the clash of the titans…

I’ve been in the blogosphere for almost two years now. During this time I have fiddled around with blogger.com (B) and wordpress.com (WP) exploring all the options and would like to post some a comparison of the two.

NOTE: In this comparison I have only taken into account the free wordpress.com hosted domain.

• Both are free blog sites that require nothing more than an ID and Password. That’s perfect! No need to worry about hosting, domain names, blah blah blah. Score: WP 1 | B 1
• Blogger is owned by Google. That’s cool. Word Press is open source. Even cooler. What does that mean for most people? Nothing really. But for those who care, it’s cool. Score: WP 2 | B 1
• With Blogger, you have much more control over the template. They give you access to the code so you can add all the sidebar junk you want. Of course you can also change the images, colors, etc. With WordPress.com you don’t get any control over the template except for uploading custom headers or changing theme colors in a few templates. Advantage: WP 2 | B 2
• Word Press allows you to use tags for each post which is great since it gives a perfect brief about the post that you have written. Tags are not supported in blogger. boo Score: WP 3 | B 2
• Word Press allows you to create pages of static info like an “About Me” (you can even change the name to ‘Author’ or something more apt) page. Blogger uses a profile that isn’t a part of your site. But that’s just for the “About Me” page. In Word Press, you can create as many pages about anything you like. Score: WP 4 | B 2
• If you create a post with a date or time stamp in the future, in Blogger it’ll show up with that date in the correct place. In Word Press, it’ll wait and publish that post at the time of the date stamp. Score: WP 5 | B 3
• WordPress.com allows trackbacks (a comment notification that someone blogged about you). Blogger does not. Score: WP 6 | B 3
• At least at this point, it seems WordPress.com’s Akismet spam blocker works better than Blogger, but it’s close very close call. Score: WP 7 | B 4
• Word Press provides you with basic stats. Blogger does not. Score: WP 8 | B 4
• Blogger and WordPress.com both allow multiple blogs on one account. Score: WP 9 | B 5
• WordPress.com has a very cool and easy import function so if you wanted to leave blogger, typepad, etc and go with wordpress.com, it’ll import all of your old posts and comments so easily. Blogger doesn’t know what import means. Score: WP 10 | B 5
• Word Press gives 3 gigabytes of storage as compared to a paltry 1 gigabyte of Blogger. Score: WP 11 | B 5

Overall winner: Word Press

My conclusion if you are into customizing your template and making your own template and blog, go with Blogger. You have more control over the look/design/template. However, the look/feel of wordpress.com’s templates are nice and clean and they are giving you a lot of options in the sidebar now. WordPress.com has many more options that are favorable like tags, pages, and trackbacks. This makes your blog better for visitors and encourages better conversation.

Also, I have more confidence in wordpress.com adding more features than blogger.com.