Top Blogging Platforms in 2024: Find Your Perfect Match (Free & Paid)

Whether you wish to start your own blog or maybe looking to promote your business more effectively by launching a blog, you need to have a content management system or a blogging platform. A content management system is also known as a blogging platform. Several blogging platforms are available online but not all of them provide the functionality of a CMS (content management system) and lack the functionality required to grow your blog.

Microblogging sites, online publishing platforms, and content management systems are available in large numbers. Hence it can become confusing for someone with little to no experience to choose the perfect stack.

Trust me there are so many CMSs and blogging platforms from open source to proprietary. If you are a beginner you may have heard of WordPress, Ghost, Wix, Squarespace, Medium, Tumblr, etc. WordPress is the most popular of them and it should be popular since it is open source and easy to learn & use.

A blogging platform or CMS takes care of website design, content editing, customization, format style, managing the media files like images and videos, etc. Both also make it more smooth for a search engine to categorize the blog entries and give benefits of marketing and advertising opportunities.

BEST BLOGGING PLATFORMs

In this article, I will explain different CMSs or blogging platforms which you can use to set up your blog. So, without further ado let’s jump in.

WordPress.org

If you want to be your own boss in Blogging, then the WordPress.org is the best blogging platform for you. WordPress offers a vast number of themes and plugins that you can use to design your website and add additional functionality with plugins. As a result, users experience an excellent balance between ease of use and more powerful options.

• Learn WordPress for Free – A Beginner’s Guide 2020

Being a self-hosted CMS, you get to manage everything from scratch (Domain, hosting, security) to the website features such as design, customization, optimization, media, and all SEO factors. There are tons of WordPress themes available with flexible options for a custom look. You can choose free or paid themes depending on your requirements. In case you are looking for premium support in handling your website, you can turn to an exceptionally large WordPress community.

Pros:

1. A lot of customization features.
2. Full control over your website.
3. Growing your website is so much easy with WordPress.
4. The availability of so many themes and plugins make it easy to design your website and add additional features.
5. SEO is made easy with WordPress. Search engines love the websites created with WordPress.
6. It powers the largest number of websites in the world.
7. Monetize to any scale

Cons:

1. A large learning curve when it comes to managing your own website.
2. You need to take care of backup and security yourself.
3. It becomes bloated sometimes when it must use so many plugins.
4. Being a most used platform, it attracts hackers.
5. If you are using a free theme you won’t get a lot of customization features.

Constant Contact Website Builder

The Constant Contact website builder is a separate solution offered by Constant Contact. It is owned by Endurance International Group, the same company that owns the hosting solution providers like Bluehost, Hostgator, Bigrock, ResellerClub, and much more.

Constant Contact website builder costs $10 and has several features to offer like Storage, SSL, Blog, Security, connect Custom Domain, eCommerce features, and several marketing features.

Pros:

1. All the features of Constant Contact builder under one plan that costs $10/month
2. Suitable for beginners
3. No need to pay for extras like SSL, Analytics, connecting your own domain, logo maker, etc.

Cons:

1. Limited control
2. Not many plugins available like WordPress
3. Limited integration options
4. Migrating to other platforms is so difficult

WordPress.com

If you are feeling confused, there are two different platforms WordPress.org and WordPress.com. WordPress.org is a self-hosted CMS where you need to buy your own hosting plan. Whereas WordPress.com is a hosted platform for bloggers and people who want to build their websites.

WordPress.com is created by the co-founder of WordPress and is offered as a hosting solution. It has a free plan where you could host your website with a free wordpress.com subdomain. Fortunately, you also have the option to use a custom domain for an additional cost.

1. No setup needed
2. Usage and management are easy.
3. People behind it knows their stuff.

Cons:

1. The free plan gives you the ability to use the wordpress.com subdomain only.
2. Limited customization options
3. Upgrading to premium plans can be costlier than using the self-hosted WordPress.
4. Even the premium plans do not offer so much customization features like self-hosted WordPress.

