WordPress.org Vs. Blogger. Which is better?

You're probably starting a new blog, and wondering which blogging platform is the best for you. It is easy to decide which one is better, but you need to know all of the important factors that surround the decision.

Which is better? Blogspot or WordPress.org

This question requires your own judgment, depending on your budget, goals, skills, requirements, purpose, etc. Other people will have you believe that Blogger isn't customizable enough or that WordPress requires too much technical know-how, but that just isn't the case.

WordPress and Blogger are two of the biggest blogging platforms in the world, they are definitely two of the most popular ones.

According to data from Built With, The Content Management Service Distribution for the top one million websites on the internet consist of about 36% WordPress websites and 1% Blogger websites.

Disclaimer: Neither this post nor these stats are about Blogger vs. Wordpress.com, this post is only about Blogsport vs. Wordpress.org.

Which One Is Better, Blogspot, or WordPress?

I'll leave the final decision up to you, but for that, let me give you an insight into all the important factors that you need to take into consideration while choosing between WordPress and Blogspot.

Price

How much are you willing to invest? How much is your budget? Depending on your end goal, do you actually need to invest? I hope you've thought about these questions first.

If you don't have the money to invest in a website, you're confused about your dedication, think it's too soon to invest, don't want to invest at all or just want a blog as a hobby, then you should know that blogs made with Blogspot require zero investment.

You can start writing your content and reach your audience whenever you want without having to spend a dime, and yes, if you do it right, you can earn from your Blogger blog as well.

On the other hand, WordPress.org is a platform where you would require self-hosting and a custom domain name before you can start up your blog and reach your audience, i.e, you would require a small startup investment before you get started no matter what your goal is.

Although the startup cost isn't very expensive, for example, through Bluehost's WordPress special offer, you can get a Free Domain, SSL Certificate, plus extra features when you purchase their hosting for a WordPress blog/website, all at just 2.75 USD.

Because it is possible for you to set up a BlogSpot blog in just 5 minutes with no investment whatsoever, and also because setting it up on BlogSpot is easier than on WordPress,

Winner: BlogSpot

Themes

You wouldn't want your blog to look all dull and boring. You have the ability to color-code, add tools and features, services, etc to your blog to make it attractive, to attract your viewers, and to make your blog take off.

Pre-Existing Themes

But, BlogSpot offers a very small range of themes for you to choose from, and on the other hand, WordPress has a theme library with thousands of themes to choose from. These are themes that you can set up on your site with just a few clicks and no technical knowledge whatsoever.

You can choose a BlogSpot theme but the problem with that is that those themes have already been used by so many people, so they are unoriginal and boring, whereas that isn't the case for Blogger.

External Themes

The great thing about both platforms is that if you have any knowledge of coding, have bought/are using free copies of themes from other sources, then you can easily upload them to your blog and customize them as much as you want.

In simpler words, there are a lot of sites that let you purchase blog themes or distribute them for free with a credit footer. And once you have the theme's XML file, you can easily follow the instructions to upload it to your blog.

Read: How to Remove the Designed/Created by Copyright Mark From A Free Blogger Template

So in conclusion, while Blogger doesn't offer many themes on its own, there are a lot of sites that do. And for WordPress, they have a lot of themes already in their themes library, but you can get more from external sources as well. 

Although, it could be a tie, because of the ease of the process and the fact that it has more options for you to choose from both internally and externally,

Winner: WordPress

Static Websites / UIUX websites / Portfolios / Online Stores and more

If you want to make a website to represent your startup, company, service, your own portfolio, etc, then WordPress is the go-to because of how customizable it is.

BlogSpot also allows HTML customization, just as mentioned before, you can get templates from template distributors online easily, and a lot of them make templates that look amazing, but, there still isn't as room for customization and sleek-presentability as much as there is for WordPress. 

While making an eCommerce site or an Online Store, again WordPress is recommended. It is also easily possible on BlogSpot, but WordPress makes it much easier and much more presentable and usable.

Winner: WordPress

Customization

You can add many plugins to WordPress with just a few clicks, and there are so many amazing options to choose from, plus there are many plugins offered externally as well, so you can have so many unique features on your website.

On the other hand, Blogger does offer such features, but there are very limited options offered by Google. Blogger does have the capability to accept any external widgets/gadgets/codings you want to add, but you would mainly be dependent on services.

So basically, you can add Mail Subscription services, Ads, Tools for your Users, Promotion widgets, Sharing options, and so much more on both platforms.

The only differences are that WordPress makes it a bit easier to do so, and it also offers more plugins/tools for you to add, without needing any coding experience.

Winner: WordPress.

Control

Although Blogger and WordPress, both let you have tons of control and flexibility for your blogs, WordPress just lets you do a bit more.

