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While there are lots of blogging platforms to look at, today we want to check out how Blogger and WordPress fair against each other.
On one side of the ring, you have Blogger which has been around for ages and ages, being one of the first blogging platforms out there.
On the other side of the ring, you have WordPress, one of the most utilized site builders on the planet, running millions upon millions of websites around the globe.
So which one should you pick? Well, let’s take a critical look at a few different categories and see if we can suss out the best site for you.
Blogger vs. WordPress Comparison 2023 🇬🇧
Now more than ever it’s become incredibly easy to have an online presence at nearly no cost. From top podcast hosting to great eCommerce platforms, there really is a place for everybody to have a voice.
Of course, one of the best ways to create a little bit of your own personality is through the use of awesome blogging platforms: It gives you lots of space to write or create content to your heart’s content while being relatively accessible to the masses.
#1 Ownership
Who Holds the Right to Content 📦
This may seem to be a bit of a strange point to cover in a Blogger vs. WordPress comparison, but before getting into more detail about other aspects of each site, we do need to clarify how each site deals with its user base.
Blogger Ownership 
The way that Blogger works is more akin to a social media account, rather than a blog that you own. In this sense, it’s essentially like Tumblr or Twitter, in that the account is free, and you don’t actually own it.
That means that if Google wants to delete your account, they absolutely can and there’s really not much to do about it.
This is problematic because Google tends to abandon projects at the slightest provocation, such as the recent shutdowns of the Stadia-related game studios.
As such, there is a non-zero change that you might lose all the content you’ve created while owning an account on Blogger (unless you’ve backed it up with something like a top cloud storage).
WordPress Ownership
On the other hand, WordPress is completely open-source and therefore doesn’t ‘own’ anything. You can run their software for your site on a free host without any input from them whatsoever.
In fact, the open-source site you get from WordPress.org can essentially be run forever through a good WordPress host, even if WordPress itself stops supporting it (even though that would be risky in terms of security).
The only difference here is Wordpress.com, which is also owned by the parent company that owns wordpress.org. Wordpress.com offers their site for a subscription fee and in that situation, they do have some oversight when it comes to your site.
That being said, you can always appeal, and the chances of them taking down your site is pretty minimal unless you break their Terms of Service (ToS).
Which Has the Best Ownership
In this situation, we’ll have to say that WordPress has much better ownership and control compared to Blogger. Since WordPress is not considered a social media platform but a great competitive website builder, you don’t run into the same problems that moderation of social media causes.
That being said, WordPress does cost money, while Blogger doesn’t. More on that below.
#2 Themes & Customization
Design Options 🖼️
We all want to make our websites unique and interesting, and more importantly, reflect who we are. As such, the amount of customization and themes you can get is a pretty important question.
Blogger Themes & Customization
Sadly, Blogger doesn’t give you too many options.
There is a limited number of templates for you to use (12), and you don’t really get much opportunity to customize them deeper. That being said, you can use CSS to do a bit more customization if you like, although that does require some tech savviness. Similarly, you can search for 3rd-party templates, although these are generally paid and not free.
You should also know that Blogger offers templates not themes. That means that if you want a multi-page website, each page has to use the same template, and there’s no customization beyond that. This also applies to any 3rd-party templates you find.
WordPress Themes & Customization
With WordPress, it’s a little bit different since there is WordPress.com and WordPress.org.
When it comes to WordPress.com, the number of themes you get depends wholly on what tier level of subscription you have. That being said, even with a free WordPress.com account, you still get access to a couple of hundred themes for you to pick from.
Going with a paid account and into the premium tiers, you get access to thousands of premium themes to use and customize for your website.
On the other hand, WordPress.org is completely free (except for the hosting) and you get over 50,000 themes to pick from. You’re basically spoiled for choice, and if that’s not enough, you can also bring in 3rd-party themes as well, which can be either paid or free as well.
An important note here is that WordPress, unlike Blogger, uses themes, which are a collection of templates that you can customize pretty much on each individual page.
Which Has the Best Themes & Customization
Again, WordPress wins out over Blogger. Even with the limited offering from a free WordPress.com account, it’s still an order of magnitude above what you’d get with a blogger.
Also since WordPress is more popular, there are hundreds of free 3rd-party themes and plugins you can find, which is excellent if you’re on a tight budget and also happen to be a bit picky.
#3 Security & Backups
Who Is Responsible for Security and Backups 🛡️
In an increasingly online world, security and privacy have become even more important, which is one of the reasons we suggest people use a top VPN service. Not only that, because being able to restore your site, or at the very least its content, in a worst-case scenario is important.
Blogger Security and Backups
Since Blogger is owned by Google, you certainly get the added benefit of having them deal with security and backups. That means, on the whole, that you don’t need to worry about updates, SSL certificates, breaches, etc. unless it’s something that is site-wide.
That actually is a bit of a problem though: If Blogger ever goes down due to malicious action, such as a DDoS attack, that means everything is down and you don’t have any access to your content.
