We
love to consume content.
We
want to stay updated, know all the latest happenings around the world. Content
gives us a leeway to strike a conversation with others as well as get sharing
information.
In
the 21st Century, with so many things interconnected, a lot of stories are
generated every other minute. While early on, it would’ve been impossible to
keep track of all the happenings, with the Internet you get a safe harbor to
access them. Probably not all at once, but you can access them in the future.
Blogging
has been instrumental in the Internet’s development and its hold over content
creation and consumption. People have different experiences and stories to
tell, and blogging gives you a platform for your stories.
The development of the internet, from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0, shifted its focus from sharing content to focus more on user-generated content.
Blogging
usually involves sharing your personal opinions and experiences. You can blog
for a non-profit reason, keeping a journal of sorts, sharing it with your
friends and acquaintances. Or, you can make for-profit blogs sharing your
expertise on a certain subject.
You
might want to jump on the bandwagon of blogging. After all, everyone has a
story to tell.
In
that case, we bring you a list of 21 Best Free Blogging Platforms to Start your
Blog in 2020.
#1. WordPress.com
It
is noteworthy to mention the fact that WordPress powers about 30% of the
internet. They must be doing something to have such a share of the pie. And
that is thanks to two reasons:
- Easy-to-use and build interface.
- Lots of customizability options to choose form.
WordPress
is offered in two variants: one is WordPress.com, and another is
WordPress.org. The difference being the latter is used for the self-hosted blog
for which you have to buy your hosting service and domain name. Both of these
involve shelling some bucks out.
This
hosting problem is not the case with WordPress.com.
They
have designed the interface as such that you can easily set up your blog within
minutes. The basic blog is stocked with all the basic features to create your
first post.
Although
the drawback of the platform is that you won’t be able to use a wide range of
plugins and themes that are available on the marketplace; plus you don’t have
the full claim of your blog, your blog must abide by the rules of WordPress.
And
in any case, if you violate their ToC, they can straightaway suspend your
website. The reasons are often ambiguous, and one is in constant fear of
getting all the hard work flushed down the drain.
#2. Blogger
First
developed by Pyra Labs in ‘99 and then sold to Google in ‘03, Blogger has seen
its share of development over the years. Having the Google stamp over the
product means that you get a quality assurance on par with Google’s other
products like Google Drive.
With
the help of Google account, you can easily sign and start creating your first
blog post. It is easy to use and self-explanatory in design. You don’t need to
know the code aspect to redesign, although Google provides you with the HTML
codes to tweak around.
Being
backed by Google brings another benefit. It has a very good up-time, and your
blog would rarely go down. Plus with the help of Google’s cloud services, you
can easily save thousands of images and video data relating to the website.
However,
there are two major drawbacks:
- It doesn’t offer you many options to customize. Layouts restrict you.
- Google is known to discard their products in a flash (Orkut, Google Plus). Although there are very fewer chances of Blogger going offline soon, there is still a possibility.
#3. Wix
Chances that a Wix ad has greeted you by now are quite high.
Wix
is a recently launched service. However, they are targeting first-time users
who want to start their content-based blogs and websites. And as such, they
have created tools and mechanisms that are user-friendly and can get you
started ASAP.
It
uses a drag-and-drop mechanism to customize your website, and also provides you
with the HTML code just in case you want to develop it at a more atomic scale.
Unlike
Blogger, it offers you about 500 designs to choose from. Although once
selected, you can’t change the theme again. It also doesn’t allow you to
install new features.
With
a free account, you get 500 MB each of the bandwidth and storage capacity.
Enough if you are not running a media-intensive website.
Also,
with the free version, you will have a Wix marking on your website. And a Wix
subdomain and not a top-level-domain like .com.
#4. Tumblr
Tumblr
was made for the entire process of writing and expressing ideas easier. You
don’t have to worry about hosting and all; you should focus on content that you
want to share among the Tumblr community.
Insanely
popular amongst the teens, especially people belonging to a certain trope or
fandom, you can easily connect with new people on the platform. The entire
purpose of the platform is to create content and re-blog/share content made by
other users/bloggers.
