worse for Blogger
Yet another failure for Google Blogger, their commenting system. I’ve mentioned it in the post body as well – it’s just garbage to be honest.
Not too sure about Google favoring Blogger in terms of SEO because there are so many arguments over that issue. Figuring that out is like trying to figure out how the pageranks are calculated. We will never know!
Kai Lo’s last blog post..My Weekly Report: Week 5
Definitely Kai, I guess it’s something we will never know – and I’ve pointed out that Now, no statistic or factual statement proves this point; but we can’t help but feel so
Wordpress would be always be a first choice for bloggers especially when it comes with the lot of plugins .Blogspot really sucks there are no good plugins developed by google and it lacks lot of basic features like setting categories feature
Yet so many people use it
We should run a petition for either Google to dump Blogger or revamp it like crazy!
@Teenius Yea I agree. I actually like the idea of .info domains. I think it would be cool to have sites that have info and aren’t selling anything to stand out. To bad many people who buy them are spammers.
teenwebguru’s last blog post..My Step by Step List
Yeah, thats the main problem with the .info extension. I think that the concept of a cheap domain is a good one, but unfortunately the tighter webmasters among us saw the opportunity to buy lots of domains and make lots of spammy informational sites, all for a fraction of the cost of the .com websites they would otherwise make.
Simon | Teenius’s last blog post..Interview with Alex Fraiser (15 Year Old Blogger)
About the commenting systme of Blogger, since TypePad Connect came out, bloggers can now integrate it into their Blogger blog. Haven’t tested it out but I’ve seen it in action and it’s so much better than the regular system. Like you said Janith, having to actually register on Blogger to comment is very inconvienient!
Ahh , that sounds promising – I’ll definitely check it out ~ thanks for the heads up Evan!
Wordpress is still the way to go. I’m only using bloggers for most of micro niche sites but I’d not trade WordPress for anything else on my main blog. Anyway, great stuff.
I have used Blogger and I really do prefer hosting my own Wordpress blog all day long.
I don’t understand when people say that you can customize Blogger just like Wordpress, I saw no evidence of this when I used it three years ago.
Dean Saliba’s last blog post..Is Google Buying Twitter Good?
For SEO, I agree with you that wordpress is better. When I create a wordpress blog, it gets indexed within a week, but my blogspot blogs gets indexed in like 3 weeks.
Dalirin’s last blog post..Understanding Google Pagerank
That’s a good pick Dalirin, none of my sites have taken 3 weeks (Blogger or not). However, it’s always different to different people.
But that’s something to keep in the back of your head – that Wordpress blogs do get initially indexed somewhat faster than another dynamic/static site.
I’ve noticed that quite a lot.
If you are familiar with the blogosphere, you will have noticed that most blogs are either run using Blogger or Wordpress.com. These two systems, along with a couple of other such as Joomla, Typepad etc. are the most commonly used CMS (Content Management Systems) and for some damn good reasons too.
I assume you meant .org. yes?
Dennis Edell’s last blog post..How I Publish Guest Posts
Whoops, neither actually. I meant the actually framework – instead of the “product name” offered :S Hopefully that makes sense, I mean “Wordpress” as a CMS and not the .com/.org “service”
It differs from person to person. If you are interested in Making Money Online without spending even a dim them it should be Blogger. But if you wanted to keep blogging as fun and a part of your hobbies then you should go for wordpress. Anyway Thats my opinion. Great post Alex.
Well said Harish, that’s exactly how I see it too – btw it’s Janith
Wordpress seems to be winning this battle when it comes to internet marketers. Probably because of the versatility of it. But again depends on personal preference. I for one tend to use blogger more frequently than wordpress for my externally hosted blogs. But that’s prbably because it was blogger that I learnt with
Niche’s last blog post..About the new Digg Bar
Quite frankly, if Blogger wasn’t promoted so much and if it wasn’t one of the first platforms to be opened to the internet community; it would be just as minority as the other 100s of blogging platforms.
