8 Best Blogging Platform For Beginners in 2021
How To Choose The Best Blogging Platform (For Beginners)
Want to start a new blog but not sure which platform to choose?
Don’t worry, you are not alone. Finding the Best Blogging Platforms in 2021 is still a big task for beginners.
In this article, we’ll walk you through the most popular blogging platforms and their pros and cons, so you can pick the ideal one for you.
Most Popular Blogging Platforms In 2021
Let’s have a look at the 8 Best Blogging Platform for beginners.
- WordPress.org– Best Blogging Platform For Bloggers
- Constant Contact-Best WordPress Alternative
- Wix -Easy To Use
- WordPress.com- Best Self Hosted Platform
- Blogger- Easy And Affordable
- Medium-Limited Customization
- Tumbler
- Ghost
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What To Look For When Choosing The Best Blogging Platform?
Before digging into the list, it’s helpful to know what you’re searching for in a blogging platform. So as a beginners assess your options against the following checklist.
- Ease of use – As a beginners you are looking for a simple yet powerful platform that is easy to you and doesn’t require any technical skills or designing skills.
- Features – You might not use all of the features, but make sure that you choose the best blogging platform in terms of features. The more the features the more you can customize your blog.
- Monetization– Even if you don’t have any plan to make money blogging right now, it’s always good to plan ahead so that you can do so in the future.
- Space – Compare all the best blogging platforms and analyze them thoroughly. Check which platform provides more space to grow than others.
- Rules and regulations – Before signing up for any platform read their ‘Terms and Conditions’ thoroughly. Make sure your blogs aren’t violating any rules.
Our 1st pick is WordPress.org, which is one of the biggest and well known CMS (Content Management System) in the world. Started in 2003, it became so popular that now world’s 40% website are using it.
It is a perfect combination of simplicity and features. That’s why many popular bloggers like Pat Flynn, Harsh Agarwal, John Lee Dumas, are using this platform.
Note: Beginners often get confuse between WordPress.org and WordPress.com. Read our post on Difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org?
Bloggers love this platform because it is completely free and offer unlimited customization.
With WordPress’s Pre-made templates and themes, you can design your blog as per your choice.
WordPress comes with an easy-to-use Administration Area (Dashboard) from where you can easily manage, publish, and update everything.
WordPress has a large community of experts who provide tutorials to help newbies.
To start a WordPress blog all you need a reliable WordPress hosting (usually start from $6.99/month), and a domain name (cost around $14.99/year).
illogicalTech users can start with Bluehost, which is an official WordPress webhosting company recommended by WordPress. They are offering our users FREE domain name and up to 66% off on web hosting.
Pricing
WordPress.org is completely free, but you’ll need to pay for domain name (cost around $14.99/year) and hosting (normally start from $6.99/month). It’s a big amount for a beginners to start a blog, but don’t worry our users can visit Bluehost and claim the best discount deal and free domain name.
Pros
- You get full control over your website. You can manage every aspect of your website through WordPress Dashboard.
- You can use thousands of free plugins and themes and customize your blog.
- You can add extra features like contact form, popup, or online store.
- You can monetize your blog by putting Google ads and start earning.
- WordPress is a SEO friendly platform which means you can easily create SEO-friendly URLs, tags, and categories for your posts.Their are tons of great SEO plugins which can be used to rank your website.
Cons
- You didn’t get customer support from WordPress.
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Next, we have Constant Contact. It’s a powerful A.I powered website builder that allows you to create a blog, business website, and even an e-commerce online store within a few minutes.
You can start building your blog using their large collection of templates. With their drag and drop builder, you can easily customize your website.
Constant Contact also offers some other helpful tools like custom logo maker, online store, 500,000+ professional stock images, and a whole lot more.
Pricing
Constant Contact Website Builder will cost you $10/month in which you will get web hosting, free SSL certificate, unlimited Storage, Logo maker, Email Marketing, and much more. You also get the option to add a custom domain.
Constant Contact provides 24/7 Chat and Phone support.
If you’re just starting and don’t want to use WordPress, then Constant Contact is the best platform for you.
Pros
- Easy-to-use drag and drop website builder, even a beginner can use it.
- No technical skills/ Coding skils required.
