Blogging Faceoff: Blogger vs. WordPress

Blogger vs WordPress is one battle I'm playing ever since I've chosen Blogger as my primary platform for blogging. With Due respect to both the blogging platforms since we love both of them. Lets battle it out with Readers, users vote. Do vote for your favorite blogging platform with reason. a be a part of this epic battle for the ultimate blogging service. Let the games Begin!





Free Hosted Blogger vs Free Hosted WordPress


With a Free WordPress account, and if you have no plans to go to paid version. You're going to choke yourself with the limited themes present in store for you. A big No to small time bloggers who dont want to pay for a self hosted blog, and those who want to tweak the WordPress theme. In this Battle of Free Blogger vs Free WordPress Blogger steals the match with a no game from WordPress. Almost all third party Premium WordPress themes like Thesis, Revolution, Arthemia (and many others) which cannot be used on a Free WordPress account, whereas can be easily set up on a Free Blogger account within seconds.

Themes and Customization

Blogger Allows you to install Third Party templates you can also edit templates, styles and colors, do practically everything with a .blogspot account.

WordPress users are allowed to edit the template. Editing the style sheet is only available with a paid upgrade.

Statistics from visitors

Blogger - No built-in statistics, but you can use free scripts to track your visitors, page views, etc.
WordPress- No third party scripts. The admin panel shows all the stats.

Image Storage

1 Gigabyte. There is no interface to browse the images, unless you sign up for Picasa Web Albums which is a little frustrating.
3 Gigabytes. Upgrades are available for paid.

Static Pages
Blogger - No Static Pages yet, contact forms etc have to be embed in a blog post which acts as a virtual static page. But Blogger Doesn;t have static pages yet. (update: Blogger Now has pages support too).
WordPress- Allows Static pages.



Self Hosted WordPress Power!

If you're a serious blogger, who has given up your daily job to become a professional blogger, and you are willing to pay some extra money for hosting charges etc... Then Blogger isn't the best platform to you. WordPress as a powerful CMS, outclasses blogger in that aspect. So since Free Blogger VS Free Hosted WordPress was won by Blogger by a pretty good margin. Self hosted WordPress is the ultimate way to go blogging. No Debate on the topic that if its Self hosted WP then Blogger has no chance to stand against it.

So The Winner of this Round is WordPress. But, Blogger if coded in a brillliant way can be matched up to Self Hosted WordPress themes. For example, Chethstudios.net isn't a WordPress blog. But it runs a beautiful WordPress theme. Some designers are conecentrating more on converting WordPress themes to Blogger templates. Lets wait for one year and have a Rematch and see who Wins. Until then you can please go and ask the blogger team to prepare for the battle.

Misconceptions about Blogger Platform.

1. Blogger Isn't user friendly.

I Asked this question to dharshana who's a complete Stranger to coding, and doesnt know the H of HTML and C of CSS. She had a straight forward reply, to a person without knowledge of any coding runs a neat and well maintained blog. Even Artihonrao who has been blogging since 6 years! Finds Blogger Very userfriendly and to small time bloggers who blog with 'passion' just to stay connected with friends and relatives, blogger is the ideal platform to her. Since she can edit the blogger templates, very easily by simply getting a free xml file and clicking on upload without loosing anything and she has HUGE number of templates to choose from. Whereas if a blogger like her, if she would choose WP them she wount be able to use a thesis theme/ Arthemia theme on free hosted wordpress blog which she can do on a free blogger hosted blog.

2. Blogger Doesn't Support jQuery, MooTools, etc.

Another Big misconception among WordPress fans that blogger doesnt support these. It supports everything except PHP.

3. Blogger Doesn't have enough themes/ templates.
This is one of the major complaints WordPress fans claim against Blogger. Its totally untrue. Because 99/100 WordPress themes present can be easily coded to Blogger. The only problem with Blogger is that it doesnt have enough 'developers', 'coders', 'designers' supporting it because they cannot accept anything apart from WordPress.

Blogger Gadgets vs WordPress Plugins.


WordPress: WordPress has Millions of Plugins to do even a tiny trick like social bookmarks for posts etc. They are effecient, They have official support from the WordPress team, and a single plugin has various versions and each one maintained by a plugin library.

Blogger: Blogspot doesn't have a plugin database, but it has lesser in number but some important gadgets. But the gadgets library has a neat feature where you can paste your own Custom HTML/JavaScript. And the Rest coding has to be either built within your own custom template.

