There are more than 600 million blogs out there on the world wide web.
Every day, anywhere between 4.5 million to 7 million new blog posts are published on them.
And that is because blogging works – whether you want to generate an income for yourself or leads for your business, with the right kind of content and blog, you can achieve those objectives. So, if you too want to start a blog, it makes total sense.
But before you can set up your blog, it’s critically important to choose the right blogging platform for your needs. One wrong choice and either you shall find yourself burned out even before starting, or you shall struggle to scale your blog as it grows.
That’s why we’re going to share with you a list of the 9 best blogging platforms that you can use to set up your blog. We shall also tell you the factors you should consider while choosing a blogging platform.
There’s a lot to cover, so let’s jump straight into it without taking any more time.
How to Choose the best blogging platform?
Before you take a look at the list of the 9 best blogging platforms right now, let’s stop for a minute and take a look at the factors that should be considered while choosing the platform. Here they are:
- Content editor: The content editor is where you write your blog posts, so it matters more than anything else. It should offer all advanced formatting capabilities as well as auto-saving functionality to prevent loss of content in case your browser or computer crashes.
- Customization capabilities: A good blogging platform offers easy customization features to help you design a blog. Some of those features include drag-and-drop page builders, custom CSS functionality, and page preview.
- Themes and templates: Pre-designed themes and templates allow you to set up your blog very easily. Therefore, you should also consider the number of available templates offered by a platform.
- Plugins, modules, and extensions: Plugins, modules, or extensions allow you to add additional functionality to your blog, or integrate it with external services. The greater the number of plugins in the ecosystem of a blogging platform, the more flexibility it can offer for such integrations.
- Price: Finally, your budget and price are other things that you’d obviously want to consider while choosing a blogging platform.
Best Blogging Platforms: In a Nutshell (2023)
Here’s a quick overview of the 10 blogging platforms that we’re going to cover in this article and what they are best for:
| Sr.No. | Platform | Price | Best For |
| 1. | WordPress | Free | Everything |
| 2. | Medium | Free | Promoting your content to a niche audience |
| 3. | Free | Professional networking and blogging | |
| 4. | Blogger | Free | Simple blogs |
| 5. | Drupal | Free | Advanced technical users and developers |
| 6. | Tumblr | Free | Hobbyists and social media users |
| 7. | CMS Hub | Free to $1,200 per month | Business users and Hubspot users |
| 8. | Squarespace | $16 per month to $40 per month | Design and simplicity |
| 9. | TypePad | $8.95 per month to $49.95 per month | Customization options |
| 10. | Web.com | $1.95 per month to $3.95 per month | Affordability with ease of use |
| 11. | Wix | $16 per month to $59 per month | Beginners & Small business owners |
Best Free Blogging Platforms
The blogging platforms that we’re going to cover can be organized into two categories: free platforms and premium platforms. Before we dive into the premium ones, let’s take a look at the list of free options available out there.
#1. WordPress
| G2 Ratings | 4.3 stars out of 5 stars (based on 8,000 + reviews) |
| Price | Free |
| Ease of use | 7.5/10 |
The first platform we’re going to talk about is WordPress. To be clear, we’re talking about the self-hosted WordPress.org – not WordPress.com that’s managed and hosted by Automattic, the parent company of both these platforms.
The WordPress.org platform is an open-source, self-hosted solution for blogging needs of all kinds. Since it’s open source and self-hosted (you host it on your own webserver), it allows you to customize every aspect of your blog’s design and functionality. It’s also highly scalable and extensible – thanks to its minimalist core and a large number of themes and plugins available to extend its functionality.
WordPress is also highly reliable as a blogging platform, thanks to its huge community. It has a robust community of millions of users, developers, and supporters who try to keep it working flawlessly.
However, a downside of using WordPress is that due to its large number of features and self-hosted nature, installing it and getting started may be a little tricky for first-time bloggers. In addition to that, you are fully responsible for your blog’s maintenance, security, updates, etc. because it’s hosted on your server.
Pros:
- Extremely customizable
- Highly scalable
- Highly reliable too
- Full control on the whole functionality of your blog.
- Huge library of themes and plugins
Cons:
- A little complex to set up.
- Full responsibility for server maintenance.
#2. Medium
| G2 Ratings | No rating |
| Price | Free |
| Ease of use | 9/10 |
If you just want to start writing and don’t care much about the aesthetics of your blog, Medium is the way to go! It’s a simple blogging platform founded by the co-founders of Twitter, and it allows you to get started by simply signing up and creating your Medium Page.
The platform promotes your blog posts through the assistance of its own algorithm, so they get found easily by other people who may be interested in the topic of your post. In addition to that, Medium also allows you to get paid for the content that you write easily under its Medium Partner Program based on how much engagement your posts generate.
But obviously, there are some downsides too. The chief one among them is not allowing you to connect any custom domain. Plus, you can also not customize the appearance of your posts.
Pros:
- Easier discoverability to niche audience
- Publish anonymously or with a byline
- Super easy to set up
- Build a community with minimum marketing expertise
- Easy content monetization
- No server cost or maintenance required.
Cons:
- No support for custom domain.
