Blogging Platforms

Top Rated Blogging Platforms include: Quora Blogs, Medium, Movable Type, Squarespace, and WordPress.
Other Blogging Platforms on the TrustMap include: Weebly, Wix, Blogger, Tumblr, and LinkedIn Publishing Platform.
A complete list of Blogging Platforms is available here.

TrustMaps are two-dimensional charts that compare products based on satisfaction ratings and research frequency by prospective buyers. Products must have 10 or more ratings to appear on this TrustMap, and those above the median line are considered Top Rated.

Blogging Platform Overview

What Are Blogging Platforms?

Blogging platforms are a type of web CMS designed to simplify the creation and maintenance of blogs. Blogs are text and image-heavy websites that get updated over time with new content; updates are called blog posts.

Hosted vs. Self-Hosted Blogs

Blogs can be either hosted or self-hosted. A hosted blog is a good option for beginners and users will less technical knowledge. This type is also good for users who do not wish to manage the back-end technical aspects of the blog. The content of a hosted blog will live in a dedicated sub-domain within the blog hosting site’s own domain.

Users who plan to self-host will need to rent a server, download blogging software, set up a database, and obtain a custom domain name. This approach grants users much more freedom for deep customization. However, it also requires coding skills and will be more work to set up and maintain.

Key Selection Considerations

Many popular blogging tools are fairly similar and fairly flexible—by design, they can be used for a variety of projects. According to users some of the most important distinctions are the following:

Technical knowledge requirements
Cost
Domain name
Depth of customization
Scope of blog/website

Before you choose, determine your skill level, your goals, and your timeline.

Pricing Information

There are many open-source and free blog platforms to choose from. However, blogging platforms with more features or designed for corporate use usually charge a modest monthly fee. You may also need to pay for the domain and hosting.

WordPress

1807 Ratings

Wordpress is an open-source publishing platform popular with bloggers, and a content management system, known for its simplicity and modifiability. Websites may host their own blogging communities, controlling and moderating content from a single dashboard.

Wix

147 Ratings

Wix is a free hosted website builder, designed to be user-friendly and highly customizable without requiring coding from the user. It is well-known for its eCommerce solution, which allows users to build an online store. Wix includes customizable HTML5 templates that can be used with its drag n...

Weebly

77 Ratings

Weebly is a basic content management system with blogging and eCommerce features. It is inexpensive, and aims to allow all users to easily create high quality sites, regardless of technical skill. Pricing ranges from free to $25/month. All offerings include email and chat support; Pro and Busin...

Squarespace

114 Ratings

Squarespace is a CMS platform that allows users to create a DIY blog, eCommerce store, and/or portfolio (visual art or music). Their templates are designed to be elegant and give users maximum control over the look & feel of the website. Some Squarespace templates are industry or use case-spe...

Tumblr

56 Ratings

Tumblr is a very easy to use microblogging platform and social networking website, owned and operated by Tumblr, Inc. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a short-form blog. Users can follow other users' blogs, as well as make their blogs private.

Movable Type

16 Ratings

Movable Type is a Perl-based CMS from Six Apart, featuring the capability to host multiple weblogs and standalone content pages, manage files and user roles, templates, tags, categories and trackback links.

Quora Blogs

15 Ratings

Quora headquartered in Mountain View, California now offers Blogs on Quora to replace their previous Board system, providing site users with a blogging platform.

Blogger

86 Ratings

Blogger is a blog-publishing service that allows private or multi-user blogs with time-stamped entries. It was created by Pyra Labs, which was bought by Google in 2003. Generally, the blogs are hosted by Google at a subdomain of blogspot.com.

Oracle Content Marketing (Compendium)

29 Ratings

Oracle Content Marketing (part of the Oracle Marketing Cloud, and formerly known as Compendium) is a content marketing solution that is designed to make it easy to create and distribute compelling content across multiple channels to a targeted audience. This solution enables users to plan, produc...

LiveJournal

9 Ratings

is a social network owned by SUP Media where Internet users can keep a blog, journal or diary - a wide variety of political pundits also use the service for political commentary.

Medium

15 Ratings

Medium is a blogging and web publishing platform from the company of the same name in San Francisco, California.

Jekyll

5 Ratings

Jekyll is an open source static site generator useful as a blog publishing system.

Pixpa

3 Ratings

Pixpa is a DIY website builder targeted for creative professionals. It is used by thousands of photographers, artists and designers around the world to build a professional website without the need for any coding knowledge and grow their business online. The vendor says ideal customers are photog...

LinkedIn Publishing Platform

28 Ratings

The LinkedIn Publish Platform supports long-form content publishing and blogging by influencers.

TypePad

1 Ratings

TypePad is a blogging platform now owned and supported by Endurance International Group headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts.