Wordpress vs. Blogger

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Permalink Reply by Maxie on March 27, 2009 at 11:50am

I absolutely love wordpress-- I paid for my custom design, but there are a lot of pre-mades that are pretty cheap! (check out Delicious Design Studio)

The only downside of wordpress is unless you upgrade to .org (which costs money) you can't do some of the widgets (flash or java i think) or any ads.

I LOVE the wordpress dashboard though. It makes it super easy to reply to comments and add stuff to your sidebar.

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Permalink Reply by Sebastian on March 27, 2009 at 12:04pm

Wordpress is awesome -- but you do need to self-host it for all of the powerful features to come into their own.

If you have any kind of technical talent, you could self-host fairly cheaply though...

If you go with them hosting it for you, don't think there's a vast difference between Blogger and Wordpress :)

(A large majority of all the top blogs in the world use self-hosted Wordpress!)

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Permalink Reply by David Stehle on March 28, 2009 at 12:04am

If you downloaded a free Blogger template somewhere on the web, you want to download one that is compatible with the "new" Blogger format. That way it will allow you to add widgets. The "old" Blogger format does not have the ability to add widgets...and apparently you downloaded one of the old templates.

So if you want to add widgets to a Blogger template, search Google for Blogger templates that are XML or are labeled as "for use with new Blogger format".

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Permalink Reply by Phil on March 29, 2009 at 6:08pm

I'm a huge WordPress fan as well. I tried Blogger for a while but find WordPress to be way more fun and a better experience all around. Hosting is cheap, really, and WordPress is open source (meaning that it's free to use as long as you have a server upon which to host your blog). I recommend Bluehost, who I've used for going on two years and I've been very happy with. It costs me $7/month, and I have plenty of storage (I actually run four websites on the same server; it's a sweet deal). They have options to pay for a year or two years at a time. I like the two year option, myself, but it doesn't make much difference which way you go, really.

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Permalink Reply by Jessica on March 29, 2009 at 6:11pm

Great topic, I've been thinking of leaving Blogger for a little while now so I'm definitely interested in what others have to say too. Is it easy to move from Blogger to Wordpress? I have been thinking of getting my own domain too.

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Permalink Reply by Phil on March 29, 2009 at 8:20pm

It's not too bad. A quick google search for it will bring up plenty of sites to guide you through it. It's fun because WordPress uses "the magic button", which basically allows you to type in your username and password for Blogger, which WordPress then uses to access and import all your blog entries and their comments.

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Permalink Reply by Miss OJ on March 29, 2009 at 10:14pm

I'm going to be in the minority here, but I hate Wordpress. I have two blogs, one on each (the WP blog is self-hosted), and I infinitely prefer Blogger.

BUT: I don't like fiddling. Some people do. And WP, in my experience, requires a lot of fiddling. Sure, it's way more customizable, and yes, many of the major bloggers use it, but I don't have the time for complete customization (or the money to pay for it), and I don't have any aspirations to Internet fame. I just want to write. In fact, when the hosting I'm paying for runs out, I think I'm going to switch the WP blog back to Blogger, where it started out. I'll still be able to use my domain name, but hosting will be free, and I'll know how it all works.

I don't really have an eloquent argument for Blogger, though, and maybe if I'd started out on WP I'd like it better. As it stands, though, I haven't updated my WP blog in forever--partially for lack of time, and partially because WP frustrates me so much, I broke my template & can't fix it, and I don't even want to think about what a hassle upgrading, etc. will be.

(Also, in the spirit of full disclosure, I still use an "old" Blogger template; I tried the new one templates and couldn't figure out how to do anything, so... possibly my problem is that I'm just grouchy and change-averse. lol)

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Permalink Reply by Your Ill-fitting Overcoat on March 30, 2009 at 12:15am

I haven't found a reason to switch to Wordpress yet. So far, Blogger does everything I need and it's easy and free. I've tried Wordpress a few times, but nothing about it seemed worth the added time and money investment. Plus, I hate commenting on Wordpress blogs because I have to re-enter all of my information every single time! With Blogger, you can just use your Google account.

That said, I know lots of peeps love Wordpress and someday I might find a reason to love it, too.

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Permalink Reply by Maxie on March 30, 2009 at 12:17am

You can sign up for a wordpress account w/o having to sign up for a blog...that way you won't have to enter the info every time :-)

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Permalink Reply by cooper on March 30, 2009 at 12:20am

I'm absolutely with the majority in that I love self hosted WP blogs, even though I don't tend toward many widgets or paraphernalia. For me there is just so much more I can do with it from putting my blogroll and archives on a seperate page to changing colors or icon images, and I'm not much of a techie.

I started on blogspot and moved only because of hacking, but I was glad I did ,though for me there was a learning curve as I had no idea what css, html or php was at the time. There is some maintenance to it though, as they upgrade WP periodically and I've had files not completely overwritten with auto upgrade so usually have to manually upgrade.

I have seen some people go back, but from what you describe you in you complaints it sounds like wp would be an option you'd really like.

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