Blogger vs WordPress: Which One Should You Choose?

Blogger vs WordPress? This age old dilemma has baffled many a new blogger as they take their first tentative steps into the world of blogging.

As the two undisputed leaders of the free blogging sphere, Blogger and WordPress.com offer budding wordsmiths the opportunity to freely express themselves – however, there are some core differences in the way these platforms work.

Choosing the right one for you involves considering the pros and cons of both platforms, as well as what you want from your blogging experience. Luckily we love a good pro/con list, so we’ve done all the hard work for you…

Blogger

Blogger was one of the first blogging platforms available, hitting the web way back in the dim, distant past – otherwise known as 1999. In 2003 it was bought by Google and underwent a number of transformations.

The Pros…

 One of the key advantages that Blogger commands is its relationship to Google – who are, after all, the undisputed kings of the internet. You will need to set up a Google account in order to use Blogger, but benefits include:

• Reliable hosting – Blogger sites are hosted on Google’s servers, so you’re unlikely to experience any down time
• World class security – As long as you look after your Google account password, it is virtually impossible for your blog to be hacked. WordPress is known to be far more vulnerable to attack
• Simple navigation – The basic navigation of Blogger’s back-end makes it easy to use for tech-shy bloggers
• Fast indexing – With Google dominating the web, your Blogger site will be indexed by the search engine more quickly than if you self-hosted your blog
• Easy social sharing – Blogger integrates seamlessly with Google’s other products, such as  Gmail, YouTube, and Google+
• Advertising – Easily connects with Google Adsense, allowing you to place adverts and make money from your site

The Cons….

• Only offers basic site-management tools such as scheduling posts – although these are easy to use
• Blogger is designed for people with less technical experience, and so it offers fewer customisation features
• Help forums are not particularly well organised, so you may have to do some digging to find the answers you want

WordPress

The current WordPress platform is based on the open source server-based blogging software that was first released in 2003. There are two distinct versions – WordPress.org which relies on you to host your blog yourself, and the free, hosted WordPress.com, which is discussed here.

The Pros…

• Advanced content adding features – If you’re willing to spend some time learning how to use the various tools available, WordPress offers more advanced content-adding features
• Advanced social sharing – The Publicize feature allows you to do more than simply link to social networks – you can automatically send messages to the services with links to your most recent post
• Superior site management tools – WordPress gives you the ability to manage comments, create polls and rate individual posts
• In depth traffic management tools – You can find out more about your traffic such as page views by the day, week or month and which sites are referring traffic to your blog
• Useful help forums – Clearly organised and regularly updated help forums offering in-depth solutions to problems
• Scalable service – You can pay to upgrade your WordPress to access more tools or to have your own custom domain

The Cons….

• The setup is more complicated than Blogger, and the myriad of options can be intimidating at first
• WordPress.com isn’t compatible with JavaScript for security reasons, which means you can’t embed Rafflecopter widgets on your blog
• You can’t advertise on WordPress.com unless you pay to host your own site

 So…Which is Right for You?

Blogger and WordPress both offer budding bloggers a great platform from which to start their blog. The answer to which is better really come down to what you want from your blog in the future, how much time your prepared to spend learning and how confident you are with technology.

If you want something simple, that anybody can use and don’t mind that whilst you will be able to create a great looking, fully functioning blog you will be limited on features, then Blogger is for you.

Alternatively, if you’re happy to spend some time learning and want to have access to more complex tools, as well as the ability to fully customise your blog, WordPress is the right choice.

Although it doesn’t offer you the ability to advertise on the free hosted version, it is far more scalable than Blogger, and therefore probably the better choice if you are blogging for business purposes, as it can grow with your business.

What are your experiences with Blogger and WordPress? Which platform would you choose?