Blogger or blogspot

Blogger is a platform by Google for bloggers. It is a popular platform and one of the best choices. You don’t even need to purchase the hosting for free as your blogs are hosted by Google itself.

Some of the most successful bloggers started their journey with a blogger. I am not bluffing but I’m saying it because this platform is so famous from old time. Because it’s completely free, offers automatic Google search indexing and so many other benefits. Nowadays, Google still retains many benefits in the blogging space, including that you already have a Blogger account with your existing Google account.

By creating your blog with Blogger, you get a free blogspot.com domain name and it also allows you to customize the domain name. Hence, it’s easy to use and you will get a choice of templates that can be easily modified.

As this is offering by Google then it’s pretty obvious that you will get the other Google Products with it such as Google Analytics. Here, you will get information about your readers, it will help you to grow traffic. You can integrate your blog with Google’s AdSense, where you can analyze your content, and get monetization by displaying the relevant ads.

Pros:

1. No need to create a separate account, use your Google account instead.
2. Powered by Google so do not need to worry about the infrastructure.
3. Connect your own domain name for free.
4. Prebuilt templates.

Cons:

1. Not good for large websites
2. No control on your website.
3. Google is known for abandoning their projects.
4. Limited availability of templates.

Medium

Medium is an online publishing platform. It’s an open space for readers and writers alike, and unique in the fact that good stories can rapidly gain exposure.

Medium is free to join (sign up by connecting with Google or Facebook), and readers can also upgrade to a membership for $5/month, giving them uninhibited access to in-depth tailored content. Here, Medium welcomes all creatives and learners to soak up endless inspiration. You can Import content with ease. Medium allows you to import your work remotely via the web, effectively re-publishing it to their platform. Just one click and your story can move from your own personal website on to Medium. There is no duplicate penalty drawback. Because syndicating the content is different than duplicating it.

In terms of SEO, Medium will help you out! Connecting with and growing your social media following is also easier. You can link your social media profiles with your Medium account it allows other people to discover you. Medium makes sure that you are everywhere and easily discovered when you share something on social platforms. You can promote your content by hashtags, and more.

Medium also offers analytic tools that will tell you how your own content is performing. You can check the report from how many people viewed it, to how many read it to the very end, and even the average time each reader spent on the article. One of the biggest bonuses of Medium: it comes with an audience! You have the unique opportunity to convert some of the site’s readers into your audience. Besides, there are some more benefits like you’re not limited by the API.

Pros:

1. Easy to use.
2. No technical skills required.
3. Get access to the existing community of readers.
4. No need to worry about designing your website.

Cons:

1. Limited features.
2. You don’t own your audience and blog.
3. Inability to use your own domain.
4. Inability to run your own ads.

Tumblr

Tumblr is best known as a microblogging and social media website for bloggers. Many users are using Tumblr for their blogging. The great thing about Tumblr is, here you can publish short content also or just post an image, or link, that can appear as more of an alternate social media post.

No platform is offering this kind of features, write the short posts consisting of a variety of material, for example, pics, jokes, quips, Spotify tracks, and video (except adult content).

It’s a social media platform like Twitter and Facebook, where you can share others’ posts and display on your profile, follow other bloggers.

Pros:

1. Great for beginners.
2. Free with a Tumblr subdomain.
3. Zero technical skills required.
4. Integrated social media components.
5. Easy to quickly blog anything from videos to audio media.

Cons:

1. Features are so limited.
2. Can’t add additional functionality like WordPress.
3. Migrating to other platforms is near to impossible.

Wix

Wix is the next wonderful blogging platform for creative’s, bloggers, and writers who want stunning websites. It offers easy drag and drop website builders, templates, and yes, of course free site hosting. This platform is user-friendly but if you are a beginner then this can take some time to understand the features. They offer appealing designs created by Wix ADI, form a collection of 500+ templates available.

Once your blogging site popular, you can upgrade with the premium plan anytime. Wix is a great blogging platform for medium-level users who have time and patience to create a website. There are a sheer number of designs available to choose from so that beginners may remain perplexed anytime. Besides, upgrading options make it ideal for business owners.

