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Back in 2018 I shifted The Portly Politico from the old Blogger/Blogspot to WordPress.com, and I’ve never looked back—until now.

I’ve dedicated the last two Wednesdays to highlight some of WordPress.com‘s functionality; you can read those posts here and here (for those of you that read last week’s post, I’m happy to report that I was able to deactivate the “Classic Editor” plugin with no ill effects—everything converted back to the blocks editor seamlessly). I thought it might be interested to go back and remind myself why I made the leap to WordPress.com, and to see if maybe I was too hasty in making the change.

I decided to compare Blogger/Blogspot to WordPress.com in three areas: overall interface (looking at the home screen, for example, when you first log into your account); the posting interface/editor; and the final published content (what the blogs look like when published).

Note that I have the free Blogger/Blogspot account that anyone with a Gmail e-mail address can get, while with WordPress.com I have the Premium plan, which is $8 a month when paid annually (or $18 a month otherwise). Blogger/Blogspot does not have any inherently paid options, but lacks the ability to purchase a domain name from Blogger/Google directly. You can purchase a domain name from a number of third-party providers (that’s my approach with www.tjcookmusic.com, which I built using Google Sites), but it’s not integrated into Blogger/Blogspot the way domain name purchases are in WordPress.com.

Regardless, the basic functionality of posting, checking analytics, etc., is analogous enough between Blogger/Blogspot and WordPress.com to make fruitful comparisons.

Overall Interface

Both Blogger/Blogspot and WordPress.com both have pretty straightforward landing pages once you’re logged into the respective services. The former is a bit more utilitarian, in keeping with the kind of minimalism that is a hallmark of Google products. Because it’s been so long since I’ve logged into my Blogger account, I have tons of annoying notices about the European Union and new features. That’s not on the service, but on yours portly. Regardless, the layout is very clean, with an easy-to-read ribbon on the left-hand side and existing posts and drafts on the remaining 7/8ths of the screen. The “+ NEW POST” button is almost begging you to click it and start writing.

The WordPress.com interface is a bit more robust, with all of its updates in a little sliding window, which is easy enough to hide. WordPress.com is good about encouraging readers to write, too, providing daily prompts right there on the “My Home” screen (the screen you’re going to see first when logging into your account). I’ve never done these daily prompts, but I know bloggers who have, and it’s another way to encourage engagement and to interact with other bloggers, which is a big part of the appeal of blogging. There’s also a bar graph showing the week’s views, as well as a summary of the most popular day and hour (currently, 4 AM on Sunday seems to be my busy time, which I can only chalk up to my readers in the UK enjoying some Sunday afternoon reading).

Here’s a cool “Image Compare” block from the WordPress.com blocks editor; just slide the little “< >” slider in the middle back and forth to see the comparison:

For users that prefer a more minimalistic approach, Blogger would be the better choice. It’s very easy to start writing right away. Other than various notifications, which are easy enough to clear out, there’s literally a beautifully clean button enticing you to write.

However, WordPress.com offers much more data right at your fingertips. I also find that I don’t linger long on the “My Home” screen, but either go straight to “Stats” or “Posts.” If you slide the above image far enough to the left, you’ll see that I had my cursor hanging over “Posts–>”Add Post.” It’s easy to get there, albeit it’s not as obvious as Blogger’s interface. There is a little button on the top ribbon on the upper left-hand side that says, “+ New”; however, in almost eight years of using WordPress.com, I have never used that button. It’s a little too obscure.

Overall Interface Verdict: Blogger wins if the goal is to get writing immediately and you don’t care about checking your analytics and seeing daily prompts. WordPress.com wins if you’re looking for a more robust suite of functions available from the “My Home” screen and are already familiar with the layout.

Posting Interface/Editor

When it comes to the posting interface or editors for Blogger/Blogspot and WordPress.com, a good deal of the judgment is going to come down to personal preference. If you read my posts “Adapting to Blocks in WordPress.com Editor” and “The Impossible Dream: Restoration of Classic Editor in WordPress.com” you’ll have a sense for the essential difference here. Blogger feels more like using the “Classic” WordPress.com if you put it through a blender with Google Docs. Just about everything you need is on a ribbon across the top of the screen, and you’re presented with a blank canvas with some generous grey space around it.

I experimented with embedding video and images in Blogger, and ran into a bit of an issue with my browser. I use Brave, a Chromium-based browser that has pretty robust “shields” against all the little creepy crawlies that websites love to load up in the background. However, much like real-life creepy crawlies, these digital ones often serve vital functions, even if we don’t want to look at them.

That was the case here, as Blogger told me to sign in to Google to embed a YouTube video and to upload an image, even though I’m already signed into my Google account to use Blogger in the first place! So I disabled Brave’s “shields” and had no issue embedding the video and uploading the image. Indeed, because it’s a Google product, Blogger is pretty seamless in integrating with that other Google product, YouTube. That said, had I wanted to link a YouTube video that was not my own, it likely would have involved copy-pasting URLs like in WordPress.com.

