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Friday, August 7, 2009

Wordpress vs Blogger

As you probably know, yesterday I switched from Wordpress.com to Blogger. There are several reasons for this change, but let me remind you that both Wordpress.com and Blogger are very good blogging platforms and they are both free.


First of all, let's discuss on Wordpress. There are currently two main options from Wordpress:
  • WordPress is a free and open source blog publishing application and content management system. This one needs a domain name and a hosting server, which you have to buy. This one is for mainly for bloggers who have a good experience in the world of blogging.
  • Wordpress.com on the other side is a free web service which allows users to create easily free blogs. This one is great for beginners and it has a subdomain resembling to yourlink.wordpress.com
Till date, I have created two blogs on Wordpress.com. One is "Crazy About Ubuntu" and the other is "AloMoris". But I no longer maintain and update both blogs. One main advantage of Wordpress.com compared to Blogger is that it offers more detailed statistics on your blog unlike Blogger which offers nearly none. It also has a good gallery for managing your images and files. Wordpress.com also has the options to create pages instead of post and it has a much better commenting system. Interestingly, I have noticed that there are more changes and frequent updates on Wordpress.com compared to Blogger. However Wordpress.com seems less flexible in blogging and image posting. Wordpress.com also has less customization options and it doesn't support JavaScript. Sadly, Google AdSense is not supported by Wordpress.com

Now, let's move onto Blogger. Blogger was created by Pyra Labs and it was bought by Google in 2003. Blogger is completely hosted on Google Servers, which are indeed of very good quality and speed. It also has subdomain .blogspot.com which you can upgrade to a personalized .com domain name. Concerning Google Servers, it will be a definite good advantage to Mauritians and nearby African countries because Google is planning to set up servers in Mauritius which means even more speed and reliability. Posting images and posts to Blogger is indeed more easier and faster(though the servers are not yet set up). It also has more options to customize your blog like adding new themes, editing CSS and HTML and it also supports JavaScript. You can also monetize your blog freely and start earning money from it using Google AdSense which is indeed easy. One drawback of Blogger is that it has a 1 GB limit for your images and files which might seems very low for some. Blogger does not have a good commenting system(though it has several options for it). With Blogger, you don't get statistics about your blog and other related important informations. It doesn't allow you to create pages which are very different from posts.

VERDICT: After spending some time with both blogging platforms, I realised that Blogger is a much better blogging platform but that depends completely on the type of blogger you will be. Blogger was also used to create my first blog titled "Yadhav" which was created using a dial-up connection in 2007 when I was still in Form 1!

6 comments:

  1. Nice post. I haven't used WP before so can't really comment, but blogger just seems so easy and fast to use. Have you considered using Lijit to see your blog-stats. It's not that detailed at all, but is quite useful.

    You next post on torrents sounds like an interesting one!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Blogger's lack of statistics can be solved by using free services like StatCounter or Google Analytics.
    I was informed by Blogger that there'll be some new changes coming soon... (still waiting).

    Yay! I also started blogging on GPRS/dial-up! :p

    ReplyDelete
  3. @nav
    great that you liked it. thanks, i've just registered with lijit.

    @carrotmadman6
    i've registered with statcounter too, i've placed it below. waiting eagerly for the blogger stats too :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I started blogging wiz Nomad,lol and i have been only on my own hosted wordpress.
    Wordpress, 1 keyword : Unlimited customization.

    Ok, thats makes 2, but there's nothing like that in blogger.
    A simple example; pulling anything from the database (from another separate blog - viewable from my personal blog) through custom code, or setting up my photoblog, working exactly as I wanted.

    btw, blogspot comment sucks!
    Its time for you to switch to some other comments technique...if available of course :P

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  5. My friends, stats are no problem with Blogger. When you have Analytics, Feedjit and Feedburner, you have all the stats you need.

    What is annoying with Blogger is its commenting system!

    Do you consider changing template? Sa blancheur la kass lizie :D

    ReplyDelete
  6. @yashvin
    lol, sounds weird, but i had found your blog(yashvinblogs.com) while googling for nomad some years ago :P
    bruno had been suggesting me a few commenting system, i will be trying them all

    @bruno
    yeah, i will be trying some commenting systems on my other blogs. i will also try to modify the template to make it more "readable"

    ReplyDelete