It’s the battle of the ages— Wordpres vs Blogger. Which one will meet your needs while providing you with the greatest ease of functionality?

Blogger.com and Wordpress.com are the two best known free blog hosting services. The tables below compare features on the two systems, although tumblr.com is now the fastest-growing free service.

Disadvantages of Blogger(Google Blogs) and Wordpress.com:

1) Blogger's Dynamic Views and the advertising on Wordpress.com mean these free services are not suitable for every type of blog.
2) New features at Blogger (blogspot.com) and Wordpress.com are turned on by default. You have to take action to opt-out if you don't want to include them in your blog (e.g. Blogger's Lightbox).
3) A paid upgrade is required to remove ads from WP.com blogs
4) Terms of Service — Blogs can be deleted without warning.

Advantages over self-hosted:

1) They're free.
2) Some hosting services could be more vulnerable to hackers and denial of service (DoS) attacks.
3) No need to back-up your database regularly for safe-keeping.
4) In addition to learning how to use the blog dashboard users would need to become familiar with a web hosting Control Panel.

Customization

    The ability to customize the templates is often on the top of the list of features. Blogger recently added a collection of templates to its repertoire. They are easy to use and give you the ability to change colors, fonts, and layouts. Advanced users can also edit the HTML and even add CSS.

    Wordpress is stricter with its template editing functionalities. However, the advantage to Wordpress is the 100+ themes it offers which rivals Blogger. The disadvantages are the limitations with customization, although with most themes, you can upload a custom header image and some other themes offer additional customization. Advanced users can edit the stylesheets, but this feature is only available as a paid upgrade.

Mobile Features

    Mobile Features allow users to interact with their blogs directly from their mobile devices.

    Blogger offers solutions for most mobile providers. You can read about them on their mobile providers page.  Wordpress offers similar mobile applications, but in contrast to Blogger it provides apps for the iPhone, iPad and recently for the HP TouchPad. See their mobile apps page for details.

Ease of use

Simple, easy interfaces are very important, especially for the novice user.

    Blogger is more geared towards the beginner user. Its interface is simple to use and very straightforward.
    Wordpress requires some time to adjust to its interface and platform. However, after you learn the ropes, it is easy to navigate.

Image Editing

Image Editing, though a seemingly unimportant feature, is actually a common feature used by many bloggers.

    Blogger allows for only one image upload at a time. Its image editing is also tedious since you must know HTML if you want to add a caption, insert a link or adjust the size of the image.

    Wordpres allows multiple image uploads at one time and its image editing capabilities are simple and straightforward. No HTML knowledge is required.

Characteristic of People who use both Platforms

Generally, those people who want a website that looks more professional choose Wordpres. Blogger sites contain the header on the top (see example below), whereas Wordpres does not contain a header.

Which one is right for you?

The decision over which one to use will come down to your personal preference. The great thing about both platforms is they are free to use. You can set up a blog with each platform and determine which one works best for your website and your needs.

Last edited by mycha21 (2011-12-16 19:00:20)