How to choose the best platform to create a blog (2024)

What are the best blogging platforms?

Here are my picks of the best blogging platforms:

1. Zyro.

Zyro is a tool for creating websites whose mission is to help businesses get started quickly and cheaply on the web.

With Zyro, you can create a business blogging website quickly and easily, without any development skills. Your site also loads quickly thanks to its lightweight framework and looks great on all devices.

With a powerful set of tools, Zyro helps grow your online business with pre-built design models, AI-driven text, an intuitive drag-and-drop grid tool, mobile device compatibility, and over a million stock images to choose from.

Features

• Usability: Zyro's drag-and-drop features make it very easy for users to personalize the website. Moving items on Zyro is as easy as moving items on Microsoft PowerPoint.
• Templates: It offers a large collection of templates that users can use to personalize their blogs. The templates are organized into different categories to allow users to easily find the model that is right for them.
• Responsive: Zyro offers mobile-responsive blogging sites to all its users. It supports smartphones and tablets of all makes and models.
• Analytics: Its web analysis tool offers all the relevant information, including the number of visitors, geography, and demographics.

One of their most remarkable features is their AI content generator, which provides SEO-friendly content ideas based on your industry and business type.

To start with this tool, you choose your type of business and then write 2 or 3 sentences describing your brand and context. You then adjust your AI settings and customize them according to length, expertise, and level of creativity. Finally, you click on the Generate button and see your content created in a unique way.

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Pricing

Zyro offers three main pricing plans - starting at $3.90 per month up to $14.90 per month.

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Overall, Zyro is the best solution for small businesses that want to quickly build and develop a website, save money on logo writing and design thanks to its AI tools, rank higher in search engines, and increase conversion rates through high-quality, mobile-friendly design templates.

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Try for free Zyro

Get 70% off with Zyro by clicking on this link

2. Weebly.

Weebly offers several easy to use features that can be exploited to easily create a highly personalized blog. You have all the tools you need to create the website of your choice and develop your business.

Features

• Responsive: Weebly offers a huge library of responsive themes that you can use to provide a remarkable mobile experience.
• App Center: The app center allows bloggers to integrate additional features into the website with just a few clicks.
• Team manager: It allows multiple users to collaborate on the same website project. You can give access to different users to work on the same blog.
• Membership: This feature allows bloggers to reserve particular sections of the website for registered users only.

Pricing

You have a freemium plan for basic use. Then, paid plans start at $5 per month and go up to $25 per month, if paid annually.

Create your professional website with Weebl

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3. WordPress.org.

WordPress is one of the most popular blogging platforms and powers over 30% of websites in the world. Considered the best free blogging platform (while also open-source), it allows users to create a blog or website in minutes.

Features

• Flexibility: WordPress gives users full control to create any type of website, including a personal blog or website, a magazine, a professional portfolio, a corporate website, a photoblog, a government website, and a news website, among others.
• Website themes: Users can beautify the website with hundreds of themes and extend it with plugins. It also allows users to create their own applications.
• Publishing tools: Managing content is super easy on WordPress sites. Users can easily save drafts, schedule articles, format your blog posts and check for article revisions. Its user-friendly interface allows WordPress users to make content public or private, and to secure posts and pages with passwords.
• Media management: WordPress offers the ability to easily and quickly upload images, videos, PDFs, and GIFs thanks to its simple drag-and-drop function. Users can also easily upload alt text, captions, and insert images or galleries into posts. There are also several image editing tools to improve images when uploaded.
• Plugins: The WordPress plugin directory offers thousands of plugin extensions to add social networks, forums, complex galleries, calendars, fine controls for search engine optimization, social media widgets, spam protection, and forms.

Pricing

The price of WordPress depends on the web hosting service you choose. Also, if you want more advanced features, you'll need to pay extra for additional plugins, your own domain name, a WordPress theme, etc.

To start with, I recommend installing WordPress via Bluehost hosting, which is efficient, cheap, and of high quality.

You can start with Bluehost for only $2.95/month (63% off) via my link below.

Try Bluehost and get 63% off

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4. Squarespace.

Squarespace has powered millions of websites and is one of best website creation tools of the market. It allows its users to easily create amazing websites using its drag-and-drop creation tool.

Features

• Blogger feature: Squarespace is a great option for bloggers. It offers, among other things, unique comment functions, AMP support, multi-author functionality, and the post scheduling function.
• Support: The blogging platform offers solid customer support through its live chat feature. They often take screencast recordings to provide more detailed solutions and answers.
• Mobile app: Users can easily edit and personalize every aspect of their blogging site with Squarespace's mobile apps on the go. This feature is not present in all blogging platforms.
• Design: It offers over 100 advanced, robust, and optimized themes for smartphones and tablets. Users can use the site styles menu to customize templates at advanced levels.

