So, whether you’re a blogger returning from a break, seeking a new home or are looking to write online for the first time, here’s our guide to what blogging platforms are out there.

In fact, the truth is that there’s never been a better time to blog. Social networks help build audiences and deliver content to readers, and more established blogs and websites often link to or aggregate smaller sites, sending swarms of viewers to read

1.WORDPRESS

Browse at WordPress.org

About:
It is second most popular Free blogging platform after blogger.
WordPress provides Free Blogging platforms. Although the you have to pay some bucks if you want more features.
The Free Basic Package of WordPress Includes:-

Free Blog
Wordpress.com Address
Basic Customization
No Premium Themes included
No Video Storage
3 GB of space
Community Support

Stats:

Recommended for: Blogging and websites
Founded: May 27th, 2003
Founder: Matt Mullenweg of Automattic
Total users: 60 million, 19% of the internet and 1 in 5 websites as of December 2013
Total employees: 151

Pros: Elegance and ease

Cons: You need to get a domain name and web hosting first

My verdict: The best place to blog if you’re serious about it. Good for all types of review websites, mommy blogs, company sites, eCommerce sites and more.

2.Blogger

Browse at Blogger.com

About:

Blogger is Google’s free blog-hosting site. More popular at the turn of the millenium, Blogger still offers a great service but the designs are a bit elementary. Login and publish your first post for free with only a Gmail account. Try Adsense “monetization”, design a new layout and even edit your first piece of code.

Stats:

Recommended for: Blogging
Founded: August 1999
Notable events: Bought by Google in February, 2003
Founder: Evan Williams of Pyra Labs

Pros: Publish anywhere, huge community, images, video, edit HTML/CSS, template designer, track traffic stats in Blogger, Adsense at no charge

Cons: While Blogger is where many writers (including Dear Blogger) started publishing, it’s designs appear a bit childish today. Google owns your blog – they axed Reader – so acknowledge a bit less control upfront.

Costs: Pay $10/year for a domain name without the “.blogspot” extension – otherwise totally free.
Future predictions: May merge with Google+.

My verdict: Everything blogging should be and more – Blogger was the sandbox for names now headlining in tech. The only real negative comes from outgrowing Blogger, at which point many (like myself) transfer to WordPress. Less popular today – even Google’s PR Mogul Matt Cutts runs a WordPress site.

3.Tumblr

Browse at Tumblr.com

Introduction to Tumblr:

At a time when WordPress and Blogger were neck-and-neck for new users, Tumblr showed up as the 3rd guy to the party. They received lots of sign-ups from users wanting a totally refreshing take on blogging, and have grown ever since. Tumblr was recently bought by Yahoo, who has interesting plans for the whole blog advertising thing.

Stats:

Founded: February 2007
Founder: David Karp
Total users: 152 million

Pros: Ease of use and ability to share your friends’ work through re-blogging.

Cons: Less customization, just a shade less professional and not ideal for conducting business.

Costs: Free, pay Tumblr to get your own domain name without the “.tumblr” addition

My verdict: Great for photography and other forms of art. Super-simplistic designs and a whimsical vibe make Tubmlr a great choice for any new blogger.

4.SquareSpace

Browse at SquareSpace.com

About:

All over television with beautiful and encouraging ads, SquareSpace offers a nice solution for the business owner in need of a web presence. Get online quickly with a free trial, setup a cool design and start attracting clients – that’s the motto. If a more complex blogging platform were snowboarding, SquareSpace would be skiing, in the pie wedge stance :)

Stats:

Recommended for: Individual and business blogs and websites
Founded: January 2004
Founder: Anthony Casalena
Total users: ?

Pros: Elegant designs setup with a couple of clicks.

Cons: Less customization – you’ll pay for things that may come free at a place like WordPress

Costs: 14-day free trial with plans from $8 and up afterwards

My verdict: Less hands-on than WordPress but arguably better advertising and accessibility – Squarespace gets your business site up quickly. A good quick solution.
google-plus-logo

5.Medium

Browse at Medium.com

Stats:

Founded: 2012
Founder: Evan Williams (Twitter, Blogger) and Biz Stone (Twitter)
Total users: ?

Pros: Story telling feel, goal to improve content quality

Cons: Still low usership

Costs: Free

My verdict: Probably won’t reach the development status of WordPress.org but definitely chomping at the heels of Blogger, Tumblr and even Twitter as it borrows several of their services, like topic searches and nostalgic photo shares from the founders themselves.

6.Hubpages

Browse at HubPages.com

About:

Hubpages started as an article network, the kind of place where you were rewarded for publishing lots of articles on any one topic like cooking, travel or home-improvement. Today, it boasts millions of informative articles and guides. However, a by-product of mass publishing is slightly lesser quality. You may find articles at Hubpages you’d wonder why anyone would ever publish. Or, you may find the best home for your blogging and writing needs.