Pros:

1. So many templates and third-party apps.
2. Drag and drop builder makes easy to design websites.
3. Powered with ADI.
4. Quick setup.

Cons:

1. Wix branding is shown on your website with a free plan.
2. Third-party apps integration is limited.
3. Inability to change the template after publishing your website.
4. No eCommerce features with the free plan.
5. Limited blog features.

Ghost

If you’re looking for an open-source blogging platform other than WordPress, here it is. Ghost is the simplest blogging platform, that is easy to use and manage. It is a blogging platform that relies on a crisp and minimal user interface. This platform never offers a wide array of websites; this platform only offers to blog. Ghost comes in two variants: a self-hosted version that is free to download and use, and a hosted version on Ghost’s servers.

Here, you will not get a free hosted plan, but you can avail 14 days free trial. Hence, users are not limited by the hosting options in any manner. To design your blog website, you can use themes form the themes marketplace or upload your own custom themes.

With Ghost you will get everything you need for SEO, social profile option, so you do not need external plugins for that purpose. You can create and edit posts anytime, and that is pretty much easy.

Pros:

1. Completely focused on blogging and publishing.
2. Minimal interface.
3. It is faster than any other platform in this article.
4. It doesn’t need many technical skills.
5. SEO is implemented right into it, no need for additional plugins.

Cons:

1. Not easy to install by yourself.
2. Limited customization options.
3. A limited number of themes.
4. Focused on blogging only.

Squarespace

Squarespace is a software as a service for building websites and hosting them. It offers pre-built templates with drag and drops features to create different sections of the website.

This platform is very user friendly and they offer wonderful designs and templates. It’s pretty difficult to make your website look bad. Here, you can easily set up and can avail expert advice anytime. They offer also give free domain name for the first year.

Pros:

1. Great for beginners and small businesses.
2. Not need to be technically educated.
3. Well-designed website templates.

Cons:

1. Proprietary platform.
2. Limited customization options.
3. Limited integration with other tools.
4. Limited templates.
5. Not good for large websites.

Gator by Hostgator

It is a website builder offered by the hosting company HostGator. Gator offers a drag and drop website builder tool to design your website of any kind. It doesn’t matter what you want to make it has plenty of features for creating a blog, business website, and even an eCommerce store.

Gator is a separate service from web hosting solutions offered by HostGator. Hence you are not bound to use their own website building solution. You may sign up for their hosting plan and build your website with any CMS or platform.

Pros:

1. Drag and drop builder makes it easy to design your website
2. No technical knowledge required
3. HostGator takes care of Backup and Security
4. Free domain with all plans

Cons:

1. Limited integration options
2. No free account
3. For eCommerce website building, need to pay higher
4. Limited control

Which is the best blogging platform?

Choosing the right blogging platform is a decision that you should make yourself. But still, I have listed some of the most popular platforms in this article.

Now if you ask me which are the best blogging platforms, my answer will be WordPress.org. The reason for recommending WordPress is that it is one of the oldest and most used platforms in the world. It is used by more than 35% of websites in the world. Millions of users are currently using WordPress to connect with their audience.

Other blogging platforms are also great which are offering unique features but still, WordPress tops the chart due to the low cost, vast customization options, large community, and so many support channels. In addition to that, you host it on your own web hosting server, which gives you the ability of full control over your website and its data.

If you’re still unsure, then I’d suggest testing out a few of these different blogging platforms. The more you expose yourself to the differences of each, the better you’ll recognize your needs and be able to choose the perfect blogging platforms for you.

That’s all from me! So, what do you think – which of these platforms would you nominate as the best blogging platform? Please feel free to let me know in the comments!

Must check these too:

• LEARN WORDPRESS FOR FREE – A BEGINNER’S GUIDE 2023
• HOW TO MAKE MONEY BLOGGING?
• HOW TO START A BLOG IN INDIA IN 2023?

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