It is more of a microblogging website centered around sharing, and not exclusive to written content. You can share almost anything, ranging from GIFs to images, without the need to write content.
This option might repel some bloggers looking forward to writing content, but it promises you a good audience to pitch your content.
Major
drawbacks include: harder to take backup and import, and not many
customizability options available.
#5. Medium
If
you are a blogger looking to work your way around with words and seeking people
who are interested in the same, Medium is the platform for you. Like-minded
essayists, columnists, and bloggers usually visit the platform.
Started
in 2012 by one of the Twitter founders, it gives you a WYSIWYG editor through
which you can easily put your content out.
It follows a system synonymous with Facebook, where instead of a like button, they provide you with a clap button to rate the articles. It also follows a tag system that splits the story into different categories so that users can choose which category they want to read first specifically.
It also comes with a total time read widget, which helps users to know how much time they will require to go through it.
You
can see how they designed features to attract readers.
The
benefits are:
- You don’t have to code.
- You can easily get an audience that
wants to read the content. - You don’t have to waste time
designing a website.
But
the negatives are:
- Medium essentially provides you with
an account. So if they disband your account, you lose all your content as well
as your users. - You also can’t monetize your
audience through ads, although affiliate marketing can be used effectively.
#6. Quora
Quora
can be said to be a glorified Yahoo Answers.
While
Yahoo Answers was not able to control spam questions and answers, which led to
a drop in credibility, Quora has managed to control this issue. It is by far
the #1 Q&A website.
Unlike
Yahoo Answers, you can follow others on Quora and create your following. You
can get your question answered by popular people and get posed by questions
from others.
They
are trying to expand their business by providing users with the ability to
create their blog. Once you build a good following by answering the questions,
you can have readers for your blog, and start writing for them. You can even
become an authoritative person in a sub-niche such as blogging.
Quora
doesn’t provide you with options of customizability; you have to stick to their
default template. You are provided with an editor to write your content. If you
want to focus on writing content and not about anything else, this can serve
you perfectly.
#7. Weebly
Coming
on the lines of Wix, Weebly is a web-hosting service that lets you create blogs
on the go. With the help of a drag-and-drop builder, you can easily customize
the major elements of the website.
They
have designed their service so that you don’t have to break a sweat while
designing the website. It gives you different customizable layouts and free
themes to choose from.
Even
if you don’t want to buy the premium version, you still have the option to give
their service a run.
There
are several cons, though:
- Integration with 3rd party apps is
hard. - Ads are present in the free version.
- exporting the website is difficult.
#8. Yola
Yola
is a simple and straightforward service. You don’t get many pages to create and
edit: you get about two websites and three pages to do your job. But on the
positive end, you get about 1GB of capacity and bandwidth. So if you are making
use of product landing pages, this might work fine in your favor.
Configuring
and designing pages is easy and straightforward. Adding to the mix are
drag-and-drop-widgets and customizable layouts, and visually, you can create
your blog appealing. Plus, you also get the option to edit the CSS if you want
to get your hands dirty in coding and tweaking.
#9. Drupal
Drupal
is one of the most well-known website builders in the industry. Dries Buytaert
developed it in May of 2000 as an open-source content-management framework that
can hold your content in streamlined order. It gives you better reliability and
performance, along with security.
Drupal
is not as popular as WordPress or Blogger, but it has its active community,
which develops modules for it. Thanks to this community, there are a lot of
themes to dabble with, plus you also have modules to enhance the functionality
of the blog.
On
the downside, you need to know the technical aspects of Drupal quite well to
start working with it. If you are a newbie foraying into blogging, learning
technical stuff to start blogging is something you might not like. It also
works slower compared to other customized platforms like Blogger.
#10. SquareSpace
Squarespace
has sponsored a good number of videos on YouTube. But while they promote their
service like crazy, they also offer you a service at the same standards.