WordPress.com, of course, uses the block editors. I’ve really grown fond of the block editor, despite some initial skepticism, so this one really does come down to personal preference. One thing I will note is that the block editor is very robust; even as I was putting together today’s post, I found the “Image Compare” block, which was a Godsend for this kind of comparison post.

To see both editing interfaces side-by-side, check out this little image comparison:

Posting Interface/Editor Verdict: For my money, I prefer the robustness of WordPress.com‘s block editor, as well as the ease of re-arranging blocks as needed. That said, users that are adapted to Google Docs (or even old-school Microsoft Office) might find the more minimalist style of Blogger/Blogspot‘s editor appealing. I prefer how WordPress.com uses more screen space for editing (with ample white space in the margins), but some users might prefer Blogger/Blogspot‘s use of grey space and a thinner editing “column” for focus.

Final Published Content

Here is where we come to the most important quality when it comes to visitors to your blog: what does the end-product actually look like? After all, we’re not just writing for ourselves (although, I’ll confess, there is a great deal of self-indulgence in blogging); we want others to read our material, and to have an enjoyable experience doing so!

I’ll note that, even though I have the Premium plan for WordPress.com, I use one of the free templates from back when I was a lowly cheapskate coasting by on a free plan. If anything, I think that makes the comparison with the old Blogger site more even-handed, as I’m not using some crazy, hyper-tweaked template or crazily customized style, but what comes “in the box” for any WordPress.com user. That’s the same for the Blogger site, which also used the tools native to Blogger. These are both websites that have not had wild visual additions made to them.

Here’s the side-by-side view of both sites:

And to show a bit further down my current site’s page, here’s another image:

Again, much of the preference here will come down to personal taste, but I’ll make a few observations here. The Blogger site gets to the text almost immediately, with very little filler in the header section. It’s also not bad for a free template, with some nice color contrast between the background and the text (although the hyperlinks can be a little dark). However, there’s tons of wasted space on either side, giving the sensation of reading a post on a cellphone as opposed to a PC.

The WordPress.com blog also confines the text to a central column, but it feels a bit more generous in its width. There’s a large section to the right with archived posts by date and some “margin” to the left, but it feels a bit more commodious.

For further comparison, here are two posts from both blogs presented side-by-side:

Again, to my eye, the WordPress.com post looks a bit more readable and generous. Of course, I’d love to hear what you think, readers!

It’s important to note, too, that I set up my WordPress.com template a long time ago—2018—so I imagine there’s a great deal of additional tweaking I could do to it. Likewise with the Blogger site, which I setup even longer ago—in 2009!

Final Published Content Verdict: I think WordPress.com edges out Blogger here. There’s just too much unused real estate on the old Blogger site, while the current WordPress.com site seems to use that space more efficiently. The Blogger site does have a slight advantage in verticality, though, as it doesn’t waste much time getting to the text. That said, the WordPress.com finished product depends a great deal on your chosen template and the size of the “featured image” you set (or don’t set) for a post.

Conclusions

So, will yours portly, like the dread god Quetzalcoatl, be making a long-anticipated, much-feared return to Blogger, or will I continue with WordPress.com?

Well, not surprisingly, I’ll stick with WordPress.com, not just because I like the editor and the finished view. While there are lots of folks who use Blogger for their blogs, the old site simply lacks the community and the technical robustness of WordPress.com. With WordPress.com—especially now that plugins are available on all paid plans (including the Personal plan, which is $4 a month when paid annually, or $9 a month otherwise)—it’s much easier to interact with users. For one, I suspect there is a far larger userbase on WordPress.com than on Blogger. Also, with the ability to install the Disqus plugin, getting more commenters is much easier (to be clear, I haven’t tried plugins on Blogger, but I get the sense that it would involve a bit more techno-wizardry than setting them up on WordPress.com).

While Blogger does have a beautifully clean and minimalist interface and an editor that will feel right at home with Google Docs and even MS Word users, WordPress.com is easy enough to learn that it makes Blogger’s slight advantages insignificant. Also, the flexibility of blog layouts and templates on WordPress.com gives it a big advantage when you’re considering what is best for readers (indeed, it may be time for me to update the look of my blog, if only to see what else WordPress.com can do).

The biggest thing WordPress.com could do to give it a resounding victory over Blogger is to make a big, fat, beautiful “ADD POST” or “NEW POST” button that is front-and-center on the “My Home” screen, or even just on the left-hand dashboard. The little “+ New” button at the top is too small, and no one uses that top ribbon anyway (at least, I don’t). That said, the “daily writing prompt” is already right there on the “My Home” section, so WordPress.com is certainly taking the right steps to encourage people to do what every blogger should do: write!

After all, that’s what we as bloggers should be doing. So, get a WordPress.com account and get writing!

The Portly Politico is me, Tyler James Cook. I’ve been blogging on WordPress since 2018, and daily since 2019. I love to write about politics, culture, and music, and frequently feature my original music. Check out my musical creations here on the blog or on Bandcamp. —TPP