Stats:

Recommended for: Social networking (“social layer”)
Launched: August 6th, 2006
Founder: Paul Edmondson
Total users: 74,000

Pros: Not going out of business soon.

Cons: Less ownership of your work.

Costs: Free

My verdict: A solid place to start writing and learn from other experts. Tightly-knit. Fun for everyone involved.

7.Joomla

Browse at Joomla.com

About:

Joomla is an advanced CMS used by developers to publish some of the websites we visits each day. Written in PHP, it uses many of the same structures as a WordPress site does. For whatever reason, developers have flocked elsewhere, but Joomla remains one of the web’s oldest and savviest places to run a blog or website.

Stats:

Recommended for: Content Management, Web Content
Released: August 17th, 2005
Founders: The Joomla Project
Total users: 35 million downloads

Pros: over 6000 free extensions, estimated as the second most used content management system (CMS) after WordPress

Cons: Smaller community, help out articles you find may be out of date.

Costs: ?

My verdict: Only really for a Joomla developer or website manager. Not an easy access point for a beginner.

8.Live Journal

Browse at LiveJournal.com

Stats:

Recommended for: Blogging, journaling, writing a diary
Founded: April 15th, 1999
Founder: Brad Fitzpatrick
Total users: 39.6 million accounts, 1.7 million active accounts

Pros: friend others to read their entries and leave comments, avatars, user info pages, to-do lists

Cons: moved design to Russia in 2009, basic plan users see advertisements

Premium features: express lane for quicker load times, call from your phone to a LiveJoural number and post voice recording to your journal

Costs: Premium version, not sure of the costs here. Anyone know?

My verdict: In mother Russia, blog write on you.

9.Quora

Browse at Quora.com

Stats:

Recommended for: Question and answer based websites
Released: June 21st, 2010
Founder: ?
Total users: 500,000 reported in 2011, more now.

Pros: Collaborative feel and separate blogging platform recently released.

Cons: Less costumization.

Costs: Free

Interesting facts: 30% of Quora users hail from India. Founded by two former Facebook employees.

My verdict: If you’re passionate about a topic but don’t have the time to maintain a blog, submitting questions and answers to Quora discussions is a great compromise.

10.Typepad

Browse at Typepad.com

Stats:

Founded October 2003
Founder: Say Media
Total users: ?

Pros: Ease of use

Cons: Less costumization

Costs: Free

My verdict: Just love the news? If so, know that ABC, BBC, CBS, MSNBC and more use Typepad to maintain blogs.
Weebly platform

11.Drupal

Browse at Drupal.org

Stats:

Recommended for: Blogging, Content Management, Web Applications
Founded: January 2001
Founder: Dries Buytaert
Total users: 1 million users and 30K developers

Pros: 22,900 free add-ons, free and premium themes via the Drupal Theme Garden

Cons: Quite involved, not ideal for beginners

Costs: ?

My verdict: Fun for developers and bloggers with a real interest in building code.

12.Squidoo

Browse at Squidoo.com

Stats:

Founded: 2005
Founder: Seth Godin
Total users: 1.5 million

Pros: Lenses and points systems to level up are only part of the fun.

Cons: Like Hubpages, you might not feel an ownership of your work.

Costs: Free

My verdict: A classy place to meet others before you get more serious about blogging.

13.Postach.io

Browse at Postach.io

Stats:

Recommended for: On-the-go bloggers, note-taking
Founded: 2013
Founder: Evernote
Total users: 20,000

Pros: Supports popular comment plugin Disqus, lighter feel, easy to use.

Cons: Less costumization

Costs: Free

My verdict: Too soon to form a verdict here!

14.Svbtle

Browse at Svbtle.com

Stats:

Founded: 2013
Founder: Dustin Curtis
Total users: ?

Pros: New, different; aren’t we all?

Cons: Must apply for a membership and no commenting feature as of yet.

Costs: Free

My verdict: They are a “network of great people who want to make it easier for people to share and discover new ideas”. Excited to see where Svbtle goes in the next few months.

15.Sett

Browse at Sett.com

Stats:

Founded: Early 2013
Founder: Tynan (a blogger) and Todd Iceton
Total users: 1,000 – 10,000

Pros: Generally bent on community, top navigation bar like Blogger, has a word-matching system that matches similar posts and will recommend users to your posts the moment they sign-up, private discussions, one click subscription system

Cons: Premium service that allows for more image hosting (does this mean normal users are limited?)

Costs: Free with premium service offered

My verdict: I’ve always believed it’s the readers who really grow a blog, not so much the blogger him/herself. 80/20. So I’m excited here. Will they win the battle for 3rd place? Either way, the web is always better with more variety, more options, more places to blog.
ghost-logo

16.Ghost

Browse at Ghost.org

Stats:

Founded: Early 2013
Founder: Ghost Foundation
Total users: 10,000 – 50,000

Pros: Open-source so once you download it you own it, organized at run by volunteers and non-profits

Cons: Any service that charges based on the amount of views you get is a villain in my book or could become one. Don’t limit us, thanks
.
Costs: Free with premium service offered

My verdict: Got to respect their lofty ideas. But, I suspect they are trying to KO WordPress and possibly backed by BlueHost based on their web design, so I oppose :)

17.Posthaven

Browse as Posthaven.com

Stats:

Founded: Early 2013
Founder: Ghost Foundation
Total users: 10,000 – 50,000

Pros: Post by email. Oh and “they’ll never get acquired, never shut down” as long as you pay them.

