The Blogger / Wordpress Debate
The Wordpress.com vs. Blogger Comparison Chart on this site attracted many comments. Eventually I closed it to new comments because it looked like the comments section would grow indefinitely. Both systems have their shortcomings so there's lots that could be said. A couple of months later someone posted a comment about his frustrations with Wordpress.com in another post. He linked to an article he wrote which explained the reasons:
The Top 5 Reasons I Left Wordpress for Blogger.
It seemed to me an additional post was needed for an extended debate between users of both blogging platforms. Users with Google Accounts can post comments here regardless of whether their favorite system is Blogger or Wordpress.
33 comments:
I wish WordPress.com would let users submit posts by email.
On WordPress I found a barrage of spam in the Akismet spam queue every time I logged in. Hard to ignore, because some genuine comments might have been tagged as spam. In fact, false positives happened on several occasions. I prefer to use word verification to protect against comment spam.
If you have a self-hosted blog from WordPress.org you can install any one of a multitude of spam protection plugins. Although Akismet is bundled as part of the download it's only an option, thank goodness! I've noticed that Bad Behavior is credited in the footer of WordPress blogs more often than any other. That's the tops according to the Wisdom of the Crowds. It crossed my mind that the WP team won't let users have some alternatives to Akismet on WordPress.com because of the sunk-cost effect.
@ Brad:
If you go to http://m.wordpress.com/ you can login to a no-frills interface that's just as quick to use as sending an email.
@ freespirit:
Yes, why don't they offer some alternatives?
The only disadvantage i find using wordpress is it doesn't allow me to use third party scripts to bring audio clips inside the post. thats really bad. if any of you can help me out in how to embed an audio file (only mp3), i would move to wordpress. else i'll have to stay with blogspot :(
one main reason for not prefering blogger is it doesn't provide three column templates... also my blog takes very long time to load in IE7, but loads quickly in firefox.
@ Vinith:
To upload mp3 to your WordPress.com webspace requires a paid upgrade, but there are shortcodes you can use if the audio file is hosted elsewhere. I haven't tried using them myself.
http://faq.wordpress.com/2008/06/18/what-are-the-wordpress-shortcodes/
There are sites which offer three column templates for BlogSpot. Try a Google search.
WordPress's big advantage is the sleek look and extended widget/page customization for those who do not know advanced CSS. I am planning to move my blog to WordPress because of the style.
Now, i'm using blogspot..
But, check my blog: http://hendrydext.blogspot.com
I'm trying to make blog about math.. But, actually, there is no latex program installed in blogger.. So, i'm using mimetex which is very difficult.. (Latex is software to draw math equation in web)..
Unlike blogger, wordpress has latex installed, so many people who like to make blog about math can make equation easily.. You can check http://artofmathematics.wordpress.com as an example...
So, if blogger has installed latex, it would be better than wordpress, i think...
Wordpress is better for blog which uses mathematic equation.. ~.~
Well, no idea how this was a year ago as I only began to use WP in April, but as a matter of fact I am happily using StatCounter, too. I had not the slightest problem installing this useful third-party counter, so I don't really get what others were complaing about.
The ONLY thing I'm missing is free third-party themes, but then again the custom css-feature is so bloody cheap evn for me poor Eastern European kiddo that I'm definitely going to buy it sooner or later. :)
I'm a complete Wordpress gal, but I think option 3 is actually best - which is having WordPress running on your own hosting and with your own domain name. I have many clients come to me to migrate them from wordpress.com onto their own site because their blog had become very popular and even income producing. They all wish they had started out on their very own domain.
As for my own experience, as i started doing this called thing blogging, I've started using blogspot.com and for me as of this moment i feel comfortable using it. (but still, i'm observing stuffs made by wordpress).
www.microely.net
I just started my blog a month or so ago. I started it on Blogger, but they immediately (before I had even one post up) flagged it as a spam blog. They said it would take 2 days to review and correct the problem. After 5 days of having to type in a word verification-thingy every time I posted and having my blog basically locked down I moved it to WordPress and I haven't had any problems there.
Blogger is the bomb! Wordpress might be better for a newbie but you can only go so far with Wordpress than you have to pay.
There are so many guides and tutorials for blogger, you can make your blogger site look just how you want and is totally free.
at free hosting : blogger is the best
but wp script is better if u use ur own paid host
I have to agree that Blogger is the best of the "free" blog sites. Live Journal - to me - is a joke, and Wordpress is too limited in it's free format.
Being myself a "new" wordpress user I can say this for sure. It's great to use when you are new...but after a while you do thinking: "I want more! Do I really need to pay get javascript on the right side? or for changing the layout settings?"
Today I switched to blogger(blogspot) and was surprised. It's quite easy to change the settings of your blog even if you sux at css. So you could say if you had the same kind of free layout settings in wordpress it would be great and I wouldn't have this feeling about moving to blogger >.>
The only minus i find with blogger is that they shut down your blog too fast...without warning. T_T
@The-One:
Yes, unless the visual style of one of the pre-selected themes matches your preferences you have to pay for an upgrade, but there's no option to include JavaScript at any cost. Of course, none of these restrictions apply to self-hosted WordPress.org blogs if you track down a low-cost hosting deal. But some hosting companies could be more vulnerable to Denial-of-Service attacks.
About Blogger shutting down blogs without warning. Wordpress.com can do that too if they want to. It says so in their Terms of Service.
I just started blogger in Dec'08 & was considering moving to wordpress. After reading all the comments and the comparison chart, I may wait a while before moving. Blogger lets me do a lot of customizing for free so I think I'll maximize what I have.
As far as I can see, many of my friends have moved their stuff to wordpress because they wanted to build a real site, not just a blog and needed a more detailed statistics-system.
BTW, 15 bucks is not much, even for me poor Eastern-European, so I keep changing my background color nearly every month :DD.
@Eszter
If you are not concerned about how visitors find your site in search engine results pages (SERPs) then Wordpress.com offers more flexibility and built-in stats. However, the stats are less detailed than the information available to users of third party scripts on Blogger. In an earlier comment you said that you added StatCounter.
There is a BIG difference between the StatCounter HTML-only statistics for Wordpress.com users and the StatCounter JavaScript statistics for BlogSpot users.
StatCounter HTML-only:
* Visitor IPs and host names.
* The countries and regions that visitors came from.
StatCounter JavaScript:
* Visitor IPs and host names.
* The countries and regions that visitors came from.
* The page title, not just the URL.
* Referrers - Where visitors came from.
* Search Engine Names - Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.
* Search Engine Terms - keywords and phrases.
* Exit links that visitors clicked on.
* Visitor maps from Google Maps.
* And more...
The free StatCounter service shows details for the last 500 visitors.
The Wordpress.com built-in stats show the last 50 search strings and the last 50 exit clicks each day, but it doesn't tell you which search engines visitors came from. The ranking on Google and Yahoo is often very different for exactly the same search string.
Even worse, it crops the search strings at 40 characters. Many of my visitors entered long phrases into the search box, so I couldn't see the whole query. That's a BIG limitation if you want to do some Search Engine Optimization by adjusting the keywords and phrases in the posts to get a better ranking.
Google Analytics is available to BlogSpot users and offers exceptionally good stats reports which you can choose to receive by email each week or each month.
Blogger wins the Free blogging war so far.. It's more customizable.. you can add Javascript you like.. you can have ads on ur blog..
editing your Template/CSS is not hard if you have some HTML,CSS background..
Google also has many other services that you may/would need for your blog like: Albums, Groups, Webmaster tools, analytics, Custom search, Calendar, Docs...
Google is making good money/Presence from free services..!
So far I don't see much about the fact that WordPress is also available as downloadable software. Meaning you can download the software and use it on your own site. Then many of those 'restrictions' go away (like editing the CSS).
Interesting....
anyway, i think Wordpress is the more popular out of the visitors. I use blogspot. Also, any chance of a comparison of all the blogging providers? People might like the other ones too. My blog: worldwithoutnoobs.blogspot.com.
After using both, Blogger still gets my vote because or ease of use and a much more extensive and flexible selection (thousands) of widgets, gadgets, browser add-ons, supporting 3rd party programs, templates, etc.; a web search finds more than I could ever use.
Out of the Free choices Blogger gets my vote as it allow adsense.
However, I have to agree with Lisa that the best alternative is to get a domain from google, 10 bucks, and a host, 15 bucks / mo, and install it with wordpress.