- No need to buy Webhosting, as Constant Contact will host it on its own server.
- A free 60-day trial makes it risk-free. You can try out the service and even build a website before buying it.
- Free SSL certificate with all paid plans.
Cons
- As compared to WordPress they don’t have much third-party plugins.
- Very few integration options with third-party platforms.
- Moving your website from Constant Contact to another platform is not easy.
Next, we have wix which is an another popular blogging platform used by the bloggers. It was founded in 2006 and it have 109+ million active users across the globe.
It is a perfect platform where anyone can signup and create stunning websites without any coding skills. With their drag & drop website builder you can create osm looking websites in just a few minutes.
Pricing
The Basic Plan is free, in which you’ll get a Wix subdomain for free. Wix will use your username to create subdomain which will like this: https://Username.wixsite.com/page.
However, you can pick the cheapest plan which start from $4.50/month and add a custom domain. Their premium plans start from $8.50/mo and go up to $24.50/mo.
Pros
- Customize your blogs using Pre made templates and third-party apps.
- Easy to use drag and drop builder.
- Best for those who don’t have coding skills.
- Quick and super easy setup.
Cons
- The free account is very limited and shows Wix branding and Wix ads on your site.
- Third-party apps are very limited.
- You cannot change the template, once you choose one.
- Limited features for eCommerce website.
4. WordPress.com
Our next pick is WordPress.com which is a hosted version of WordPress. It was started in 2003 by Matt Mullenweg. Best thing about this platform is that it doesn’t require any installation/ setup, just use your email id to sign up and start publishing.
They offers multiple plans- Free and Paid. WordPress.com’s free plan is very limited and comes with WordPress.com branding. To unlock all the advance features you need to upgrade.
Pricing
WordPress.com offer 5 plans-Free, Personal, Premium, Business and eCommerce. WordPress.com’s free account is a free forever plan in which you will get 3GB Storage and a free sub-domain from WordPress. During free plan you cannot add a custom domain. Other than that WordPress will show its ads and branding on your site and earn revenue from it.
To remove WordPress.com branding and ads from your website you can upgrade. Their cheapest plan is Personal plan that starts from $4/month billed yearly).
| Plan | Storage | Free Domain | Price | Remove WordPress Ads |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Free | 3GB | No | Free Forever | No |
Personal | 6GB | Yes | $4/mo | Yes |
Premium | 13GB | Yes | $8/mo | Yes |
Business | 200GB | Yes | $25/mo | Yes |
eCommerce | 200GB | Yes | $45/mo | Yes |
Pros
- No setup required, you can start your blog instantly.
- Easy to use and manage using WordPress dashboard.
- 24/7 customer support.
- WordPress.com has a free plan which is completely free. You will get a free subdomain from WordPress.com that will look like this: https://website.wordpress.com.
Cons
- WordPress.com monitor every website very carefully, and they can suspend your account any time without any notice if you violate their terms of service.
- You cannot run Google ads on it. Instead, WordPress will show their own ads on your website (Free Plan).
- In the free plan, you have very limited options to customize your site. You cannot use custom themes and plugins for blog customization.
5. Blogger.com
Next we have Blogger which is one of the most trusted free blogging platform.
The best thing about this platform is that it is completely free and you don’t need to pay for hosting to start a blog. To start a blog on Blogger all you need a Google (gmail) account.
On Blogger you will get a free subdomain and it will look like this websitename.blogger.com, well if you want to use your custom domain then you can do that as well.
You can use themes and pre-made templates to customize your blog. Unlike WordPress, it doesn’t have Plugins.
Pricing
The good news is that it’s free, and you can test it right now without any commitment.
Pros
- It is completely free.
- It’s easy to use and you can manage it effortlessly.
- Own by Google, which means all your data are safe and secure
Cons
- Limited blogging tools and you can’t add new features to your blog.
- Very limited design options.
- It’s doesn’t receive frequent updates and new features like WordPress.
- You are monitored by Google and it can suspend your blog at any time.
6. Medium.com
Medium was launched in 2012, and since then it has grown into a platform where writers, bloggers, journalists, and experts can publish their content. It is a very useful blogging platform with limited social networking features.
