The Best Blogging Platform and Blogging Sites in 2020

Are you going to start your own blog, but get confused about which platform to start with? Then this article can help you to choose the best blogging sites for your blog. Today we have a lot of blogging platforms available, and it’s tough to choose the best one.

In this article, we will guide you on how to choose the best platforms for your blogs. We will also discuss the pros and cons of these blogging sites as well.

Here is the list of the most popular blogging platforms we will be discussing in this article.

1. WordPress.org– a powerful and also fully customizable blog site
2. WordPress.com– a powerful built-in blogging tool
3. Medium– the best classic blog site
4. Blogger– a great choice for basic blogging
5. Wix– perfect for creating a blog combining a website
6. Squarespace– stunning blog design
7. Ghost– fully focused on the blog

This is our list of the most popular blogging sites that we are going to discuss in this article. 

But before that, we should know-

How to Choose the Best Blogging Platform?

Before diving into this article, we should know what are the features that we should look at in a blogging platform.

As a beginner, we should look for platforms that are easy to set-up and operate. And has a low learning curve, and doesn’t require coding skills(for non-tech people).

Apart from that, you also need to think about the blog you are going to create, now and in the future. 

And why the future? Because when your blog starts growing, you may want to change the look of your site and also want to add some features in it. And for that, you need to choose a platform that is flexible and has room to grow.

If you want to make money by blogging now or in the future, you should consider choosing the right blogging site or platform. A wrong platform can give you nightmares.

And because of these reasons, you need to choose the right platform for your blog.

With all these things in mind, let’s start our discussion.

1. WordPress.org– (hosting+domain required)

WordPress.org Is a self-hosted open-source free to use blogging platform. As it is a self-hosted platform, you just need to sign up for a hosting provider and a domain to start. Once you sign up, you can start creating your blog website. It gives you complete control of your site.

It is also the world’s most popular blogging software.  WordPress.org Started in 2003, and now it powers more than 30% of all the websites on the internet.

It allows you to create a fully customizable website as per your need. It also gives free themes that you can use to design your blogs. Apart from that, you can also install plugins to add new features to the site you want. It always has a growth opportunity.

The installation process for WordPress is also very easy. You can install it directly from the C-panel from your hosting server. And you don’t need to have any coding knowledge for this.

Pros.

1. Complete beginner-friendly.
2. Flexible and also gives you full control over every aspect of your site.
3. Get access to more than 55,000 free plugins.
4. There are 1000’s of free mobile-friendly themes available that you can use to create a beautiful blog website.
5. It is also a Search Engine and social media-friendly. There are a lot of SEO plugins available that can be used to create SEO-friendly URLs, metadata for your posts.

Cons.

1. You have to take care of your own site Security, Performance, and backups.
2. As you are managing the site by yourself, you have to go through a steep learning curve.

Pricing:
Basically the WordPress Software is free. But you need to sign up for a hosting service and a domain to start, which will cost you some money. 

2. WordPress.com(free/premium Blogging Platform)

WordPress.com Was started in the year 2005 with a motive to provide the WordPress experience to a large audience.

Unlike WordPress.org, it is not a self-hosted blogging site, it provides the basic blog hosting for free. You can also purchase some additional things like a custom domain, storage, and a few other premium services.

In the free version, you can’t make any customization. And also can’t add any plugins.

WordPress.com Is a good blog site for those people who are new to blogging. And also for those who don’t have any requirement of advanced features.

You can always start with this platform, and later when your blog grows and you need more control, you can migrate it to WordPress.org and can continue from there.

Pros.

1. Basic Hosting is included for free
2. No set-up required
3. Easy to use interface
4. No need to worry for site maintenance

Cons.

1. Very limited features in the free version
2. Limited customization options
3. You cannot run the advertisements on your blog
4. Themes and plugins are only available with the business plan

Pricing:
It is available in both free and paid versions. But the free version provides very limited features and is filled with branding.

The paid plans for WordPress.com start from $4 a month(annual billing). With each plan you upgrade, you will get more features. 