WordPress is a clear winner in this round for only one reason, it has lots of developers rooting and coming up with thousands of plugins each day. Scope of improvement lies when developers like you and me find some time to blogger. Or the Blogger Team should encourage more developers to come to it. Till then WordPress will rule in the plugin Department. But some wp plugins can be incorported to blogger thanks to some blogger tutorials.

Blogger Templates vs WordPress Themes.

This is one tough round of this blogging faceoff. Because most of the people think Premium WordPress themes cannot be used on Blogger, they're totally wrong! Need some proof? well do you know that chethstudios.net is run on an Irresistible Wordpress theme converted to Blogger. Originally designed by woothemes. So now this is one close battle to fight out. But since almost all wordpress themes, the only thin line why wordpress wins in this case is that many designers are interested in designeing WordPress themes, and not Blogger Themes. But some blogger die-hard fans like me are fighting our own battle by converting WordPress themes to Blogger. You can see a list of WordPress Themes converted to Blogger Here.


Why Should WordPress Theme Designers Consider Blogger Platform.

Are you one of the new WordPress designer/coder trying to become popular overnight? Please let me show you a short cut to fame. WordPress theme market is already crowded with millions of Free and Premium themes already available. Whereas, blogger opens up all the arms to new theme designers since now many of 'us' have started converting WordPress themes to Blogger. And trust me why will a new designer who cannot stand against the powerful WordPress theme designers present already. In my humble opionion, WordPress theme market is already crowded for designers, and they should try exploring blogger (which surprisingly is growing better since last 6 months).


Which is the better CMS?

If you are a Blogger fan I must say sorry you loose on this point. WordPress has a very powerful CMS and Blogger stands nowhere near it. Probably the blogger team is working on this aspect.


Departments where Blogger Can Improve after loosing the Battle with WordPress.

1. Static Pages
Static Post pages should be introduced to Bloger at the earliest! post pages like a custom 'About US' or custom 'Contact Us' page are very essential for any blog. So The first priority for Blogger Team should be on this aspect. Yes, we can create a blog post and convert it to ' Contact Us' like this page. But its standalone pages should be made available to Blogspot users at the earliest.

2. Gravatar Support.
After much wait Blogger team rolled out the avatars for blogger default commenting system which uses the profile images of blogger profiles. But we still miss the power of WordPress using gravatar in the commenting system.

3.Down/Up Time.
Blogger has been a little inconsistent with Blogger outage last week. Since its a proud member of Google Products it should be stable without much (any) outages.

4. Editing the Comment forms.
The default Blogger Embed Comment form is pretty rigid and hard to work on. Blogger should consider developing a comment form like WordPress. But for the time-being, users can still use Disqus, JS-Kit, Intense debate and other third party comment forms. But its always good to see something neat and sleek like the WP comment forms.


And Now if you're a newbie blogger you can now sit and rethink which can be your ideal blogging platform. Until then Lets have a readers poll and you guys decide which one is the superior platform.

Gautam Hans of Blog godown.

1. Easier to code, very simple interface and a very good platform for newbies.
2. Wordpress is a more professional platform mainly for starting websites.
3. Blogger has recently started Gadgets which will surely outdo the plugins feature of wordpress.
4. Wordpress has php coding which has more options that available in blogger which is coded in xml
5. Blogger is google search friendly, there is no need even to add to google search engine.


Wizy from WP Studios and TheLanceLife

Whoever wants to do some serious blogging cannot avoid to run his own blog platform to get around public blogging services limitations.Wordpress is obviously the easier and fastest way to setup a full customizable blogging platform.

Here are just a few points that make Wordpress the best choice for
everyone.

1. easy and fast set-up on almost any kind of hosting
2. huge library of free plugins and themes
3. fully customizable in every aspect
4. frequently updated
5. It is almost a standard and that means support by worldwide users and
pros


Klodian ~ Desinger of free free blogger templates at deluxetemplates

1. Free [means anyone can use it, you need a blog, ok this is blogger.com, not need to think twice, because is free, nothing to loose]
2. Very easy to create a new blog [just 3 steps, easier than to open email account]
3. Templates, are probable the same to WP or better. [ if you get templates from my blog :) ] difference, at Blogger.com is easy to install a new template, just upload -> Save.
4. You can play with blogger.com, can easy customise any blog, and show your friends what you did :)
5. Blogger.com is from Google, better rank and feel good :)

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