Pricing

Squarespace offers four pricing plans:

• Personal plan: $14 per month
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• Business plan: $23
• Basic commerce: $27 per month
• Advanced trade: $49

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5. Wix.

Wix is known for providing a superior user experience for bloggers. Its free version comes with enough features for aspiring bloggers.

Features

• High speed: blogs built on Wix.com are opening at lightning speed. The site is optimized by default so that loading speed is not compromised.
• Huge collection of templates: Users can easily take advantage of its vast collection of templates to create their website in minutes.
• Drag-and-drop: Bloggers can take advantage of its drag-and-drop feature, which is easy to use. You can easily customize by dragging and dropping. It also offers a mobile editor through which you can make changes via your smartphone.
• Integrated SEO: It allows users to fill in keyword tags, metadata, and customize URLs to make blog posts more SEO friendly.

Pricing

Wix offers a free plan. However, to take advantage of advanced features like unlimited bandwidth, a free domain name, and more, you need to sign up for a paid plan, starting at $8.50 per month.

Start with a free trial of Wix

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6. Gator Website Builder by HostGator.

Gator Website Builder offers an easy to use, drag-and-drop website creation tool that even bloggers with minimal expertise can use to create websites. It's also one of the most popular blogging platforms on this list.

Features

• Usability: Gator's drag-and-drop features make it very easy for users to personalize the website. Moving items on Gator is as easy as it is on Microsoft PowerPoint.
• Templates: It offers a large collection of templates that users can use to personalize their blogs on Gator. The templates are organized into different categories to allow users to easily find the model that is right for them.
• Responsive: Gator offers responsive blogging sites on mobile to all of its users. It supports smartphones and tablets of all makes and models.
• Analytics: Its web analysis tool offers all the relevant information, including the number of visitors, geography, and demographics.

Pricing

Gator offers three pricing plans:

• Starter plan: $3.84/month
• Premium Plan: $5.99/month
• eCommerce plan: $9.22/month

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7. WordPress.com.

People usually confuse WordPress.com and WordPress.org. WordPress.org co-founder Matt Mullenweg created WordPress.com to provide essential features for people considering starting their first blog.

Features

• Key features: The free version includes all the new features, including 3 GB of space and automatic updates or backups.
• User Interface: It offers a clean and simple user interface through which users can create a personal blog instantly.
• Easy maintenance: Users don't have to worry about security updates or backing up periodically to protect the website from hackers.
• Easy installation: It offers effortless installation. All you need to do is create an account and give the URL a unique name.

Pricing

If simplicity is the key to launching your own website, you can do so with the free WordPress.com platform. For more advanced features, you'll need to pay for their premium plans.

Create your website in minutes with WordPress.com

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8. Constant Contact Website Builder.

Constant Contact Website Builder is an AI-powered site builder that allows users to easily create a free blog or business in minutes. It offers a quick and easy way to create a blog instantly.

Features

• Customization: It offers highly customizable features where users can simply drag and drop their content and images onto the page. It offers 3 to 5 different block options, and users also have the option to add or remove elements from the page.
• Mobile Responsive: it allows you to preview the website from a smartphone or a tablet. In addition, it offers themes that are highly customizable and compatible with mobile devices.
• Royalty-free images: Constant Contact offers integration with the royalty-free image platform Unsplash. Users can therefore easily use free images for their websites from a large image repository.
• Unlimited pages: Its free version also offers the addition of an unlimited number of pages. Thanks to its “page management” function, you can easily reorder pages to decide which page to display first in the navigation.

Pricing

You have a freemium plan for basic needs. However, paid plans start at $9.99 per month.

Discover for free Constant Contact

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9. Blogger.

Blogger.com is a completely free blogging platform offered by Google. Blogs are hosted by Google and accessible from a subdomain of Blogspot.com. With a Google account, users can easily create a blog without any technical expertise.

Features

• No ads: Unlike WordPress.com, Blogger offers users the choice to accept or decline ads on web pages. Users therefore have the option of maintaining their blog without advertising.
• Simple user interface: Blogger offers a simple and straightforward user interface that allows users to set up their account in minutes. Gmail users can set up the account directly from their Gmail account existing.
• No maintenance: Blogger covers all website maintenance work, including security, speed, and other site hosting issues.
• Robust Google integration: Blogger is part of the Google ecosystem, which means you can easily export your data through Takeout.

Pricing

It's completely free and doesn't even offer paid plans.

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10. Tumblr.

Tumblr.com is a microblogging site that combines a blogging platform and a social networking site. It offers you the best of both worlds, which is why the platform is very popular with young people. Internet users.

Features

• Discussion Forums: Users take advantage of its discussion board functions to discuss a plethora of important topics. This is a great feature to get users engaged with your blog.
• HTML editing: Users can easily customize the look and feel of their Tumblr microblogging platform, as it allows HTML editing. It also allows you to use custom domain names.
• Dashboard: It offers a simple dashboard that makes it easy to take advantage of all of Tumblr's features.
• Share media: Tumblr is a great platform for sharing memes and jokes through photos and videos. You can quickly create a message and share it.

Pricing

Although it's free, you need to pay to use more advanced themes.

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11. Medium.

Medium.com has established itself as one of the favorite choices of bloggers in recent years. Founded by Twitter co-founder Evan Williams in 2012, Medium has grown into a strong community of writers, journalists, and bloggers.

Features

• Quality readers: Medium offers a paid subscription to its readers in exchange for quality content without clutter. Therefore, if you want serious readers for your platform, then Medium is one of the most suitable platforms.
• User Experience: Medium offers a clean, clear user interface with lots of white space that encourages both writing and reading. Users can easily create an account and start blogging right away thanks to a user-friendly edit page.
• Story option: Medium allows writers to create a series of stories and inform users of upcoming articles in order to keep readers interested.
• SEO optimization: Blogs published on Medium regularly rank at the top of the major search engines. It offers URL customization and story description functions to improve the SEO of their articles.

Pricing

Medium is also free, but for $5/month or $50/year, you get unlimited, ad-free access to all stories on Medium.

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12. Typepad.

Typepad is a blogging platform that is easy to use and decidedly easy to monetize. The best part is that it offers simple and functional features for novice bloggers.

Features

• Easy content upload: Typepad allows users to easily create and upload content from the dashboard. It allows you to quickly publish content in a few simple steps.
• SEO-friendly: it is equipped with SEO tools that allow the user to optimize content in accordance with search engine optimization best practices.
• Live video and audio: Typepad allows bloggers to broadcast live video or audio broadcasts to their followers. This allows business owners to connect with their audience and get feedback in real time.
• Easy monetization: Typepad offers multiple monetization options for users. This includes Amazon affiliate links and Google ads, among others. Users can also receive donations through the PayPal tip jar.

Pricing

It offers three levels of paid plans that cost 9, 15, and 30 dollars.

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13. joomla.

Joomla is an easy to use content management system (CMS) that offers a wide range of features for greater customization and amazing designs. It doesn't just help you build websites, but it also allows you to create engaging online applications.

Features

• Ease of use: The Joomla installation process is quite similar to that of WordPress. Several hosting providers also offer a one-click installation of Joomla.
• eCommerce Support: It allows users to manage content and the online store from the same location. It also offers online store components that improve the shopping experience for customers.
• PHP: Joomla uses PHP scripts to quickly minimize compatibility issues.
• Flexible: Websites on Joomla can be easily scaled whenever required.

Pricing

Joomla is one of the best free blogging platforms for a basic website. However, you will need to pay extra to get additional advanced tools and website themes.

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14. drupal.

Drupal has positioned itself as a popular blogging platform for small businesses. It offers all the capabilities of an effective content management system.

Features

• Multiple support: It supports content management, podcasts, P2P networks, and collaborative creation, among others.
• Extensions: Drupal offers a considerable number of extensions. Its modules are efficient, reliable and secure.
• Flexible taxonomies: it offers the possibility of managing content in multiple groups, including website subsections, fact sheets, and blog posts, among others.
• Secure: Blogs on Drupal are less likely to be hacked because they offer advanced layers of security.

Pricing

Creating a website with Drupal is completely free. However, the monthly cost of maintaining the site can be up to $500 per month, or even more.

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15. Ghost.

The Ghost offers a clean and simple user interface for bloggers. The premium service of the open-source platform offers a plethora of features to easily customize the blog.

Features

• Design: It offers an extensive library of themes and templates. There are also paid themes for greater personalization.
• Integrated plugins: It offers integrated social media plugins and extensions. There is no need to use external tools to incorporate these features, including a comment section.
• SEO optimization: it offers powerful SEO optimization tools that allow bloggers to make their articles easy to reference and search on the Internet.
• User Interface: Ghost has a clean user interface that allows you to easily read and write blog posts.

Pricing

Ghost offers three pricing plans:

• Starter: $9 per month
• Creator: 25 dollars per month
• Team: $50 per month
• Business: $199 per month

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16. jekyll.

This Ruby-based blogging platform offers numerous features that allow bloggers to create amazing websites. Developed by Tom Preston-Werner, co-founder of GitHub, the software is available in open-source.

Features

• Static website: Instead of exploiting the database, Jekyll draws the content, renders Markdown or Textile, and the Liquid templates.
• Reliable: It can effectively handle massive amounts of traffic and won't let even an extraordinary amount of traffic cause your blog to fail.
• Flexible: The platform is extremely flexible. It allows you to take advantage of various combinations with front-end frameworks, including Semantic UI and Bootstrap, among others.
• Ingenious: It requires fewer resources and space. You can easily bring your website to life using CSS, HTML, and JS files.

Pricing

Like its GitHub host, Jekyll is an open-source platform for creating websites.

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What is a blogging platform?

A blogging platform is a web-based tool that allows bloggers to create a website to quickly publish blogs on the Internet. Anyone with an Internet-connected device can read your blog posts.

A blogging platform is almost similar to a content management system (CMS) that allows users to manage and track content online. For example, WordPress was originally launched as a CMS and now powers over 30% of blogging sites in the world.

Today, blogging platforms allow you to fully control the design of your site. For example, WordPress users can use a ton of WordPress themes free or Premium to control the design and layout of their site without having to code or do Call a developer on Fiverr.

How do I choose the best blogging platform?

When choosing a blogging platform, there are specific criteria that it must meet.

Here are the top five requirements to meet when making your choice.

1. Easy setup of your blog site.

Many bloggers and writing enthusiasts do not come from a technical background.

Therefore, the blogging tool should offer an easy setup that anyone can execute in a matter of minutes.

The platform should involve a minimum of development so that any layperson can learn the process effectively and implement the configuration.

However, if you have development knowledge, you don't need to worry about the code required during installation.

2. Growth potential.

The Internet is an unpredictable place where anything can go viral in a matter of seconds.

Tons of blogs started out small but have become popular in their niche.

Therefore, look for a platform that is easily scalable and can handle massive traffic at any given time.

Also, make sure that the platform you choose offers different payment plans for different needs.

Take a look at the Constant Contact pricing plans :

When you're just starting out, you can opt for their freemium plan. However, when you see an increase in blog traffic, you can upgrade to a paid plan that offers more advanced features.

3. Website and copyright ownership.

Remember to check the content policy of your blog platform and whether or not you are the owner of the content published.

Some platforms control your content and may delete or censor the content you post.

If you're planning on owning your own blog content, it's best to opt for a self-hosted platform like WordPress.org.

4. A robust community and customer support.

The majority of free blogging platforms don't come with dedicated customer support.

Even some of the paid products only offer chat support, which may not be enough.

In that case, having a strong community of bloggers and people with technical skills can help answer your questions.

If customer support is on the run out, look for a blogging platform that has a vibrant community to answer your questions.

5. Affordability of the blog platform.

A lot of new bloggers and freelancers don't necessarily want to spend a lot of money on a blogging platform.

The amount of your expenses should largely depend on the purpose of your blog project.

If you blog as a hobby or to pursue a passion, there are several free blogging platforms, including WordPress.com and Blogger.

These platforms will allow you to reach your goal without having to spend a cent.

However, if your goal is to start a blog to earn passive income online through ads and affiliate programs, it would be a good idea to have a self-hosted blog with a custom domain and other paid features.

Therefore, first think about the purpose of your blog and then decide whether it is possible to spend money on a platform or not.

Summary.

Choosing a blogging platform depends on whether or not you want to monetize your blog, what features you need, and what you're willing to spend.

If you want to create a free website, WordPress.com and Blogger are two of the most common options.

However, you might also want to consider other emerging website builders like Squarespace and Wix, which offer a clean, modern user interface.

My final recommendation is to choose WordPress.org because it's the most robust and versatile CMS out there. It's also the best in its class when it comes to SEO, advanced features, and customization.

You can create your own WordPress site with Bluehost for only $2.95/month (63% off).

Here are a few key things you need to consider before making the final decision:

• Ensure that the blogging platform is scalable and able to meet the future needs of your blog.
• Look for a transparent pricing structure if you're opting for a paid blogging platform.
• Check if it meets the design and functionality requirements of your website.
• Test its customization options, including themes, plugins, and widgets.
• Make sure the platform is responsive on all devices and browsers.
• Seek strong support from the community to ensure that you will always receive timely help.
• A simple user interface and minimum IT development needs will make your life easier when managing your blog on a daily basis.
• An effective customer tool if you buy a subscription to a paid blogging platform.

Once you've thought through the points mentioned above, you'll be in a better position to choose your platform of choice.

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RECOMMENDED READING: To take your blog to the next level, check out my step-by-step guides to learning How to create a blog and How to make money with a blog.