It works much like a social site where you can come and create an account. You can write about your favorite topics and publish them.
You can sign up for a Medium account using your email id. After sign up, you’ll assign a profile address like this: https://medium.com/yourname. For those who are thinking to add a custom domain, sorry you cannot use your own domain.
Pricing
Medium has a free plan and a Membership plan. With the Free plan you can post your own stories, Plus, you get access to 3 exclusive stories per month. The Membership plan costs you $5/month; with this plan, you can subscribe for unlimited access to the smartest writers.
Pros
- No setup required just signup and start publishing
- No Technical skills require
- It is a big community where you can connect to people with similar interests.
Cons
- Very limited features in terms of design or building a brand.
- You are monitored by Medium and if they find anything suspicious, they will block you and you will lose all your followers.
- You cannot use your own domain name.
- You cannot monetize your blog and earn.
7. Tumblr
Tumblr is a bit different than other blogging platforms. It’s a micro-blogging platform with social networking features. You can share your content in small blog posts, can follow other blogs, and re-blog them. It was founded in 2007, by David Karp. If you are a writer and planning to write a long and detailed blog, I wouldn’t recommend Tumblr.
Pricing
Tumblr is completely free.
Pros
- It is free and you will get a free Tumblr subdomain like https://example.tumblr.com.
- You can also connect a custom domain name.
- Easy to set up and use.
- Comes with an integrated social media component.
- As a micro-blogging platform, you can easily share blog videos, GIFs, images, and audio formats.
Cons
- Limited features and you cannot extend as your blog grow.
- Moving your Tumblr blog to other platforms is difficult
8 Ghost
Ghost is one of the best open-source blogging platforms and it was started in 2013.
This platform gives you full control of your blog. You can decide what kind of experience you want to give to your readers.
There are no barriers when it comes to blog customizations.
You can Sign up and start publishing your content. If you want to monetize your blogs then you need to Upgrade to Ghost’s premium plans.
Pricing
You can start using the platform for free and select one of the three paid plans after:
Free trial
- Get a 14-day trial period
Basic plan
- $29.00 per month
Standard plan
- $79.00 per month
Business plan
$199.00 per month
Pros
- Completely Focused on blogging and writing.
- Clean and intuitive user interface.
- Highly secure, and no setup required
Cons
- Options are very limited.
- Not enough themes for your site.
- Complicated setup
Our Recommendation
I will recommend WordPress.org because it is the best blogging platform and it outperforms all other blogging sites. It is free, powerful, easy to use, and offers limitless customization options. You should use WordPress because it is
- Reliable and secure – WordPress keeps your data safe from hacking and malware attacks.
- Responsive Design – It provides responsive themes which means everything you publish can be seen on any small and big screen device without any issue.
- Thousands of Themes (Free) – You get access to a free theme directory where you can install free themes and customize them as per your requirement.
- Thousands of Plugins (Free) – WordPress has thousands of free plugins that can be used to optimize your website and enhance its functioning.
- SEO Tools – You can install Search Engine Optimization plugins that can help you rank higher in Google.
- Work Effortlessly With Drag & Drop Builder– WordPress offers Gutenberg website builder which is a drag and drop builder using that you can create, publish and update blogs effortlessly. Other then that you can install Elementor, Beaver or divi builders, all of them are very easy to use and work perfectly.
Final Words
Through this guide, we have listed out the 8 best blogging platforms, now it’s your turn to choose one. Choosing a platform is solely depends on your requirement, budget, ease of access, and customization features you need.
So which one will you choose?
Frequently Asked Questions
Bluehost It is affordable, fast, and reliable also recommend by WordPress. Bluehost offer our users free domain name and up to 66% discount on Webhosting.
We recommend WordPress.org. It is the best blogging platform in the world. It is easy to use and easy to setup. They offer thousands of free plugins and themes and much more. If you don't want to use WordPress then go with Constant contact.
Yes, you can, there are multiple ways to earn with blogging. You can monetize your blogs and earn through Google ads, or can promote affiliate products or sell products.
Yes, you can move your blogs from one platform to another. It is not easy and will take some time.
We recommend WordPress.org and Blogger.com, both of them are free and don't require coding skills. You can easily monetize your blog and earn money.
