Sajan Ratna ShakyaThe WordPress vs Blogger battle has been going on since the early stages of blogging. They both were developed to enhance the future of blogging and websites. And, they have been able to prove themselves to become one of the best blogging platforms or even website builders.
But there are still many questions on which one is better than the other as they both are used for similar purposes. The answer to this question can’t be answered right away. We need to compare both of them on their different aspects and features which is what will be done in this article.
Note: Our blog ThemeGrill Blog is also developed using WordPress. But we assure you that this will be a completely unbiased comparison and we’ll provide you with the best information possible on both the platforms.
1. WordPress vs Blogger: Overview
Before we start the direct comparison of various features of WordPress vs Blogger, let’s look at them briefly first.
What is WordPress? (Overview)
WordPress is a website building platform which enables users to create their own blogs, portfolio, online stores, or any types of websites. It was started in 2003 and now, it powers over 35% of the internet all over the world.
WordPress is available in 2 different flavors i.e., WordPress.com and WordPress.org. They both use the same ‘WordPress’ software as they share the term ‘WordPress’ on their name. But they work a bit differently from one another.
WordPress.com is a fully hosted platform that lets you start a blog or a website easily by a quick sign-up process. It is fully backed by Automattic, the company run by WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg.
To start a site on WordPress.com, you can simply sign up with a few steps and you’re ready to go. You don’t need to worry about any hosting, domain names, maintenance, and security issues as everything is handled by them.
On the other hand, WordPress.org is a self-hosted platform where you need to find your own hosting plan and domain name provider in order to start your blog or create a website. After that, you should install WordPress on your hosting account to get started.
Making a site with WordPress.org provides you complete freedom over your site. You can install any theme, plugins, or add as many ads you want. But freedom comes with responsibility. You must look after security, and backup services for your website.
If you want to know more about their differences, we do have a detailed guide on WordPress.com VS WordPress.org. Do check them out as well.
This article is a comparison of Bogger with WordPress.org, not with WordPress.com.
What is Blogger? (Overview)
Blogger was started in 1999 by Pyra Labs as a blogging service. But later, it was acquired by Google in 2003.
It is also one of the leading platforms when it comes to blogging. Many users do tend to use Blogger to create and start blogs due to its simplicity. To start a blog with Blogger, all you need is a Google or a Gmail account and you are all set to go blogging.
Blogger is also quite popular due to its focused purpose for blogging. You can use it only to create blog websites which makes it easier for bloggers to focus better on their blogs.
It is a fully hosted and completely free blogging service that provides you with their own hosting services and a Blogspot subdomain as well. But, if you want a custom domain name, it will cost you a price as third party domain registers are needed.
2. Ownership and Management of Site: WordPress vs Blogger
Ownership of a site is very important for not only on blogs. It is important on any type of website no matter which platform you choose to create.
If you can have full ownership of the site or blog, you have more freedom to manage your contents and monetize it. You can even choose when to migrate it or even shut it down if needed.
Ownership and Management of Site in WordPress
WordPress.org allows you a lot of freedom for your site for ownership and management. You can use your own custom domain and web hosting which will give you complete ownership of your blog.
Managing your website with WordPress is easier as well. It’s very convenient if you want to add a blog on your website since WordPress can be used to create websites other than blogs too. For example, you can include a blog on your business or portfolio website OR, create just an entire blog website with WordPress.org.
Since everything is managed by you in WordPress, every content on your blog website fully belongs to you and is completely owned by you. You can even shut down or change the custom domain and hosting plans anytime.
Ownership and Management of Site in Blogger
The ownership and management of the blog website are a bit different in Blogger from WordPress.
Blogger is run by Google which means the content you post on your blog website is not fully owned and controlled by you. This means that Google does have the right to shut down your blog or your access to it any time. However, such a situation may arise only when your blog contains misleading, inappropriate, explicit, or controversial content.
Blogger does provide you with adequate features and tools to post the content you need for your blogs. But, it is just restricted to just blogs only. You cannot really make other types of websites like eCommerce sites, portfolios, etc. So, if you want to create any other type of website, then you will need to use another website builder like WordPress.
3. WordPress vs Blogger: Which is Easier to Setup and Use?
Both WordPress and Blogger are quite easy to set up and use. But the steps to follow to start with them are a bit different.
Setup and Ease of Use in WordPress:
To start up your blogs or websites with WordPress is not that difficult.
