Blogs: The two best free options - Blogger and Wordpress

So in the series of start your website Guides, today i will discuss about BLOG as a option for website. 

What is a BLOG?

A blog (a contraction of the words web log) is a discussion or informational site published on the internet and consisting of discrete entries ("posts") typically displayed in reverse chronological order (the most recent post appears first).

Read more on Wikipedia

Initially when blog were started, they were only based on simple text where people use to write their thoughts (posts) in plain text. But as the technology developed BLOG started incorporating possibility of adding images, videos and now a BLOG is a complete website systems with ability to add HTML/CSS content and even PHP based (eg. WP)

Few features of BLOGS are:

• A blog is a type of website which has posts (or entries) appearing in reverse chronological order. Blog posts typically appear with the most recent blog post (or entry, post) first, just like a diary or journal.
• Blog content may be just a simple text or rich media (audio, video, and embeddable objects).
• A blog is typically updated frequently and regularly, although there are some who are considered “slow bloggers”.
• Blogs typically have a comment system to respond to the blog post.
• Blogs can have individual authors or be a group of authors.
• Blogs have a history or an archive of previous blog posts.
• A blog typically can be read in a number of different formats including the homepage, single post page, categories, tags, and also via RSS and other such syndication technologies.
• Readers and visitors can subscribe to the blog via RSS readers, email subscriptions, etc.

Now you know what a blog is. Today blogs are used as full fledged websites, business portals, educational websites and even for eCommerce purposes. So blogs are not simple diaries any more.

If you think you want to start your blog then keep reading below. 

Blogs can be self hosted or 3rd Party hosted. We will cover self hosted Wordpress blogs in other subsequent posts. Today i will discuss the two most popular blogging platforms Blogger.com and Wordpress.com

Both of them are free hosted blogging systems. I have compared few of the most important features below, which will help you to select the better option according to your needs. The green highlighted columns are the positive points of that platform.

Blogger v/s Wordpress.com

Specifications	Blogger	Wordpress.com
Hosted by	Google	Automattic
Cost	Free	Free + Paid features
Hosting space	~1GB Free	3GB Free
Own domain Mapping	Free	Paid
Themes	Free themes + 3rd Party free & Paid themes	Free themes + 3rd Party free & Paid themes
Themes looks	Old style	Modern look
Template edit option	Free	Paid
Email Subscription	Via Google’s Feedburner	Inbuilt in WP.com
Stats	Inbuilt	Inbuilt
Contact Us forms	3rd Party + Blogger Contact Form Widget	Inbuilt
SEO	Good	Good
Revenue by ads	Allowed via Adsense and 3rd Party ADS.	Not allowed.
Ad free	Yes for life	No, Occasionally display ads by wp.com
Backup	Blog backup in xml format + template backup	Blog backup in xml format only
Theme format	XML	PHP
Use own theme	Yes	No

If you have any queries regarding the blogger or wordpress.com or if you want to add some more points, kindly reply to this post.