It
is easy to use and offers you a lot of options. Seriously, a lot. From building
personal blogs to create a web store, you can get it done easily and quickly
with SquareSpace.
The
best part is that it comes with different themes to choose from. You need to
tweak a little bit here and there, and you are ready to go live with your blog.
So if you are a newbie blogger who wants to create a good looking blog without
the hassle of getting into technicalities, you should give SquareSpace a look.
You
don’t have to worry about the host, as SquareSpace does the hosting part by
itself.
It
comes with a 14-day trial period, after which plans start from $24-$48 per
month.
#11. Joomla
One
of the industry veterans: Joomla is an open-source content management service
almost on par with WordPress. Like WordPress, users can log on to the backend
of the website from where they can customize the content as they want.
You
have a healthy number of themes and add-ons to choose from to further enhance
your blog, although the community is not that diverse as that of WordPress.
It
is a capable service with more options to customize your website compared to
WordPress. Point to note here is that it is a self-hosted service, and you will
require a hosting service and domain name to go along. So, although Joomla is
free to use, you will need to spend bucks on hosting it.
#12. Google Sites
This
service from Google is intended to target business users. It promotes data
sharing and real-time collaboration among different users. That is, users can
edit the same set of content and see which user has edited what content.
It
gives you a structured wiki-type website. If you have a Google account, you can
easily sign-in and create your own blog/website. It follows a drag and drop
mechanism, so you don’t have to dip yourself in coding.
Plus,
two of its best features are:
- It is responsive, looks great across
different devices. - It can be easily incorporated with
other Google applications like Google Calendar and Google Docs.
Although
two major drawbacks are:
- The inability to add AdSense ads on your website.
- Few customizable options.
#13. HubPages
Founded
by three ex-Microsoft employees, HubPages is a user-generated content
aggregator website.
Users
are known as hubbers who provide content in the form of an article (known as
hubs) to the website. The best part about this platform is that if your article
generates enough traffic, you also get paid.
To
earn an income, you need to have a valid AdSense account. If you don’t have an
AdSense account, you can apply for one after submitting 10-15 hubs. You get
paid by the number of clicks you get on the ad. Once the earnings reach $50,
you are paid.
HubPages
had acquired Squidoo, one of its major competitors, and now remains the top in
its sub-domain, although they have shifted their approach from a single-site to
multi-site.
You
don’t get to customize much, as all the posts follow a standard styling.
#14. SimpleSite
As
the name suggests, it is a no-nonsense website builder. It compromises some of
its customizability options for easy to set up features. While you are setting
up, you have been provided with the option to create for personal uses or
business uses to set up your blog effectively.
It
offers you a simple theme and not a lot of options to customize. It is a great
service for first-time bloggers.
It
is also mobile-friendly so that you don’t lose the audience from a different
platform. If you are planning to scale your website in terms of an increase in
the audience this won’t be able to give you many options on that front either.
It offers you a very limited set of features.
Also,
the support is quite a lackey, although you would rarely require one.
#15. TypePad
TypePad
is one of the industry veterans. Started in 2003, it still enjoys niche
popularity among a selected few. It is simple in design and easy to manipulate,
one of the reasons why major companies like MSNBC, ABC, BBC, Sky News use the
service for their weblogs.
The
product was made for non-technical users with essential features like the
ability to add photo albums, mobile blogging support, and multiple author
support.
Other
essential features include amazing customer support, easy tools to design,
several design templates to choose from, easy to upload photos and manipulate
sidebar with widgets.
You
can’t upload your website’s banner or change the colors of the blog unless you
have a plus account. For further customization, you are given access to the CSS
code, but for that, you will require a pro account.
#16. Jimdo
Jimdo’s
website building service is targeted toward personal use and small business
owners. These types of people aren’t interested in getting into the
complexities of running a website from the ground up.
As
such, Jimdo has tried to make its website building service as smooth as it can.
You can either make it through the Jimdo Creator, which is an interface based
on drag-and-drop format. You can click on sections, and replace the content
with your content.