3. Medium-(a free Blogging Platform)

Medium is another good blogging site to start your blog. Here you can share your own thoughts, or write about the topics of your expertise. A benefit of using Medium.com is that it has its built-in audience, which is not available on other platforms. It will help you get readers who share the same interest as your blogs.

It is a free platform, so you can sign up either as an individual or as a business. After signing up, start publishing your articles.

In Medium, you cannot use your own domain, after you sign up, you will have a profile address like this: https://medium.com/@yourname.

Pros.

1. Easy to use interface.
2. No setup and coding skills needed
3. You can focus completely on blogging, instead of designing a website
4. It has the ability to embed content from Youtube, Vimeo, and more
5. You can easily reach a community of people of similar interests.

Cons.

1. It has a very limited feature in terms of design.
2. Cannot use your own domain. You will simply have a profile address like this: https://medium.com/@yourname.
3. You can not run ads on your blogs to earn money.

Pricing:
Medium is a free to use blogging site.

4. Blogger-(a free Blogging Platform)

Blogger.com Is a free blogging site offered by Google. It is surely the easiest platform to start blogging for anyone.

Blogger is one of the earliest blogging platforms which was launched. It was first introduced in the year 1999 by Pyra Labs. And later in 2003, Google acquired it and redesigned it to the product we use today.

To start blogging on Blogger all you need is a Google Account. Go to Blogger.com, sign up with your Google account and you are ready to start your blog. In Blogger, you can also add your own domain as well.

Pros.

1. Blogger is completely free. Although you can add your custom domain.
2. It is very easy to use and requires no technical skill to manage.
3. It also takes care of hosting, maintenance, security, and many more.
4. Provides SSL certificate free for your blogs

Cons.

1. It provides very limited blogging tools, and you also can’t add new features to your blogs.
2. Limited design options
3. You can’t integrate any third-party Apps or services.

Pricing:
Blogger is basically free if you use Blogger subdomain like https://example.blogspot.com. But if you want to use your custom domain, you can get it from any third party domain registrar.

5. WIX-(free/premium Blogging Platform)

Wix is a fermium website builder site. It is basically used to build websites, but you can also use it to start a blog.

The drag and drop feature of Wix surely makes it very easy to build a website from scratch. You can arrange everything from the front-end, there is no need to go to the back-end to edit anything.

It also provides lots of free templates for use, and all the templates are very intuitive and modern, which can be used by everyone. These templates are also mobile-friendly as well.

Wix also provides hosting services for free. So all you just need to do is to pick a template and start arranging your layouts and you’re all set.

Pros.

1. Quick and Easy setup with free hosting.
2. Easy to use interface
3. No coding skills required, just use the drag and drop feature to start
4. Plenty of free mobile-friendly templates available that you can choose
5. It also provides lots of stock images as well

Cons.

1. Once you choose a template you can’t change it
2. Very limited eCommerce functionality 
3. Free third party apps are very limited
4. The free account features Wix branding and limited functionalities
5. You can’t migrate to another host

Pricing:
The basic website builder is free to use, but it provides very limited features and also full of Wix branding. With your free Wix account, you will get a subdomain like this: https://username.wixsite.com/example. 

However, you can add your custom domain to this. The premium plans for Wix starts from $5 a month up to $25/month.

6. Squarespace-(premium Blogging Platform)

Like Wix, Squarespace is also a similar platform. It is also used to build websites. Its drag-and-drop feature makes it easy for everyone to create a beautiful website, without having any coding knowledge. 

And the best thing about Squarespace is that it has its own analytics dashboard. So you can keep track of where your traffic is coming from. Which are the pages they are visiting, how they are engaging with the content, and many more things.

Pros.

1. Squarespace is very simple and an easy to use blogging site for beginners, who aren’t very tech-savvy.
2. Provides a lot of beautifully designed templates.
3. It also offers a custom domain with hosting.
4. It also has Built-in SSL encryption
5. Ecommerce functionality available

Cons.

1. Third-Party integration is very limited
2. It is limited to only using the platform feature.

Pricing:
Like many other paid blogging platforms, Squarespace also operates on a subscription model. It has a few different pricing plans to choose from.

