Blogger
Blogger is an
online blogging software which was initially developed by Pyra Labs but Google
acquired it later in 2003. Ever since the acquisition, Google is hosting the
blogging platform and powering millions of bloggers from around the world. The
very blog you are reading right now, is being hosted by Blogger only. You can
create a free blog on Blogger and start writing Posts at
ease. A Post can be anything, from your daily diary entry to your
vacation photos to Articles based on various topics. It's pretty easy to use
because of the simplified User Interface (UI).
WordPress
Just like
Blogger, WordPress is also an online blogging software that helps you make your
own blogs and write posts on it. It was founded by Matt Mullenweg and Mike
Little in the same year, Google acquired Blogger, 2003. WordPress provides CMS
(Content Management System) built upon PHP and MySQL, two highly popular
languages.
Differences
between Blogger and WordPress
- Domains or Blog Names
Sub-domain
accounts are free of charge on both the platforms. YourName·blogspot·com and
YourName·wordpress·com are sub-domains whereas YourName·com is called a Custom
Domain or Full Domain.
- Hosting Fees
Hosting means
uploading files to your website address and make the website available for
use. If you use a sub-domain, you can freely host the website with Blogger's
own servers. Actually, they take care of hosting by themselves. You only need
to get your blog running by posting contents. Even on WordPress, you get free
hosting for your sub-domain. Things start to change when you need a custom
domain. Imagine you bought up a custom domain from GoDaddy·com for your
website, let's say YourName·com. Now in this case, you'll need to pay for
hosting on WordPress. However, the hosting is still free of charge on Blogger.
- Making Money
With time passing,
if you reach a stage when your blog becomes too popular and you make up your
mind to sell space on your blog by placing ads through Ad companies, you cannot
do that on a free WordPress account or a sub-domain. Instead, they are able to
put their Ads on your blog if they may (Although that rarely happens). However,
you can sell Ad space on your Blogger blog hassle-free, whether you own a
sub-domain or a custom domain.
- Themes and Layouts
The default
Blogger themes seem to be a little old have less featured than the default
WordPress themes. WordPress also has much more plugins available for its
users than Blogger users. However, Blogger themes and layouts can be easily
customized through the HTML code directly. This is not possible on default
WordPress themes.
Notes:
Infinite* means
although these assets are infinite in number they depend on the condition
that the number of queries available per MySQL relation on the server
determines the infinity.
Infinite+ means
they depend on the available server size hosted by Blogger.
Advantages and
Disadvantages
BLOGGER: PROS
1. Unlimited
Free Hosting: Whether you own a custom domain or not, you get
unlimited free hosting space on this platform.
2. Complete
Customization: Blogger templates support 100% customization, which
means, you can customize your blog or website in whatever manner you want to.
Either you can customize the templates provided by default by Blogger, upload a
new template written by yourself, or download a template from somewhere on the
web and upload it. To top it off, Blogger also provides a rich template Editor
based on Graphic User Interface for people who can't code template.
Some people
think that Blogger platform is not good when SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
is concerned. I guarantee that this is false. How can a platform be poor on SEO
that is powered by Google, the king behind SEO itself?In fact, blogger blogs
are more easily found in Google search results as compared to WordPress blogs.
3. Deeply
Linked with Google Services: This platform, since owned by Google, is
highly linked with other Google Services. For example, you can use either
Blogger or Google Plus account to use it as your Blogger Profile. You can use
either the default Blogger comments system or the new Google+ comments. You can
also put Google AdSense Ads within your blog at ease with options provided
within the Blogger Layout Management.
4. Great
Help Resources: The web is full of tutorials aimed at helping the new
bloggers. In fact, Blogger has the largest amount of tutorials available on the
web. This might be due to the fact that Blogger is highly tweak-able, and hence
open to tremendous opportunities of modifications.
5. Free
Ad-Free: Blogger blogs are Ad-Free by default. Google won't show any
of its Ads on your blog unless they pay you for that. They'll only be able to
show ads if you sign up for a Google Adsense account and allow Google to show
Ads on your blog for which you get having paid. This is not true for free
WordPress blogs. They have the right to show Ads on free spaces available on
your blog. Although, those Ads can be removed once and for all for $30. It's
worth notifying that Ads often slow down the blog performance, affecting SEO
severely.
6. Hone
Your Skills: With access to the template code, you can hone your web
development skills my making changes and sees how it reflects back on the blog.
You can learn a lot of about HTML and CSS just from the template code itself.
BLOGGER: CONS
1. Dated
Templates: While you are free to get as many new templates from the web you want for your blog, the default templates provided by Blogger seems to
be out-of-date.
2. Less
Plugins: WordPress blogs are rich with many powerful plugins available
(although some of them are dated out much). Some plugins even help in making
the blog more SEO-friendly with just a click. However, Blogger blogs have less
plugins (Gadgets) in comparison.
3. Ownership: Whether
you host on a free sub-domain or full domain, although it's not happening any
time soon due to millions of blogs running across the web, but Google owns the
right to shut down Blogger at any time.
WORDPRESS: PROS
1. Long
Term Commitment: WordPress is an Open Source software. It means that
it's future is independent of the actions taken by the WordPress community alone.
It's powered by hundreds and thousands of people across the globe and is not
easy to shut down any time soon. Its future is more reassuring than Blogger.
2. Modern
Default Templates: The default templates provided by WordPress look
more modern and match today's lifestyle than those provided by Blogger. Many
indie developers upload and sell their templates on WordPress templates gallery
frequently.
3. Faster
Updates: WordPress often update their website and database (MySQL) to
meet modern web requirements. This seems to be a rather slow a case on Blogger
since they rely on self-hosting made by Google itself.
4. Multiple
Hosting Services: You get to choose from tons of hosting services
available worldwide. They all have different plans depending upon your needs.
Hosting services also depend upon their server quality and availability. But in
case of Blogger, where the blogs are self-hosted by Google if Blogger servers
go down then all the blogs may go down.
WORDPRESS: CONS
Limited
Customization: These blogs are hard enough to customize because
the template code isn't directly available to the user.
Less Help Support: Help
Resources are limited as compared to Blogger. The reason behind this has been
discussed in the Pros of Blogger above.
So, what are your
views on the ones we discussed? Sound off in the comments below!
Thank you
and happy blogging!
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