In conjunction with Google buying it out + excessive promotion + early onto the field = Blogger’s success.
I just found your site today and I’m really impressed – Janith, you and Alex are doing a marvelous job – keep it up. My site and blog are powered by Joomla and this is mostly because my partner is a fan (and substantially more tech savvy.) The overwhelming majority of blogs I see are WP or Blogger, like you stated. I’ve wondered what I might be missing. Well, thanks for the comparisons – very well done.
DS Fly Reels’s last blog post..The Pheasant Tail Nymph
Thank you for your very kind words buddy
Appreciate it and hope you find anything you can find on the blog ~ hope to see you around
I think it’s all about how you want to use your blog. Blogger blogs I like to use for niche blogging. Easy to set up and create. No need to buy a domain name so you can monetize. Wordpress Is good becuase of the customization aspect. Nice to have a lot of flexiblity for your blog to make it unique!
Real Online Money’s last blog post..Want To Make Money Online Today? Start Affiliate Marketing!
Completely Agree with Janith
Great Post! Its seems that i cant subscribe to your RSS feed i get an 404 error ,can you fix that? Thanks
Should be working now, buddy
Check it out, and let me know. Thanks for pointing that out too!
Hello I am just looking around many different websites that offer domain names. Well this is rediculous on how many people out there charge you for so many items that don’t need to be bought and still get the same quality as the paid for sites. I have found out that all you need to really pay out is max $10 year and no more for any product on domain names. And you can get free hosting, website design programs, free personalized emails, free blog account, and free online picture site. ALL WITH A $10 PAYMENT. So don’t waste your time on paying anymore for what you need unless you are running a huge website. And still it shouldn’t cost more than $89.00 Year. By the way if the Blog owner lets me post this I have settled down with http://www.rnrstuff.net. But there are other like this site here that seem real nice. But Beware the Domain BIZ is still very young and it is still got alot of growing so get it while its young.
i prefer wordpress than blogger, i like the plugin especially at permalink setting at wordpress i can choose which one is the best for my blog seo.. to use blogger its bad to its all is depending the user which one that they like to use
very nice article bro
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i like this site. i added on my bookmark i thanks
Nice blog, just bookmarked it for later reference
Good post and nice design, is this a regular template?
It’s custom, based off of Thesis.
hi,great post,,are you serious bloger cant create a categori???i think its possible,but idont know,..hehehe nice post,,i subscribe you rss on my web,.thats ok??
iklan baris gratis´s last blog ..Cara Pasti Meningkatkan Pendapatan Adsense dan Affiliasi Anda
its different with me, i am still like blogger than wordpress..because wordpress is still difficult for me until now..
Yo$ yang belajar´s last blog ..Tool mendapatkan Backlink
Once you have gone with one, how can you want to switch? There is just too much to learn…
good info . I always wait for new article of you
i like this site. i added on my bookmark i thanks..
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Awesome blog! Google Adsense is an awesome source of income for webmasters, Thanks for the post.Eddiehttp://www.postlinksongoogle.com
Just starting on the blogging thing so your article was very helpful – thank-you.
Thanks for the information Janith. I’m new to blogging world, still need to find sweet spot for getting traffic for my blog. I love using thesis because of its simplicity, and you only can get it by using wordpress
Wordpress Rock!
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Blogger gets my vote. But concerning SEO, well, I would say Blogger is harder to optimize. As you know, there are barely a handful blogspot.com blogs out there that was able to make it to the top.
According to some articles that I have read written by some SEO experts, Google SE itself has a little respect with their own Blogger.com. It doesn’t mean though that it can’t make it to the top. It can, but would be harder to optimize.
But I would agree that Blogger is FAR better than wordpress.com in terms of monetization. Wordpress is just for those who does not really care to monetize a blog. But it’s still good though.
Hosting your own personal Wordpress blog is still the best by far.
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