WordPress vs Blogger: Which one is Better? [Pros and Cons]

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When we discuss starting a blogging career, the most obvious question in everyone’s mind is what to choose between WordPress vs. Blogger.

Many newbies ask me what is the perfect blogging platform.

Before answering this question let me tell you my story.

I had two blogs on Blogger.com (a.k.a. Blogspot). I could not generate a significant amount from these two but learned a lot about blogging, SEO, content writing, etc.

A couple of years back, when I moved from Blogger to a self-hosted WordPress blog, I hadn’t enough money to spend on domain & hosting, even though I had not a credit card.

I went to my friend and borrowed his card (and money too which I gave him later) to purchase the domain and hosting.

Here, I don’t want to lie to you, guys! I bought my domain and hosting on Black Friday deals (It helped me to save a lot).  And, now I have poured all my efforts to flourish it.

Nice story, Huh?

Let me come to our main topic, the difference between WordPress vs Blogger.

I told you this because you should not get back only because of money. Investing a few bucks for yourself isn’t a big deal.

If you’re serious about your future and want to work online, then you should consider it a small investment for your bright career.

Being a free platform, Blogger.com may be a lucrative offer for many people, who are willing to work online. So here I have answered the question, ‘why one should move to a self-hosted WordPress site?’

You’ll get a detailed comparison of self-hosted WordPress vs Blogger.com and the pros and cons of both platforms.

I’m sure that you will be able to decide the best platform should you choose for your blogging career when it comes to self-hosted WordPress vs Blogger.com.

Important

Please note that this comparison is self-hosted WordPress vs Blogger (WordPress.org vs Blogger.com) and, not WordPress.com vs Blogger.com.

WordPress.com is owned by Automattic, Inc. [US] and you will get blog name as subdomain example.wordpress.com against Blogger’s example.blogsopt.com

Differences Between WordPress vs Blogger

1. Ownership and Pricing

Blogger.com is created by PyraLab and later on, Google purchased it currently, Blogger (a.k.a. Blogspot) is a blogging service owned by Google.

It is available for everyone free of cost. Google provides you with an online identity, i.e., a subdomain on blogspot.com, and hosting both for free.

It’s reliable and quite secure (see https:// before your subdomain) to publish your posts and media content online.

But the freak is that you are not the owner of your blog, it’s owned by Google.

No issue, as it provides a completely free solution for your blogging needs.

However, Google can shut down your access or the complete system anytime (though it is not still looking to happen).

On another side, WordPress is also a free platform to start your blogging career, but you’ll need to purchase the domain and web hosting to install WordPress.

WordPress is an open-source CMS (Content Management System) provided by WordPress.org.

By using WordPress, you have ownership of all your data and can control all functions regarding your blog/website. You are free to run or shut it down anytime or move to another web host.

2. Control and Flexibility

The Blogger is a platform for novice webmasters to learn or test their skills.

However, advanced bloggers can also get benefits from this platform.

It is nicely tuned to achieve greater control of overall functions, and even a newbie can easily manage nearly all aspects of his blog. But it lacks flexibility as expected.

With the limited tools and features of Blogspot blog, you can perform only a few specific tasks like blogging, sharing media content, or writing some posts. Still, there is no way to expand the features of Blogspot to add more flexibility.

WordPress has taken care of this allowing more control and flexibility for added functionalities. You can add new features to your blog/website by configuring the particular plugins available in the WordPress plugin library.

There are more than 51 thousand of plugins in the WordPress plugin library itself, and even more, plugins can be obtained from third-party sources.

Plugins allow you to modify and expand the existing or default functions & features of your blog. You can add an e-commerce store, accept payments, create your portfolio, etc. on your website.

For personal blogs, you can consider a free Blogspot blog to be handy. But if you are serious about a blogging career and want to earn money from it then you should consider WordPress as your first choice.

For businesses, there is no other solution as useful as WordPress.

In the long-term run, WordPress is far better than the free Blogger.

3. Look and Appearance

In the comparison of WordPress vs Blogger, this factor is also very important,  If we consider the look and appearance of customization possibilities, definitely WordPress has the edge over Blogger.

