What blogging platform do you prefer?

I started with Blogger and later moved to Wordpress.

I think Wordpress offers a lot more options (it's my favorite!) but Blogger was a lot easier for me to understand when I was just starting out.

Wordpress.

Wordpress here also. I haven't used any of them extensively, but I did do a lot of research at one point and decided that not only did like Wordpress more, it offered the most options/mobility (in my opinion).

For plain text, use one of the free platforms. I like Blogger and Wordpress both. Slight lead for Wordpress with me, but I don't think you lose with either one. Both have proven pretty easy to use for me.

I'm using Joomla on my hosted site. It feels intended for something more than the "mere" blog that I'm doing, but I wanted experience outside WordPress.

For ease of use Blogger has the edge for me.

Literateparakeet said:

I started with Blogger and later moved to Wordpress.

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That was my experience, too. Though to be perfectly accurate, I began much earlier, when the web was new. Working at NASA on deep-space probes, I created sites to share telemetry results with various research people. I used HTML and other such primitive means. CSS was a major labor-saving advance. Later came libraries of ready-made code and high-level languages including PERL and Javascript.

The advent of LiveJournal, TypePad, Blogger, and so on was a big advance. No longer did I have to reinvent the wheel every time I started a new site by writing or re-writing code. Later WordPress came along with its many varied themes, based on low-level processes efficient and secure enough that I didn’t have to write low-level code to fine-tune them.

As of now WP is the most advanced hosting service available. I especially like (beside their themes) their spam protection and the fact that WP.com is transparently hosted on multiple data servers geographically wide-spread so that it never goes down.

I've been using blogger for about 2 years. It's the one and only blogging site I've ever used and have been happy with it. I need super easy set up and use, and blogger gives me that.

I have used quite a few platforms over the years and I have chosen to go with Tumblr for my latest personal blog. Easy to use on my phone, easy for people to access/read/interact with on their phone.

I wasn't sure whether my posts would be mainly text or images, but so far (and my blog is fairly new) the majority has been text. Personally, it doesn't matter if you use Tumblr for a text-heavy blog.

If it's for a massive project or business and you need it to be feature-rich, well, Wordpress will give you that kind of control...

starrykitten said:

I'm about to begin a new blogging project and I'm not sure which platform to go with. I have used both Blogger and WordPress in the past.

This blog will just be text, so I don't think Tumblr would be the best choice.

What's your favorite both to use and to read others' blogs on?

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You might also consider squarespace, which has a free 14-day trial.

tylertoo said:

You might also consider squarespace, which has a free 14-day trial.

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I started my blog/future author site with Squarespace 6 after years of using Squarespace 5 for years on another site. I love it and find it so much easier to use than anything else. Most importantly, I had an issue and had a response to my email ticket in 15 minutes. If you aren't planning much more than a personal journal, it might be pricey; but for ease of use, security, platform building or direct sales, it's pretty brilliant.

Whatever you use, make sure it has an export function and a backup function. WordPress.com has an export function; wordpress.org has export and, via your host or plugin, you can backup and download your database. Remember to backup your template modifications too.

Blogger has both a backup and an export function; remember to backup your template if you've changed anything.

Weebly and Wix don't really have a backup and / or export function.

Definitely wordpress! I believe it's the biggest one, got every plug-in you could ever dream of and a lot of people know about it and can help you with it (also lots of internet tutorials)!

If it should be anything more than a hobby, host it on a website you own yourself! My favorite blog about blogging is this one:

http://www.blogtyrant.com/

Blogger and Wordpress are the best. You can do just about anything with both. My preference is Wordpress.org (you host it), then Blogger, the Wordpress.com.

There is a big difference between WP .com and .org and what you can and can't do.

I would vote for wordpress but the writing community around blogspot seems to be more active.

I am on wordpress, but my big complaint is not having a twitter widget. Unless I am woefully inadequate at it.

Is there a way to stick a twitter widget on your blog.

Also, I thought there was a way to have blogger and/or wordpress send a blog to the other automatically also. Can't you have both that way?

WordPress is way better than any other blogging platform. I have also used Movable Type and Blogger.

Wordpress.

I highly prefer Wordpress. Blogger is very limited in how you can customize your blog, whereas with Wordpress you can customize almost any aspect of the website. Also, Time magazine, CNN, Techcrunch...etc all use Wordpress, so you'd be in good company.

Self-hosted WordPress blogs (using open-source software originally from wordpress.org, though now included in many hosting companies' c-Panels as a one-click installation - albeit that that's by no means the safest way to install it) are one thing.

wordpress.com is another matter altogether.

Be aware that if you host a blog there, they - not you - own the site (even if you redirect a domain-name of your own to it) and that they have some very restrictive terms of service with which it's a good idea to familiarize yourself. Thousands of people - including authors - have hosted at wordpress.com, some of them for many years, without ever having any difficulties at all. Many others have encountered problems of various kinds - often without ever understanding or having it clarified exactly what they've "done wrong" - and deeply regretted not being "self-hosted", and rather more in control of their own fates.

wordpress

Literateparakeet said:

I started with Blogger and later moved to Wordpress.

I think Wordpress offers a lot more options (it's my favorite!) but Blogger was a lot easier for me to understand when I was just starting out.

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I think wordpress is the best platform for you to use. There are so many things that you can do with it even beyond just blogging. It gives you full control of your blogging experience as well as adding nice eye candy like plugins and widgets to make the readers experience more enjoyable.

Wordpress also automatically updates their users blog platforms so that your blog will always be running the newest version of wordpress.

Blogger allows easy integration of paying ads and at this point also delivers most of the things Worpress.com has, as far as I can tell (pgaes, customizable themes, flexible width designs etc). I use both but prefer blogger.

As of today (August 12th) I'm starting to loose interest in Wordpress. Simply because, there is no longer an automatic word counter.

Heretothere said:

As of today (August 12th) I'm starting to loose interest in Wordpress. Simply because, there is no longer an automatic word counter.

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Do you mean when you write a post? That's the only thing I can think of that you are referring too and that is still there, same place too.

Or is there something else?

veinglory said:

Blogger allows easy integration of paying ads and at this point also delivers most of the things Worpress.com has, as far as I can tell (pgaes, customizable themes, flexible width designs etc). I use both but prefer blogger.

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That's true. I've had both and mimicked them exactly - including a fancy hover overs parts of images. Ads are just as easy in WP (org). I truly believed it is just what your more comfortable with.

Again I prefer WP.org. I like that I have completely control over my content and what happens with it. Bloggers have lost their blogs -temporarily - because some bot thought they were spam blogs.