Chey takes on Blogger Vs. Wordpress

Blogger is a great free blog program. Lots of other cats use it. If you have a blogger account, you have no problem commenting on other people's blogs (usually). If you don't happen to have a blogger (now google) account, sometimes you just can't comment.

However, sometimes blogger just gets too frustrating. You have a few choices.

You can get a free blog somewhere else, like at wordpress.com. There are a number of other services that offer free blogs as well. Yahoo has a blog service. Several photo places have services that are geared towards photo blogging. If you surf around online you'll find a number of smaller places offering free blogs as well.

You can also buy your own domain name and get your own blog. Blogger now allows you to do this, but the most popular free blogging platform that can be installed on your own domain is wordpress. We used b2evolution for awhile and played with typepad but much prefer the ease with which wordpress can personalized. If there's something you want to have your blog do, chances are someone has written a plugin to make wordpress do it. You just need to find it and install it.

If you want to look over the features of wordpress, you can do so at wordpress.org. Notice this is a different address than their free blog host, which is wordpress.com. Hosting with wordpress for free limits what you can do with their platform. If you really want to get the features that wordpress offers, it's worth it to buy your own domain name and find some low cost hosting and install wordpress yourself. Doing this does require some understanding of uploading files and possibly even some html knowledge, so it's not as user friendly and quick to set up as blogger. However, if you are willing to take the plunge, you'll never be tied to dread pirate blogger again.

In summary:

1. Blogger offers FREE hosting. You don't have to know anything to get started blogging. You'll have a blogger account so you can comment on anyone's site.
   
2. Wordpress on the wordpress site offers FREE hosting. You don't have to know anything to get started but it is limited on personalization.
3. Wordpress on your own site has costs involved in purchasing a domain name and hosting. It requires that you know a little something about website maintance or are willing to learn. However, it is relatively trouble free and allows you to personalize your site as much as you like.