For about 200 bucks a year, a starting blogger can have their own slice of the web, that is fully customizable, with out all the .sitename business.
200 bucks a year?? How 'bout 25 bucks a year at doteasy.com? I used them quite happily for 8 years.
I used and loved WordPress for 4-5yrs until 2006/7, hosted on my own server. I moved to blogger because:
- every WP upgrade blew all my custom look and feel apart. I had to spend a few days rebuilding shit to get my design back and scripts to work using the backups.
- the spam was out of control no matter what I installed. akismet, captcha etc.
Are WP's upgrades still volatile for customized sites.
How's the spam protection?
@ cher:
I installed WordPress 2.0.5 for a self-hosted blog in December 2006. If I remember correctly, some types of spambot bypass comment forms and directly manipulate the WP files which process comments. By changing the names of those files, and their filenames in all the other files that link to them, I didn't have any more problems with spam. But it was a lot of work! And it would have to be done all over again for each new release.
People who sign up for Wordpress.com are stuck with Akismet, but the "Bad Behavior" plugin seems to be the most popular solution for self-hosted blogs because it works on a different principle to other anti-spam measures. I can't vouch for it myself because I haven't tried it.
Another thing I didn't like about WP comments is that there is no preview function unless you install a plugin. Users have been asking for it since the beginning, but the WP team seems to have other priorities.
As far as I can see, the only reason to upgrade if you have a setup you're satisfied with is to fix security vulnerabilities. Maybe it's possible to patch a selection of files instead of installing the latest version of WP, but i haven't looked into it.
@kPulsed
Ahh that is right! I totally forgot about going in and renaming the pages and calls. That alone kills WP for me. And like you said there are some upgrades you have to do for security. If I remember right, you had to go back and run all the previous upgrades you skipped, before installing the latest. Mostly to keep the rows and tables. hmm I do remember having to do a fix on the db too. ugh ugh and double ugh
I installed WP and was comparing it to blogger and found another headache. What a pain it is to edit all the PHP to get a custom look. Forgot about that too.
Why was I doing this? hehe I have a client who wants to be able to change the content on his site without learning HTML. I thought transitioning to a blog might be an easy fix. I use blogger, but thought I'd look into WP again.
I'll give WP credit for making the import easy but I'm sticking with blogger.
Thanks again. You've saved me lots of time!
I decided to do a Counter comparison blog. Started up with WordPress, but then found I could not compare counters. Hence had to go on Blogger ( stevesstats.blogspot.com ).
I recently decided to start a blog and went with Blogger. I inserted a free template but then realized I couldn't create seperate 'pages' for "about us" "featured blogger" links.
More research helped me realize that a way around that was by creating a post with an older date to act as a new page, but I'd like one of my links to have a "featured blogger" every month, that I'd insert. I still wanted people to reference older "feature blogger" posts. So then I started considering switching to Wordpress so I could create an individual page for the "featured Blogger".
After reading all these comments I'm thinking I'd rather stick with Blogger. Would it be easier for me just to create a new blog in blogger that specifically references my featured blogger?
Not sure if you're following, I just want to know which one might best support my specific blogging needs - any advice is appreciated!!
Couple of options for adding a navigation menu across the top.
If you aren't too afraid to mess with the XML template you can Takes a little wrangling with the XML, but not too bad.
I force fed this existing menu from my client's non-blog site to here. Yes, if you're using IE you will get an error. I only bought one license. temporary issue.
http://hillcreekconsulting.blogspot.com/
I know it doesn't look like a blogger, but it is. Hmm maybe a bad example.
I got the code and instructions to add this menu online some where. Not pretty but it works.
http://queerdating.blogspot.com/
That all said, try googling "blogger static pages," or "blogger menus." There are tons of sites usually blogger blogs that give quick and dirty ways to add new gadgets.
Here is a site I just found, below. Damm, think I'll switch over my code to theirs.
http://techtasks.blogspot.com/
NOTE: Download your template and then rename it to something for editing. That way if something goes wrong you can just upload the original template.
have fun!
Thanks for the help, so far I'm still happy with my decision to keep blogger. :)
C
I've moved from one to the other a couple of times, but really prefer Blogger. The only thing that I don't like is that I can't import my olde Wordpress-blog to the new Blogger-blog :-(
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