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Before the Blog Part 5: Choose Your Host August 13, 2006

Posted by LearningNerd in Blogging, Blogging 101.
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Series Index: Before the Blog: Introduction to the Series

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Being the newbie I am, I’m not willing to spend money on my blog yet. I’d love to have my own domain name, but for now, a free blog host will do. If you’re not sure which way to go, read Darren Rowse’s article on Choosing a Blog Platform.

Here’s what I found on my search for the best free blog host:

Blogger

Undoubtedly the most popular free blog host (see Blogwise Statistics), Blogger offers a reputable name. Notice that while most blogs on Technorati’s Top 100 have their own domain name, several use a Blogger URL (yourblog.blogspot.com).

The Forbes.com Review of Blogger gives a short summary. It sounds perfect, except for one detail: no categories. For a blog about everything, that simply won’t do!

WordPress.com

WordPress is an open source blog-publishing program, ranked #1 according to Blogwise Statistics. If you don’t want to host WordPress yourself, WordPress.com offers free hosting (yourblog.wordpress.com).

Unlike Blogger, WordPress.com doesn’t let users run their own advertisements or customize templates (aside from changing the image header and a couple other options). It does have categories and static pages, though. For a detailed comparison, read Blogger.com vs. WordPress.com (note: a bit out of date).

For more about WordPress.com (including a video introduction), see my post: Welcome to WordPress.com: Beginner Resources.

Blogsome

From what I’ve seen, Blogsome looks like the best WordPress.com alternative. A post on the Blogsome forums explains the main differences between Blogsome and WordPress.com. So, Blogsome offers the WordPress software and customizable templates. Good deal! It also lets users run their own advertisements (see Google Adsense and My Blog).

But Blogsome didn’t look so perfect after I read this recent Blogsome v. WordPress.com comparison, which concludes that “Blogsome is neither as easy to use nor as robust as WP.com.” On top of that, the Forbes.com Review of Blogsome mentions complaints of downtime.

The Rest

Tons of other blog hosts exist out there, but I’ve yet to find one with all the features of Blogger and WordPress.com. I found a list of Free WordPress Hosts, but the results were disappointing. Though edublogs.org, uniblogs.org, and learnerblogs.org look perfect, my blog’s URL would sound too school-related.

Most other blog hosts aren’t even worth looking at if you’re planning to take your blog seriously. For example, Xigna Blogs has some hilariously weak selling points:

  • “Make unlimited posts in your blog: anytime, anywhere!”
  • “Guests can make unlimited comments to your posts.”
  • And my favorite: “You can use cool emotions in your posts and in comments.” I’d rather have emoticons.

Anyway, if you’d like to sift through the junk yourself, feel free:

If you know of any other worthwhile blog hosts, please send a link.

My Decision

I crossed Blogger off the list because I can’t settle for a blog without categories. At first, I planned to use Blogsome because of its customization, but then I had second thoughts. I’m a newbie; do I really need to mess with my blog’s template? I’ll probably switch to my own domain in the future, so I should focus on my blog’s content in the meantime. All things considered, WordPress.com looks like the best choice for me.