- No customization features.
#3. LinkedIn
| G2 Ratings | No rating |
| Price | Free |
| Ease of use | 8/10 |
LinkedIn is not a blogging platform but a social network. However, thanks to its functionality, this robust social media platform can also be used like a blogging platform.
The best part about publishing on LinkedIn is that it’s super easy to get started (especially if you already have a LinkedIn profile). You also get lots of high-quality traffic on your posts, mostly from professionals, especially if you’ve written an interesting piece that gains traction from your network on LinkedIn.
But there also are some major downsides of blogging with LinkedIn. The biggest one among them is that finding old posts is difficult. Unlike a normal blog where you can go through posts organized in categories or archives, on LinkedIn you need to scroll through your whole activity feed to find them. This can make the discoverability of your content difficult for people who follow you. And just like Medium, you don’t get to use your custom domain or any of the customization capabilities.
Pros:
- Simple and easy to use
- Best for business users
- Grows your professional network
- No server cost/maintenance effort needed.
Cons:
- Just like Medium, you don’t get a website.
- No customization capabilities.
- Finding old posts is difficult.
#4. Blogger
| G2 Ratings | 4.1 star out of 5 stars (based on 73 reviews) |
| Price | Free |
| Ease of use | 8.5/10 |
Blogger was among the pioneers of the blogging space along with WordPress. It is really simple to use and comes with plenty of well-designed themes to help you get started with your blog as quickly as possible.
Since it’s a Google product, your blog built on Blogger never faces any indexation issues. Plus, you also get a number of SEO features and in-depth insights about your traffic with its out-of-the-box Google Analytics and Google Search Console integration.
Yet, there are some serious limitations to this platform. Its functionality, despite being enough for the purpose, is still very limited. Customization capabilities are also very limited, and it hosts your blog as a subdomain on blogspot.com unless you buy a custom domain and map it.
Pros:
- Google analytics integrated
- Google search console features integrated
- Google indexation is no issue
- Simple to get started
- Plenty of themes
Cons:
- Very basic functionality
- Less customization capability
- Your blog is hosted as a subdomain of blogspot.com.
#5. Drupal
| G2 Ratings | 3.8 star out of 5 stars (based on 400+ reviews) |
| Price | Free |
| Ease of use | 6/10 |
Like WordPress, Drupal is also an open-source content management system (CMS) that allows you to create a blog hosted on your own server. It gives you absolute control over the functionality of your blog, but only if you’re a little tech-savvy.
It comes with advanced admin controls and user permission management so you can delegate access only to the desired features and sections of your blog to different admins. It also includes multilingual capabilities to help you translate your blog posts into multiple languages. Custom CSS support and other advanced features meant for developers are also there to allow for the creation of a very feature-rich blog.
As far as its shortcomings are concerned, the big one is that it’s a complex platform for an average user. If you have not played with code or other CMS platforms before, you’ll definitely find it complex to navigate your way around it.
Pros:
- Total control over blog functionality
- Highly extensible with help of modules
- Advanced content management features
- Advanced user access controls
- Multilingual capabilities
Cons:
- Complex for average users.
#6. Tumblr
| G2 Ratings | 3.9 stars out of 5 stars (based on 33 reviews) |
| Price | Free |
| Ease Of Use | 6.5/10 |
Tumblr is a microblogging platform that comes with features like social networking websites. It is completely free to use for everyone. Tumblr is a platform that considers an in-between of a blogging and social media platform. Back in the day, Tumblr was considered to be one of the best social media platforms. To this date, it has over 530 million blogs on its website. It may not be as popular as it was a few years back, but it has over 450 million users right now.
Anyone can sign up on Tumblr and start publishing their content for free. They can also add media to their content to reach their readers. The potential of Tumblr is good, and finding an audience for your blog is not that hard. Tumblr also gives the tools you will need to create a professional website, and you can connect that website to a custom domain as well.
Pros:
- Custom domain connection
- Easy to use and scalable
- Plenty of options to monetize your content
- Share any type of content, whether it is long-form, short-form, or video content
- Built-in audience
Cons:
- Not the right platform for businesses
- Difficult to migrate from this platform to other blogging platforms
Best Premium (paid) Blogging Platforms
After having a look at the free options out there it’s now time to take a look at the best premium blogging platforms. So here we go with the top 4 of them:
#7. CMS Hub by Hubspot
| G2 Ratings | 4.5 star out of 5 stars (based on 1,100+ reviews) |
| Price | Free to $1,200 per month |
| Ease of use | 7.5/10 |
If you are a business owner looking to introduce a blog into their marketing campaign to generate leads, and if you already use Hubspot as a CRM (or in the process to choose a CRM), look no further than Hubspot CMS Hub.
Since it’s a platform offered by Hubspot, it comes with features that allow for deeper integration of your blog with Hubspot’s CRM. That way you can easily manage all your leads generated through your blog from within your CRM itself. It also offers SEO recommendations to help you optimize your content for SEO. Finally, it also includes advanced customization capabilities like custom CSS support, A/B testing, etc to design the blog pages and posts that work.