Cons: “Simple, easy blogs for $5 a month, forever.”

Costs: 5 bucks

My verdict: They’re a group of engineers who want to build blogs for us. Love this idea and wish them the best. But as a company you just can’t get ahead in an open environment like blogging by trying to control things, at least not upfront. Their technology might be great and “durable” but most of us will never know, because their marketing is a zero and their homepage design is really weak.

18.Blog.com

Browse at Blog.com

Stats:

Recommended for: Blogging
Founded: 2004
Founders: ?
Total users: 2 million

Pros: Free themes, multi-author blogging, social media widgets, video

Cons: Less customization

Premium features: Your own domain name, advertising network

Costs: ?

My verdict: You’d hope a domain name as strong as blog.com would produce a winner…

19.Zoomshare

Browse at ZoomShare.com

Stats:

Founded: ?
Founder: ?
Total users: < 50K

Pros: Still has a community

Cons: Shifting 100% of users to paid version

Costs: “As of May 22, 2013 our free website service has been discontinued. If you would like to convert to the paid service click here and upgrade for the low cost of $6.95 a month.”

My verdict: Not enough information to form a verdict.

20.Xanga

Browse at Xanga.com

Stats:

Founded: ?
Founder: ?
Total users: < 50K

Pros: Resembles WordPress

Cons: Unclear timeframe of new software releases

Costs: ?

My verdict: Not enough information to form a verdict.

21.WEEBLY

Browse at www.weebly.com

About:
Weebly is also one of the popular blogging Platform. There are more than 12 million people using weebly.
The Features provided by weebly are:-

Drag & Drop Website Builder
Powerful Hosting Included
Free Professional Themes around 100
Easy Blogging
Tons of Multimedia features
Support for IPHONE article posting
Detailed Traffic Stats

Stats:

Founded: 2006
Founder: David Rusenko
Total users: hosts 15 million websites

Pros: Drag and drop feature so easy a monkey could use it.

Cons: Less control for the user

Costs: ?

My verdict: I’ve heard a lot of positive reviews here. For a company owner who needs a website but despises tech, it’s Weebly or Squarespace, and both are sound choices.

22.WIX

Browse at www.wix.com

About:
Wix is also one of the famous blogging platforms. Around 28,612,131 sites have been created using it.
Features:-

Easy,Fast & Beautiful
Easy to use Drag & Drop Faciltiy
Easy to customize
No coding
100s of Free Templates
Google friendly
Free top Grade Hosting
Fully Mobile Supported

23.WEBS

Browse at www.webs.com

About:
Webs is another popular blogging platform. You can easily make a Free professional looking website using it.
Features:-

Free Blog
Webs.com Address
Easy Website Building Tools
Free Professional Website Templates
Powerful Business Applications

24.JIMDO

Browse at www.jimdo.com

About:
Jimdo helps in making a free website in minutes with the Jimdo website builder.Using it you can Add text, galleries, videos, even create an online store.
Features:-

Free Blog
Free Address
Easy to use
Drag & Drop facility
Awesome Templates
E-commerce website
Social media Support
Search Engine Friendly

25.WEBNODE

Browse at www.webnode.com

About:
Webnode is also a popular Blogging platform. According to them, More than 7 500 000 companies, students, artists and bloggers from around the world have already become our satisfied users.
Features:-

Free hosting
Free web address
Easy to use Website Builder
Fast and easy Creation of Website
Support for Custom Domain
Drag & Drop
100s of Templates
Can be used for E-shop website
Mobile Portable

26.YOLA

Browse at www.yola.com

About:
Yola is a free website Builder. It can be used to Create a professional free website within few minutes
Features:-

Easy to use
Easy Customization
Powerful & Flexible
Easy Publishing facility
Custom Domain support
Customer Support
Website Reporting

27.JIGSY

Browse at jigsy.com

About:
Jigsy is also a very good website builder. Using it you can build an amazing website.
Features:-

Hundreds of website templates
Drag and Drop Website Editor
Free Stock Photos and Beautiful Fonts
Can be used as Ecommerce website
Good Search Engine Optimization & Google Friendly
Real-time Statistics

28.GOOGLE SITE

Browse at sites.google.com

About:
Google Sites is also a popular website Building Platform.It is a free and easy way to create and share webpages.
Features:-

Easy to create rich web pages
Good looking templates
Free hosting & web Address
Easy Customization
Drag & Drop

If you have any doubt in your mind, you may ask via comments or contact form.

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