You also rely wholly on Google to do a good job, and that might not necessarily always be the case.
WordPress Security and Backups
WordPress is a bit more complicated because of the two different types of sites.
With WordPress.com, it’s a similar deal with Blogger, in that the company is completely responsible for backups, updates, security, and so forth.
That does leave you completely at their whims, especially since their back-ups seem to be . . . sporadic. As such, you should always keep a copy of your content stored somewhere, it’s not a perfect solution as you’ll need to rebuild the site, but it’s better than nothing.
As for WordPress.org, you’re completely responsible for everything, including updates and backups. The former may differ depending on your hosting, as with top-notch dedicated hosting you’d have to make sure updates are current, whereas, with a WordPress host, they’ll probably handle it.
That being said, one big upside of dealing with WordPress.org is that you can do your own backups. That means that you can do it right after you create a bunch of content, and if the host or site gets breached, the backup will bring you up to speed relatively quickly.
We made a review of the best WordPress backup plugins so you will never have to worry about losing your files again.
Which Has the Best Security and Backups
This one is a bit of a toss-up since it depends a lot on how you yourself approach security.
If you prefer a set-and-forget approach, then Blogger and WordPress.com are essentially equal in how they deal with security & backups. On the other hand, if you’d prefer to take both of those things into your own hands, then you’re better off going with WordPress.org.
As such, there’s no clear winner here.
#4 Support
24/7 Priority Live Support ☎️
Let’s be honest, nothing really works perfectly all the time, so having good support for any product is essential.
Blogger Customer Support
Unfortunately, if you’re at all familiar with Google, you know that their support methods are severely lacking.
While there is a user’s forum, most of the help you’ll get is through their own documentation. This can be a problem if you’re not very tech-literate, or just simply need some help with things you don’t necessarily understand.
Therefore, support on Blogger is pretty poor overall.
WordPress Customer Support
WordPress on the other hand has a ton of excellent support depending on what you get.
When it comes to paid WordPress.com accounts, you have more and more support depending on your tier. Starting with the personal paid plan you have unlimited email support, and then going all the way to their business tier you get 24/7 priority live chat support.
As for Wordpress.org while there’s no direct support unless your host provides it, there’s thousands of online tutorials, dozens of community, and just absolutely tons of information out there. You’ll almost always find a solution to your issue and may even find people who are willing to help (although they won’t be official WordPress staff).
Which Has the Best Features
It’s pretty clear that WordPress has the upper hand here. Considering that it’s open-source, has paid options, and runs millions upon millions of websites around the globe, it’s no surprise.
Blogger on the other hand is essentially you rolling the dice and hoping that you find the solution to the problem you have.
#5 Pricing
Let's Talk Money 💰
Whether you have a huge budget or no budget at all, how much services ask for is an important consideration for everybody. Thankfully, there are options on both platforms that are free or at least relatively cheap.
Blogger Pricing
One of the best things about Blogger is that it’s completely free. You don’t need to pay anything to create an account, or to maintain it as a monthly subscription.
That being said, you can have a custom domain tied to your blogger account, but you’ll need to buy that from a domain registrar.
Pricing for that can vary wildly, depending on what type of top-level-domain you go for, but it can go as low as £5 a month.
WordPress Pricing
Again with WordPress you have two options.
When it comes to WordPress.com, you have a free account that you can get, although it does come with WordPress ads which you don’t get any profit from. The first level of their tiered pricing is £3/month, with the highest coming in at a staggering £33/month (both of these are prices if you bill yearly).
Of course, you do get a massive amount of features and benefits as you go up the tiers, including the removing of ads, so its well worth it.
As for WordPress.org is free, you still need to buy some form of hosting, such as with Bluehost. Pricing can also vary here starting with £6.60/month (£3.67 at reduced pricing when you first sign up), all the way to £44/month for managed hosting (£38 at reduced pricing when you first sign up).
Then of course there’s the price for a domain if it isn’t included with your host. Finally, any sort of backups or cloud storage system you use will also have some form of the additional cost.
Which Has the Best Pricing
With this one Blogger is the clear winner. Since it considers itself a social networking platform, its completely free, which is great if you’re just starting out and have no budget.
WordPress.com also has a free option, but it’s not that great, and it comes with ads which can be annoying for some.
All that being said, Blogger really doesn’t offer the tools necessary to build a fully-fledged blog or website the same way that WordPress can. Yeah, WordPress costs more, but it also offers a lot more in the process as well.
Conclusion
The End 🏁
In our Blogger vs. WordPress comparison we have covered the main components of each blogging platform. In order for you to understand their differences we had to made them as clear as possible.
Who would you like to own the content? How customizable would you like the themes to be?
These are the questions you need to answer before you choose which blogging platform suits you the most. Of course, in our Blogger vs. WordPress comparative analysis we covered security, customer support and most importantly pricing as well.
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