The Personal Plan starts with $16 a month($12 if billed annually). The business plan starts from $26 a month ($18 if billed annually).

Whereas pricing plans for the online store(eCommerce) starts from $26/month and up to $40/month(annual billing).

7. Ghost-(premium Blogging Platform)

Ghost is a premium blogging platform that is entirely focused on writing blog posts. Its clean and simple interface makes it easy to use for everyone.

The ghost also provides live preview options for your posts. So whenever you write something you can correct the mistakes as you go along.

The ghost is available in two versions, first as a hosted platform, and second, as a software that you can install or host.

Installing Ghost can be quite difficult, but once it is set, it can be a great tool for bloggers. It requires web hosting to host your blog.

Pros.

1. Complete focus on blogging and writing
2. Simple, Clean and intuitive user interface
3. Build on JavaScript,  so it’s super fast
4. It also provides a live preview option
5. No setup requires for the hosted version
6. It has built-in social media and SEO capabilities.

Cons.

1. The self-hosted version can be quite complicated to set up
2. A very limited number of themes to choose from
3. Limited configuration option

Pricing:
The self-hosted version is basically free, but you need to have a domain and hosting service.

The paid plans of ghost start from-

The basic plan starts from $29/month(or $36 if opt for monthly billing). In this plan, you get a 100k page view per month, SSL encryption, and a CDN include.

The standard plan starts from $79/month(or $99 if opt for monthly billing). In this plan, you get a 500k page view per month, more resources, as well as priority support.

The Business plan starts from $199/month(or $249 if opt for monthly billing). In this plan, you get a 1 million page view per month, 99.9% uptime guaranteed, and many more.

These are some of the best blog platforms that you can choose to start your blog.

Our Pick for the Best Blogging Platform

As per our research and experience, we will choose WordPress.org for our blogging site. It is powerful, flexible, affordable, and very easy to use blogging platform than all other platforms. Basically it has everything that needs to create a blog.

And as a paid alternative you can use Wix. And for a free alternative use Medium.

Apart from all these Platforms, there are two Social Media Platforms that you can use to write articles. 

These are:

• Linkedin
• Facebook

LinkedIn- best Blogging site for Businesses

With over 600 million users LinkedIn can be a good platform to post articles. The more posts you publish, the more connection requests, and followers you will attract. Writing consistently not only helps you expand your connections but also shows the depth of knowledge you have of the topic you write about. If you are in a B2B business it can also help you to generate leads for your business.

Don’t confuse between posts and articles. A post is a small update that you share with your connections and whereas an article is longer and more in-depth. An article is basically for the broader LinkedIn audience.

Pros and Cons.

If you blog about business or something related like management, sales then LinkedIn is the best platform for you to start. It has a pre-existing community of people who are already writing about that and are ready to read your articles as well. This will also help you to build some business followers as well.

And the cons of this platform is that you are beholden to the algorithm and also neither own the site nor the traffic. 

Facebook-Biggest Blogging site

Facebook has the world’s biggest social media platform. It has more than 1billion daily active users. 

The best and easiest way to build a blog on Facebook is to create a page of your business or brand. And from there you can start posting on Facebook. And can also use Facebook Creator studio to manage your posts.

From the Creator studio, you can go live, post videos, gifs, polls, etc. You can even schedule and backdate your posts as well.

Pros and Cons.

Facebook has the largest audience than any other platform. And starting a blog is also very easy, you just need a Facebook page to start a blog. The comments and interactions on the Facebook blog are better than the traditional blog. You can really create a genuine fan base for your blogs. 

The biggest cons of Facebook is its organic reach. The organic reach of Facebook is dropping drastically since 2016. SocialFlow found that brands saw a 42% decline in organic reach over Q1 and Q2 2016. And apart from that, you didn’t own the site or the traffic.

If you are looking to make money from your blog, then we recommend you to create your own blogging site, where you have complete control of everything.

Conclusion:

In this article, we try to explain the best blogging platform available with their pros and cons. If you find our article helpful, then please share it.

Thank you…