WordPress vs Blogger Review

by: RobertB

edited by: AJ Klein

Description

WordPress and Blogger are two blogging platforms that offer some excellent features that span from beginning bloggers to professional content producers for the web. Apart of each platform are themes, an editor, different settings, and other features that make up each's respective Content Management System (CMS). While Blogger focuses almost exclusively on blogging, WordPress has become an extensive tool that can be extended into creating full-fledged websites. In order to use the full potential of WordPress, PHP, CSS, JS, and HTML coding is necessary; Blogger can support HTML, CSS, and JS, but this option does not extend the core functionality of the platform.

Access

WordPress - free as an install from WordPress.org, free with paid extras from WordPress.com as a hosted solution

Blogger - free from Blogger.com

Sample Usage

Tips, Tricks and Tutorials

WordPress

• creating a blog is very straight forward out of the box, but going past that takes a bit of learning and knowledge
• don't be afraid to use plugins and themes
• if you are using your own solution, check out WP Total Cache, but use it sparingly
• if you know PHP and can host your own, there is some amazing stuff that is possible
• check out the WordPress Codex for coding help

Blogger

• Integrate Google Plus into everything you can so Google gives you the rel="author" help in search results
• keep your use of this platform to blogging only
• use the dashboard to see how popular your posts are 

What the Tool Does Well

WordPress

• stretches from a blogging platform to rich-featured CMS
• able to be extended through plugins and themes
• huge developer community
• hosted solution at WordPress.com
• great documentation 

Blogger

• integrates with Google services
• gives analytics about your blog to you
• easy to understand editor
• focuses on one thing: blogging 

What it Does Poorly

WordPress

• no Markdown support
• allows plugins and themes to sometimes hurt the core experience
• cluttered admin layout can become confusing very fast
• old, outdated, and bad editor 

Blogger

• cannot extend very well past blogging
• navigation through control panel can be confusing
• no Markdown support
• very few themes 

What happens when you...

Both of these platforms offer quite a bit of functionality, so if you run into problems or have a question like this one, Google the question because chances are someone has already answered it already.

Additional Resources

WordPress Codex

Below is the original review text, preserved for comparison. 

  WordPress vs. Blogger Review
 
       WordPress and Blogger are very easy to install CMS programs that allow the user to instantly download the program for free and start to blog right away. WordPress guides you through the set-up of new member blogs and is very helpful for new users unfamiliar with the blogging process.  To help new users there is 10 step walk through guide that can help users to understand how the website and blogging work.  After the initial set-up you are then free to explore the many themes and plugins offered by the sight to personalize your blogging experience.  Blogger is also extremely simple to set up and is great at managing your account via blocking hackers, protecting the user from hosting problems, and so forth. Blogger also gives you the freedom to forward your existing Blogger blog to your domain very rapidly since Google is the creator; a newer change to the Blogger site. 
 
        As with most websites and tools, users need to make sure that they stay up to date with the new WordPress installations and the newest versions to keep your blogging site as up to date as possible. Another con to WordPress is that since it is so easy to use many users can outgrow this site and end up looking for blogging sites more complex.  A few problems that arise with the Blogger site is it can be tricky to import external plugins or widgets to your blog. Blogger also has a very limited selection as far as themes for the user page go and the site is very slow to load due to the over use of Google in the first place.
 
        WordPress and Blogger are definitely great sites for new users trying to get a handle on blogging without too many distractions or having an overload problem because they are having to take in so much information at once.  However, keep in mind that as far as widget and plugins go WordPress is by far ahead of Blogger for the time being. Also, WordPress gives the user the most freedom over what they can write, Blogger can and will delete you page if they do not like what you have said. With that being said WordPress is probably the best bet for Blogging even though both sites have their pros and cons.  If you are an advanced blogger these sites may or may not suit your needs, but for the beginners they are recommended.

websites- www.wordpress.com

              - www.blogger.com