Blogger provides very few templates (around 34) by default to use for customization. It’s still easy to edit & modify the templates in Blogger, and you can easily change the font, color, and layout of your blog in a few minutes.

There are some unofficial templates available on the web, but performance is not up to expectations.

While for WordPress, there is no limit to customization. You can choose any one theme from thousands of free or premium themes for your website/blog.

You can modify the color, font, layout, and background to any custom level. Not to exaggerate but WordPress has unlimited possibilities to create a stunningly beautiful website, no matter what the topic is.

Just find a beautiful theme as per your requirement and choice from a free or premium collection of high-quality themes and start to impress the people from then.

4. Portability

If you want to move the custom domain or even switch the Blogger, then what will you do? Moving from Blogger to a different platform is complicated and you need to export your all data into the XML file, then download it and upload it to the different platform. It requires a tech-savvy.

Consider the loss of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and your ranking or followers during this move. Even Google keeps the data on its server for a long time (around 90 days)

For WordPress, there is good news. You can move your site to any platform you want. Moving to a new web host or even newer CMS is also possible without compromising SEO.

WordPress offers more SEO benefits when we compare WordPress vs Blogger.

5. Security

As I said earlier in this article, Google provides you with SSL configuration with your blog for free. (e.g. https://example.blogspot.in).

It means you are under the roof of Google’s robust security platforms. You don’t have to worry about backups, managing servers, or security issues like getting hacked.

Since WordPress is an open-source CMS, it’s better to take care of yourself before any serious issue.

Although WordPress is quite a secure platform, you’re responsible for your security and data backups because you are using the self-hosted platform.

Don’t worry, WordPress has a ton of high-quality plugins like Wordfence or VaultPress, etc. to provide top-notch security & backup service.

If you are serious about your website security, you can try tools like Sucuri.

6. Technical Support

Although Blogger is a service provided by Google, it has limited options for support. All support is documented, and rarely you will have live interaction support.

Though there is no need for highly integrated support solutions for such an easier platform, you’ll find very few resources or forums for Blogger.

Where for WordPress, you will get nice support service from the active community of users. As 43% of the web uses WordPress, and over 60 million people are using it, you will not be stuck anywhere in between.

You’ll find a lot of online resources and documentation in the form of text or media, active community forums, and direct chat from experienced users and web developers to get rid of your problems.

Apart from this, you can avail of premium support if you’re willing to pay for your blogging career. Many companies will provide you with this facility of premium support.

7. Monetization

You may have seen most people are here online for earning money. Even you and me also. As blogging can be a full-time career, you should not take this very lightly.

Playing smart moves today is better than regretting them in the future. You already have all the resources, then why are you waiting to take one step ahead?

Let me explain this in a simple way.

Though Blogger is nice, it has limited sources for monetization. You may get early approval for Google’s advertising network, i.e., Google AdSense.

You can monetize your blog in other several ways also like affiliate marketing or placing other ads on your blog. But it may look less authoritative as it’s free for large sites the resources provided by Blogger.com may not sufficient.

Another point worth mentioning is Blogger has a very long time for significant upgrades and so future policies depend on blessings on Google, or it can be shut down anytime like Google’s other popular services like Google Reader, Adsense for feeds.

WordPress is an open-source CMS and not depends on a single company or individual. The whole empire of WordPress is based on the active community of millions of users and developers. It means you are free to do what you want to do with your blog and how to monetize it.

You can use Google AdSense for your blog and at the same time, other ad networks like infolinks or Chitika can be helpful if you have decent traffic.

Affiliate marketing, selling downloads like PDFs, courses & software or services like web development, you can easily monetize your blog. You have unlimited possibilities to earn with your WordPress Blog. You can choose one or more accordingly.

Wrapping Up

Now, you have read all the information about both blogging platforms and their pros and cons. After this detailed comparison between WordPress vs Blogger, you may have decided to go with a self-hosted WordPress blog/website. Don’t bother about it.  Your first step here is the first step to your success.

I hope it has cleared up your doubts. Still confused?

Go with Blogger, if you are a novice or hobby blogger willing to write occasionally. Otherwise, start creating your professional blog now to earn money online.

Because

“The best time for planting a tree was years ago and the second-best time is now!”

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