Blog is the shorter form of weblog, which is an online journal or informational website displaying information or posts in a reverse chronological order. All posts or information are timestamped and the latest post will appear first in the blog.
It’s a platform for writers or for people to express their thought on the world wide web. Over the years appearance and features of the blog has been changed based on the readers requirements. In today’s post we are going to see the best free blogging platforms of 2019 that you can give it a try.
WordPress.com
WordPress.com is a blogging platform created in the year 2015 which is owned and hosted online by Automattic. It was created to enhance the Open Source WordPress experience to more audience.
Open Source WordPress (now it’s wordpress.org) is a free open source content management software based on PHP and MysQL which was released on May 27, 2003, by its founders, Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little.
WordPress.com platform is most famous for its simple usage and management. Basic WordPress.com account is free and you can upgrade to various paid plans depends on your needs. It’s mostly user oriented and posts can be classified according to their Categories and Tags. You can use custom domain in paid plans.
No coding knowledge required to setup your blog. WordPress gives you the option to install different themes. Plugins allows to extend the features of your blog.
Pros:
- Easy to use and manage
- No coding knowledge required for wordpress.com
- Multi-user publishing
- Blog designing is simple and easy
- You can get a custom domain
Cons:
- Limited options in free basic plan
- WordPress can suspend your blog if they found any violations found on your blog
- You cannot run ads on your blog
- Cost of migration plans are higher
Medium
Medium is an online publishing platform founded by Evan Williams who was a former CEO of microblogging social networking site Twitter. He also founded Blogger, one of the famous blogging platforms by Google.
Medium is one of the fast-growing blogging platform due to it’s easier interface for writers and you can categorize the posts by tags. No coding knowledge required to setup your blog. This platform uses “claps” to up vote the best articles. Most important feature of Medium is Publications. So, you can create your own newspaper or magazine with this feature. You can also Follow your favorite writer or publications. Subscription charges of Medium is $5 monthly or $50 yearly. You can run a blog for free with limited features.
Medium also rolled out partnership program for selected countries for their writers and it pays them on the metrics of “claps”
Pros:
- It’s easy to use and no coding knowledge required
- Easy to reach to people of similar interests
- You can focus only on writing, as the designing is so simple and elegant
- If you are lucky you can get paid for your stories
- Multi-user publishing available for publications
Cons:
- Limited features
- You can’t run your own ads
- You have to go for paid subscription for reading other articles without any limit.
Blogger
Blogger is one of the oldest and most popular free blog hosting service acquired and run by Google since 2003. On August 23, 1999 Blogger (earlier Blogspot) was launched by Pyra Labs.
It allows time stamped entries and multi-user blogs. Posts are classified based on Labels used on the blog. You need a basic HTML and CSS knowledge to setup the blog. You can extend more functionality with inbuilt widgets. You can use custom domain for free. Many pre-developed themes available for blogger.
Pros:
- Blogger features are free
- Easy to use and maintain
- Can use custom domain
- Can display ads of your own or you can sign in for Google AdSense
Cons:
- Basic coding knowledge required
- There are limitations when compared to Medium and WordPress
- The features are less, you can’t upgrade or get new features as your blog grows
LinkedIn is primarily used as a networking platform for professionals. LinkedIn also offers a publishing platform through Articles. It’s a free-to-use publishing platform that’s focused on professionals and business contacts. If you’re already a LinkedIn member, publishing your content will be easier than WordPress.com, Medium, or any other blogging platform.
Pros:
- Good for professionals and businesses
- Clean, simple design
- Easy to use — publishing platform is built right into your LinkedIn profile
- Built-in audience of like-minded professionals
Cons:
- Only good for professionals and businesses
- Very few customization options
- You can’t schedule posts for future publishing
Quora
Quora is one of the widely popular question and answer website and it had started online user blogs back in January 2012. Quora is a popular website among the industry professionals and knowledgeable and experienced people. According to Alexa, Quora ranks amongst 150 top sites in the world and its popularity is rising. The active writers on Quora sport an average of 30,000+ monthly views and 350,000+ annual views. The most active writers get 90,000+ views monthly and 1+ million yearly.
- Strong and active community
- Interesting content
- Lack of customization
- Not suited for personal blogging
Tumblr
Tumblr is a microblogging social networking platform founded by David Karp in 2007 and owned by Oath Inc. Previously Tumblr was acquired by Yahoo! Inc in 2013. Then Yahoo was acquired by Verizon Communications acquired Yahoo in 2017 and put both Yahoo and Tumblr under Oath Inc.
Tumblr allows users to post multimedia and other content to a short-form blog. You can share almost all kind of things like audio, video, image, text, gifs etc. It’s free and you can use custom domains.
Pros:
- Tumblr is free
- You can add videos, audio, GIF’s images, texts and even chat
Cons:
- Features are limited
- Not so conventional as other blogging platforms
Instagram now makes a new way of blogging. Blogging through pictures and videos. Are you a photographer, model or designer you can show case your portraits on Instagram.
Instagram was created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger and launched in October 2010 as a social networking site for sharing images. On September 2012 Facebook acquired Instagram.
It’s mostly Mobile App based platform. The App allows users to upload photos and videos with different filters. Now you can share your pictures and videos on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr instantly. You can also Tag the pictures with Facebook Places and other users of Instagram.
All photos are categorised by “#labels” and users are classified by “@users”. You can follow posts based on users, #labels, or by Places.
Instagram’s rapid user growth made it as a vital blogging resource. It’s getting new updates regularly. You can add stories — a post that show up to your followers for a limited period of time, You can send direct message to other users, Newly added IGTV feature allows you to add videos in a channel basis.
Pros:
- Instagram is Free
- Instagram is getting new updates regularly
Cons:
- You can’t add any links to Instagram posts
Youtube
YouTube is a video sharing website which was created by three former PayPal Employees — Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim in 2005. Google acquired YouTube in the year 2016.
As a video blogging platform, it allows users to create their own channel and upload their videos on various topics and it even pays for the videos which is getting more views. Youtube made a revolution in the blogging. Video bloggers are called vloggers.
Pros:
- Easy to attract more userbase through videos
- Youtube is adding new features regularly for both vloggers and viewers
Cons:
- Need some technical skills for making videos
Pick a platform of your choice and give it a try. HAPPY BLOGGING!!
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Author: Vinoth George C is a freelance tech columnist from New Delhi, India. He likes to learn and create new tech concepts and aspire to build a technology that exceeds our humanity.