It
also offers you another option: Jimdo Dolphin. It is an artificial design
intelligence solution. You need to answer some questions, and the AI will build
a website for you.
Best
features include the ability to tweak your website’s overall SEO, one of the
simplest website builders, ability to create a blog on the mobile app.
But
like some of the other services on this website, it compromises its easy to use
nature with a lack of templates. You also don’t get a preview option; changes
once made will automatically be applied to the live blog.
#17. Angelfire
Angelfire
is the godfather of all website building services. It predates most of them
present in the list. It is so old that when Mark Zuckerberg was 15, created one
of his first blog on the website.
On
the front, they offer you over 200 templates to choose from, drag and drop
builder interface, and a free plan to choose.
Although
the sad part is that quite a lot of things are going against it. Themes are not
responsive and also not up to standard to what websites use these say. This
shortcoming means there is no mobile version of your website.
If
you were to see their social media presence, their last tweets and posts were
from 2012, and after that, it feels like an abandoned place.
The
bottom line is this: Angelfire would have appealed to people in 1996 when there
were not a lot of options to tweak. But they have failed to keep up with the
progress in web development.
#18. Diigo
Diigo
is quite different in its approach.
You
don’t create content. You instead collect links from the internet and store it
on a single page. You can bookmark and tag web pages for future access.
Once
you bookmark links, you can annotate certain parts of the webpage and highlight
webpages. You can attach sticky notes to these highlighted areas or the entire
webpage.
After
you create your bookmarks, you can choose to share them with other people; they
have aimed to make Diigo a social-networking website. So it can do a great job
when collaborating with other people to research on certain topics.
One
of the best features included in the premium section, where pages once
annotated, will be with you forever — no matter whether that specific webpage
exists at the source or not.
Diigo
can come in handy for you when searching for topics and content for your next
blog.
#19. Splash
Splash
is an event management service. It won’t appeal to users looking to build
personal blogs and websites, but if you are planning to have a platform for
your event, this can do a good job.
A
good number of Fortune 500 companies use Splash. And Splash’s approach is to
maximize user conversion. It achieves this by providing users with analytics at
each stage. It can also be incorporated with 3rd party applications like Slack
and Salesforce for better hold on your marketing process.
You
can also track your events’ progress through the dashboard present in the
Splash.
Developing
web pages is easy with Splash, and it provides you with a drag and drop builder
and beautiful looking responsive designs so that your brand credibility stays
put without compromising on putting in too much effort.
It
also gives you responsive themes to choose from that work amazing across all
platforms, especially mobile platforms.
#20. LiveJournal
As
the name suggests, with this website, you can create your own journal. The
company claims that the service is the middle ground between blogging and
social networking.
It
allows users to create journals that can then be shared with other people based
on the restriction level. You can also keep your journal entirely private,
making it work as a diary as well.
You
also get the option to join communities where you can share your journals among
like-minded people. It has a friends page as well, which broadcasts other
people’s journals. Kind of like how facebook’s social feed works. You also get
the ability to change the user’s profile picture for each blog post.
LiveJournal
might not be that popular in 2019, but some of the communities have other
100,000 users in it and can be used to socialize with other people.
#21. Hatena
Hatena
is a Japanese owned company, and its blog service is targeted to personal use.
They want users to share the daily experiences for others and themselves as
well, as they can check their blog in the future, in which case it will act as
a journal.
You
can easily write and incorporate data such as images, videos, and even
additional information like restaurant information to your blog post. You can
also import tweets and bookmarks. It also gives you the ability to revert the
changes you made while writing.
It
provides you with a set of good looking themes which you can edit from your
desktop computer and your phone. Plus, you also get to set a restriction on who
can read your blog post.
The
only drawback here is that since it is made by a Japanese company, you might
have to face some issues to move around. Although, it claims that the service
keeps in touch with all the latest developments, and constant updates are
there.
Conclusion
Phew!
So that was a massive list of free blogging platforms you can choose in 2020.
You have to sort out your priorities and select the one platform that provides
you with more benefits than the negatives it provides you.
Happy
blogging!
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