If you really expect that your blog will require a lot of features, that it would have to accommodate tens of thousands of viewers in the future, that you want to grow something large out of it, then you would definitely need more control than what BlogSpot has to offer unless you have the patience and ability to sit down and make those improvements manually on Blogger.

WordPress has a drag and drop builder as well, making your entire site completely customizable, i.e, you would have full control over it. 

There are a lot of such benefits while using WordPress, but yes, if you try, you can also bring those features to life on a BlogSpot Blog.

Winner: WordPress.

Support

You can get help with both services. BlogSpot users and WordPress users, both have communities dedicated to helping each other. There are multiple tutorial blogs, expert users, etc that can guide you.

Other than that, WordPress has a good Support Service, where the community is very active. You can get support for each and every individual plugin. There are Q/A pages for multiple topics/plugins/issues etc. so you can expect a lot of guidance.

BlogSpot also has community forums, but it isn't as active. Also, BlogSpot has Q/A pages but the information provided is very limited. Most help can be found from external sources.

If you are using paid tools, plugins, or service for your blog, then you can get separate dedicated support from those service providers.

Winner: WordPress

Pages Allowed

WordPress allows an unlimited number of pages whereas BlogSpot only allows twenty pages. Remember that pages are different from blog posts. 

The limited number of pages on BlogSpot shouldn't be much of a problem unless you are mainly inclined towards making something like a UIUX, Static, Portfolio, or Shopping website. 

There are also walkarounds to make more pages on BlogSpot, but WordPress makes it easier. Depending on what you require, this may or not be important.

Winner: WordPress.

Ownership

On a WordPress Blog, you are completely responsible for the hosting, domain, taking backups, and everything else. You own the blog completely.

With Blogger, your blog is owned by Google, which means that although you can customize it, earn from it, take care of it, and have full access to it, Google can shut it down under certain circumstances, i.e, the final stance of authority lies with Google itself.

You don't fully own your content on Blogger because it's all sitting on Google's servers, but yes, you can export your content. Even so, the content will stay in Google's data servers for along time. This isn't much of a drawback but it does restrict your possible growth. 

Google as a history of abandoning projects without any warning, that is why it is a bit risky to put too much into your BlogSpot blog. But, considering how Blogger is a very popular product, it may be unlikely to happen.

Winner: WordPress

Monetization

Monetization from Google AdSense is much easier to set up on Blogger, but it is possible for both websites. The difference is that you can monetize to the maximum amount on WordPress with full control unlike on Blogger.

The plugins required to set up AdSense are already present on Blogger Blogs, considering they are both Google products, but you would have to set those plugin up on your own in WordPress, which isn't too hard.

The payments remain unaffected on both platforms, i.e, you will earn the same amount for the same number of clicks on the same ads. You can earn money from Blogspot and WordPress, promote sponsorships, do affiliate marketing, etc.

You will still have control over the monetization of both platforms for when, where, and how the ads should be displayed, but WordPress makes full customization easier for the long-term.

Winner: WordPress

Domain and Hosting Options

As mentioned before, you would require a hosting platform and a domain before you set up your WordPress blog, but you can get started on BlogSpot without any investments at all.

You have the ability to add domains on both platforms

Security

Blogger has Google as its strong backbone, so there are extra layers of security for your blog with Google's servers backing up your blog's content. 

Blogger blogs also have SSL certificates and run their blogs with HTTPS instead of HTTP. On WordPress, you ould have to manually take care of your blog's secuity by buying SSL certificates, installing proper plugins, manually taking backups of your blog, etc.

Blogger saves you from this hassle.

Winner: Blogger

Ease of Use: Beginner Friendly + Learning Curve

Blogger can be used by anyone, and it doesn't require any experience at all. You just need a Google account and with a few clicks, your blog can be live.

The blogger dashboard is easy to navigate and content creation is very easy to do as well. Blogger lets you learn as you go making it a really easy learning curve.

So you can create a blog and customize the theme and features gradually.

WordPress has more of a steep learning curve. You should be able to manually create your blog, update your own services handle its security, etc. 

But while customizing your blog, WordPress' drag and Drop feature is really useful, whereas you'd need to edit your HTML in Blogger to customize it like that.

Considering the learning curve, especially for beginners,

Winner: Blogger

Migration Options

WordPress has made it really easy to migrate to other platforms, to shift from one host/domain to another, to transfer content from one blog to another, etc.

Blogger also allows you to export your content, theme, etc. and to shift from one domain to another, but it makes changing hosts a bit difficult.

If you shift from your blogger blog, you're likely to lose your SEO, ranking, viewers, authority, etc. Plus, all your content from Blogger will stay on Google's servers for a long time, so basically transferring into Blogger is easy but transferring out of it is harder.

Winner: WordPress

Conclusion

In order to decide which platform is truly better for you, consider the purpose of the blog and your goals. Both platforms are capable of great achievements.

If this post helped you in any way, please share it, and also comment down your feedback.