A downside of choosing Hubspot CMS Hub, however, is that the migration process may be a bit longer if you’re moving from/to another blogging platform.
Pros:
- Move your leads to Hubspot CRM
- Provides SEO recommendations
- Advanced customization capabilities
- Easy drag-and-drop page builder
- Managed cloud hosting included in all plans
- Advanced traffic analytics
Cons:
- Possibly lengthy migration process.
#8. Squarespace
| G2 Ratings | 4.4 star out of 5 stars (based on 921 reviews) |
| Price | $16 per month to $40 per month |
| Ease of use | 8/10 |
Squarespace is also one of the simplest and most easy-to-use premium blogging platforms for all types of users. It comes with 150+ stunningly designed mobile optimized templates and 30+ useful integrations like Google AMP, Getty Images, Unsplash, etc to help you set up your blog and start writing immediately.
However, despite being easy to use and having useful 3rd party integrations Squarespace falls flat in terms of the functionality it offers. The number of integrations is less, and what you get with the core platform is enough to help you set up a simple blog in no time, but nothing more complex than that. It also lacks some crucial features like auto-saving of blog posts. We also have an exclusive Squarespace promo code to help you save a few bucks on your subscription.
Pros:
- Simple and easy to use
- 100s of mobile optimized templates
- Dozens of useful integrations
- Built-in analytics and SEO features
Cons:
- Less number of extensions and external integrations
- No auto-saving for blog posts
- Limited functionality.
#9. TypePad
| G2 Ratings | 4 star out of 5 stars (based on 15 reviews) |
| Price | $8.95 per month to $49.95 per month |
| Ease of use | 7/10 |
TypePad is also among the oldest players in the blogging space. It allows you to design your blog as per your needs with its in-built theme builder, or customize a pre-existing template with CSS if you like it. All its plans offer unlimited storage for your media files and blog posts, and it also integrates easily with Google Analytics. Finally, you don’t need to worry about the server space, security, and management part of your blog as it’s a fully managed and hosted platform.
However, it’s not accepting new user registrations currently. Instead, it redirects new users to Bluehost.com, which is not a blogging platform but a web hosting service provider where you can set up your blog based on other blogging platforms like WordPress or Drupal.
Pros:
- Lots of design flexibility
- Fully hosted platform
- Easy Google Analytics integration
- All plans offer unlimited storage
- Affordable to get started
Cons:
- New sign-ups are currently closed.
#10. Web.com
| G2 Ratings | No rating |
| Price | $1.95 per month to $3.95 per month |
| Ease of use | 8/10 |
While Web.com is more of a website builder instead of a blogging platform, you can also easily set up your blog with its drag-and-drop page builder. Its templates and designs are truly unique, so your blog will definitely stand out from the crowd. It’s also growing rapidly, so there’s a reliable community of developers and a technical team behind it to keep it functioning properly. You don’t need to worry about the aspects of server management and security too as your blog is hosted on Web.com’s servers.
Two shortcomings of this platform, however, are that migrating your blog from Web.com to another platform is difficult. Secondly, its pricing remains less in the first month but increases from 2nd month onwards. Third-party integrations are also few and far between.
Pros:
- Drag-and-drop blog builder
- 100+ customizable pre-designed templates
- Free domain with all plans
- Highly affordable
- Hosted Platform
Cons:
- Lack of 3rd party integrations.
- Limited functionality
- Difficult to migrate
- Increased pricing from 2nd month onwards.
#11. Wix
| G2 Ratings | 4 stars out of 5 stars (based on 1597 reviews) |
| Price | $16 per month to $59 per month |
| Ease Of Use | 8.5/10 |
Wix is one of the popular website builders that offer blogging and CMS tools. It is good for beginners who want hosting and blogging features all in one platform. Wix offers better design and speed over functionality. Wix gives you two options to create a website; you can either choose the Wix editor and create a website using the templates or from scratch. The second option is the Wix ADI editor, where the AI will create a website based on your requirements.
Wix has over 800 pre-designed templates that you can choose from. You can easily create a blog with your business and earn organic traffic for your website. You can use Wix’s CMS tools to write and publish your posts for your blog. Wix’s SEO settings allow you to optimize your blog posts for ranking on the top of search engines.
- If Wix seems exciting, you can learn about its capabilities in our detailed Wix review here.
Pros:
- No coding is required
- Drag & Drop Editor
- Free SSL certificate with every paid plan
- Free domain with every plan
- Quick and easy to setup
Cons:
- Comes with a free option which is not good for professional bloggers
- Does not offer better CMS features than platforms like WordPress
Related Read:
Conclusion: Best Blogging Platforms (2023)
So that was our list of the 11 best blogging platforms that you can choose to start with your blogging journey. In our opinion, WordPress and CMS Hub by Hubspot are the best blogging platforms that can be used for building a wide range of blogs. While WordPress is an absolutely free-of-cost solution that can work for all your blogging needs, CMS Hub is a freemium option that can work out well for business blogs (especially if your business is already using Hubspot CRM). But other platforms included in our list are also amazing for the reasons outlined in their explanation, and if you use any of them then you are off to a good start. Happy blogging!
