Announcing the Top Rated Blogging Platforms for 2019

Today, we awarded the 2019 TrustRadius Top Rated badges for Blogging Platforms. The TrustRadius Top Rated awards are the most trusted in the industry because they are an unbiased reflection of customer sentiment, based solely on user feedback and satisfaction scores. Top Rated awards are the voice of the market and are not influenced by analyst opinion, the vendor’s company size, popularity, or status as a TrustRadius customer.

Here are the winners:

WordPress 

WordPress is a publishing platform popular among individuals and companies of all sizes for hosting blogs or getting websites off the ground quickly. It is open source and features ready-to-use themes, a mobile app for publishing on the go, and many plugins supplying a wide variety of features at little to no cost. Although programming knowledge is not required to use WordPress, experience with it enables users to further customize website design though code manipulation.

WordPress also allows several blogs to be hosted in one installation, and enables users to host, control, and moderate their own blogging communities through a single dashboard. It also has features like SEO plugins, and can automate website management and online marketing, bringing visitors from search engines and social networks to users’ websites. Most WordPress users on TrustRadius come from small businesses (40%) and midsize companies (27%). Reviewers value WordPress for its content management capabilities, easy customization, frequent and automatic updates, and high security.

“WordPress is used to host all of our blog posts and pages on a server purely serving these pages. We use it as a combination of a CMS, editor, and designer for all of our articles and pages. It is used mostly by Engineers writing articles or founders writing updates on progress.”

Verified User | CEO | Computer Software Company

Squarespace 

Squarespace is a content management system (CMS) that is focused on serving individuals and SMBs. It enables users to  create and host a variety of website types like blogs, eCommerce stores, and digital art or music portfolios. Squarespace offers elegant preset templates and is also highly customizable, giving users complete control over their website’s appearance. Squarespace is easy to use for marketers and developers alike, users do not need prior coding experience or knowledge to create a website. This product integrates with Google applications, social media platforms (e.g. Facebook and Twitter), and is ideal for small businesses due to its flexible pricing and multiple plan options.

The majority of Squarespace users on TrustRadius are from small businesses (64%). Reviewers on TrustRadius appreciate Squarespace’s  wide variety of elegant website templates, and ability to build beautiful websites optimized for both desktop and mobile devices. 

“I used this to create a website and host it. Initially, my biggest concern was that to get a website going I would either have to learn a fair bit about web development or pay someone to do it for me. Squarespace is an excellent alternative to both those options. It is incredibly simple to create a website using it. The learning curve is not harsh and you don’t need a lot of prior web/HTML knowledge to get up and running. There are enough templates and page layouts so that your website still looks unique even though you are using a lot of “pre-built” stuff. And the best part is that anything you build looks great even on mobile devices.”

– Verified User | Manager | Hospital & Health Care Company

Wix 

Wix is a website building tool and content management system (CMS) that offers both free and paid subscription plans. Users can create content heavy websites such as blogs, ecommerce sites using the Wix editor. The edit includes features such as hundreds of available templates, customizable HTML5 templates, SEO tools, mobile optimization, a media gallery layout, and advanced design elements such as scroll effects, video backgrounds, and animations. Wix blogging features allow users to manage comments, share blog posts on social media via desktop or mobile devices, and add multiple writers. When users start to build their sites, interactive pop-ups explain the steps needed to fill the website with content, allowing websites to be built extremely quickly.

Wix users on TrustRadius primarily work in small (45%) and midsize (26%) businesses. Reviewers on TrustRadius value Wix for its straightforward UI, how it guides users, its elegant templates, and the degree of customization that they can achieve. 

“We use Wix when it comes to having students create websites, teacher blogs/doc logs, students digital portfolios, etc. It is often part of a choice that teachers share with their students when they have an assignment/creative task and are looking for a program to design a website. I have found that teachers across all subjects and departments and across our district have utilized Wix in one way or another. Website design in general, or having students create sites in which they share their information with a wider audience is a great skill that they need to practice and Wix helps with this.”

Verified User | IT Department | Education Management Company.

Weebly 

Weebly is a content management system (CMS) that allows businesses to build a variety of websites, including blogging and eCommerce sites. Weebly offers both free and paid plans, and enables users to create high-quality websites without requiring extensive coding knowledge. Weebly features a drag-and-drop website builder and more advanced code-editor (in HTML, CSS, or JavaScript with custom fonts, an image editor, ability to set video backgrounds, site search capabilities, and high quality audio and video. It also offers eleven language options, including Chinese, Spanish, and English. Users also have access to website layouts, templates, and graphics to help them create truly unique websites.

Nearly half of Weebly users on TrustRadius are from small businesses (49%), and the next biggest group comes from midsize companies (22%). Reviewers on TrustRadius praise Weebly for its intuitive UI, and its highly responsive support staff.

“Weebly is a web design tool that assists in building a custom website without having to have mass amounts of experience in HTML/CSS, Java, or other languages. This is a great tool to use for those that wear multiple hats and need something basic that caters towards their specific needs. Since my client is a small business owner, she’s the only one who uses it from a backend standpoint.”

Verified User | Customer Service Rep | Software Company

Congratulations to the winners of the Top Rated Blogging Platform Award!

What are blogging platforms?

Blogging Platforms are hosted or self-hosted website building tools and content management systems (CMS) used primarily by marketers, journalists, researchers to publish and maintain web logs, or blogs. Blogging platforms can range from a simple, feature-light publishing tool attached to cloud services provider offerings to a fully fledged website hosting services.

Many popular blogging tools also double as CMS, and may offer blogging-specific capabilities. They may be used to publish to the host’s platform, or can be used to publish content to a corporate site, or a custom URL. Self-hosting comes at a cost, but provides the users with more freedom and control.

Features common across blogging platforms include a drag-and-drop or WYSIWYG editor, content creation and publishing tools, content template and theme libraries, ability to embed media in posts, administration and user management, and a comment section for readers to engage in conversation. Some blogging platforms may also offer multilingual support, content performance tracking metrics, and APIs to design custom plugins. To help make blogs searchable, top blogging platforms also supply SEO plugins and automation for basic SEO tasks (e.g. automatic meta tag generation, title optimization, etc).

Top Rated Criteria

Products included in the 2019 Top Rated Blogging Platforms list must have been in the top tier of their category TrustMap as of June 3rd, 2019. To qualify for the Blogging Platforms Top Rated Award, products must have at least 10 reviews written within the past year, a TRScore of at least 7.5 out of 10, and must receive at least 1.5% of the traffic in their category.  Every reviewer is verified and every review is vetted before publication. Products are plotted on the TrustMap based on end-user data, including users’ likelihood to recommend scores as well as buyer research patterns. To learn more about TrustMaps and Top Rated methodology, check out this page