First, you need to get a domain name and hosting. Thankfully, there are some services that provide both hosting as well as domain names as a combined package like Bluehost, SiteGround, and GoDaddy. It’s better to get them both from a single provider as it will be easier to manage your website later.
Then, you need to install WordPress. For more details on this, you can view our How to create a WordPress Website guide. Just follow the simple steps mentioned here and you can create your own blog or website in just minutes without coding.
WordPress does use a drag and drop interface on most of the sections. It also has a user-friendly block interface for blog posts. So, you won’t have any problem while creating your website.
Furthermore, there are also a lot of WordPress themes to speed up the process easily. You can also use some of the WordPress plugins to make your website even more fruitful. We’ll discuss them more in this article later.
Setup and Ease of Use in Blogger
Similar to WordPress, Blogger also has just a few simple steps to start your blog website. First, you need to make sure that you have a Google account.
Then, all you need to do is go to the Blogger website and sign up with your Google account. After that, you can simply click on the “Create Blog” option and start selecting your blog title, address and theme.
You can also configure the blog layouts and edit your blogs and other settings once you start writing your blog.
But unlike WordPress, you need to acquire knowledge on HTML for any further basic customizations.
4. Design Options in WordPress vs Blogger
Design is a very important part of any blog or website. So, it is very crucial that you need to view the design options provided by both the platforms as well.
The design options mostly consist of themes and templates. You can select a theme or a template that you want for your website and start customizing your website with it. It makes it easier to work with the websites as well as faster.
Design Options in WordPress
WordPress provides a huge amount of design options. One of its major design features is the availability of over 7500+ free themes. Check them out at the official theme repository.
You can find many collections of high-quality WordPress themes for almost any type of website. These themes are specifically designed for various types of websites like blogs, magazines, news, online stores, and so on. There are over 2000+ WordPress themes for blogs alone.
There are also a lot of multipurpose themes in WordPress. They can be very useful if you want to create multiple websites with different purposes using just a single theme.
We have a focused collection of some of the best WordPress themes and WordPress blog themes as well. They can really help in better design for your blog website.
All in all, you can use the drag and drop interface of WordPress to modify any part of the theme on your website. If you have coding skills, you can add custom CSS as well. With just a few tweaks, you can make your blog or a website look very unique
Design Options in Blogger
Compared to WordPress, Blogger offers quite a limited amount of templates for your blogs. These templates look very basic and you can find them on many other blogs in Blogger as well.
The amount of modifications that you can perform are also limited in comparison to WordPress. In the Blogger templates, you can just change the layouts and colors of the templates.
The combination of very few templates with fewer modifications does not suit well for Blogger in terms of design options. So, if you care a lot about the customizations on designs for your blog, you are better off with WordPress.
5. WordPress vs Blogger: Which is more Flexible?
Even though you have a very good design for your blog, you also need to make it flexible and functional for your users. So, let’s look at how each of the blogging platform performs in this sector
Flexibility in WordPress
In terms of flexibility and functionality too, WordPress can offer you a lot. It has a very huge repository of 55,000+ WordPress plugins which can really make your blogs and websites better. Some of these plugins can even make the design layout better and increase the features for your website.
They can also be classified as WordPress plugins specifically for SEO, speed, security, analytics, and many more. We even have a collection of some of the best WordPress plugins. Similarly, we also have a must-have collection of best WordPress blog plugins that can do wonders for your blogs.
For building a form, you can use the plugin Everest Forms, and for SEO, you can use Yoast SEO. Likewise, you can even use plugins like Google Analytics for WordPress to keep track of the stats of your website.
Similarly, you can find almost any type of plugin for any purpose in WordPress. These plugins can really help transform the blog or the website to another level.
Flexibility in Blogger
Blogger does have some additional tools to increase the flexibility of your blogs too. But just like its templates, they are also very few.
You can just add gadgets in Blogger which is similar to that of widgets in WordPress. But, the modifications that you can do with it are not enough.
Blogger provides users with only basic features like ads, contact forms, subscription links, and so on. But, the tasks you can perform with them are very limited. Also, unlike the plugins in WordPress, you can’t have extended functions for your blogs like popups and eCommerce features too.
6. Security in WordPress vs Blogger
Your blog won’t be worth it if the platform that you choose can’t keep it secure. Security is a key component of anything in the field of technology. Similarly, it is very crucial for your blogs too.
Security in WordPress
Since WordPress is a self-hosted platform, you are responsible for the security of the website as well. But don’t worry as you can completely secure it with just minimal efforts. All you need to do is add one or more security plugins and follow some simple steps.
There are even amazing WordPress security plugins available to keep it very secure. Some of the best ones are WordFence Security and Akismet. Some plugins like VaultPress can also help in the backup of your website in case of any unfortunate cases.
If you think that this is not enough, there are more WordPress security tips to keep your website secure. Some of them include securing WordPress login page, themes, plugins, database, and hosting environment.
Security in Blogger
The security in Blogger is also quite promising as it uses the highly secure system of Google. Their security is very spot on as well. So, you don’t have to worry about securing your blogs or creating backups.
However, if there is any problem in the Google server, it might affect your blogs as well. But since it’s Google, it is expected that any server problems will be solved quite quickly.
7. WordPress vs Blogger: Support
The customer or user support after you start using a product or a service is very important as well. Thankfully, both the platforms are well known for their excellent support for their users.
Support with WordPress
Since WordPress is one of the most widely used platforms, their support is also pretty active and helpful. They have their own support forum on WordPress.org where you can ask them about any themes or plugins.
The WordPress community is spread across most of the social media platforms as well. So, you can ask many users experienced with WordPress on these platforms about anything related to WordPress. And even if they are just WordPress users, not actual developers, they will be happy to help you.
Additionally, if you are using a paid WordPress service or product, it gets even more. The product or the service that you use even provides dedicated support with higher priority. Most products even provide well documented sources for you which can be a great help to you.
Support with Blogger
Blogger also provides some awesome support for their users even though they have very basic support options. Sure they might not have a big and widely spread community as that of WordPress. But, help will be provided for those who seek it in Blogger.
They have well presented documentations and tutorials which can be found on the help option. Blogger also have a support forum where you can ask about anything which might not be mentioned in the documents.
Blogger’s drawback on limited customization can be an advantage here. The problems that you might face with Blogger won’t be complex and can be easily tackled with its documentation. So, their forums, tutorials, and documentation are quite enough for your support on any type of problem.
You do need to keep in mind that Blogger is a free service. Hence, a dedicated support can’t be expected from Google at this level. But the quality of resources for support we get from it being a free service is purely adequate.
8. WordPress vs Blogger for Making Money
Blogs have been proven to be a great source for income as well. So, if you want to make a lot of money with your blogs, you need to compare their options for monetization as well.
Making Money from WordPress
You can limitless methods to make money from your blogs through WordPress. One of the most common methods of generating revenue through blogs is running ads on the website. This is available in WordPress
Also, one of the most reliable ways of creating an income from blogging is affiliate marketing. This is pretty simple as you just need to add an affiliate link on your blog. Then, you get a commission for every product purchase or site visit through your link.
You can also get sponsored by featuring or reviewing various products and services on your blog. Similarly, mailing lists and donations can also earn you an income. These all are some of the basic techniques to monetize your blog.
However, don’t forget that you can create an entire website with WordPress. So creating an income has more options here. You can sell goods or products and even start your own online store along with the blogs to get you more money.
If you plan to promote your business through blogs, you can earn even more by bringing more customers through your blogs. You can even link payment gateways for your business or online stores with WordPress easily.
Making Money from Blogger
The blogs in Blogger can generate you a decent income with the basic techniques. This includes affiliate marketing, ads, mailing lists, donations, and sponsored posts.
But since Blogger is limited to only blog websites, you can’t do much more from it. Sure it can indirectly help you to promote your business or services. But you will need some coding skills to integrate the payment gateways for it to work.
9. WordPress vs Blogger: Which is Better?
Both WordPress and Blogger can both be a great tool for you to start on blogs. But it mostly comes down to what you want and need for your blogs.
Our Verdict: If you are just a beginner who wants to start a blog immediately, just for the sole purpose of blogging, you can choose Blogger. It is most suitable for the ones who are very new to blogging.
But, if you have some experience with blogging and want to create a professional blog with more customizations and limitless options for income, WordPress is the best option.
If you found this article helpful, do read some more from us too:
- What is the Difference Between a Blog and a Website? (Explained)
- Best WordPress Forum Themes to Build an Online Forum
- How to Customize the WooCommerce Login and Registration Form?
Yes, you’re right Andrew! WordPress is definitely a better blog platform. Its features, flexibility, themes, plugins, and extendibility is unmatchable with Blogger.
Thanks for reading our article and leaving a comment. Please stay tuned for more amazing articles. 🙂