Back in the mid-90’s, people set up personal homepages using services like the now-defunct Geocities and Xoom. Updating your homepage could be a real pain. Then b2/cafelog came along as the first real blogging software. b2/cafelog eventually became WordPress and the rest is history. WordPress is by far the most popular blogging platform today.
While WordPress may be the most popular blogging platform, you still have other options. I looked for some other options using a largely unscientific approach. I just searched Google for “best blog platform,” clicked the top 10 search results, and counted the number of mentions for each blog platform. Here are the results (with number of mentions in parentheses):
- WordPress.com/WordPress.org (10)
- Wix (9)
- Blogger (9)
- Tumblr (9)
- Medium (8)
- Ghost (6)
- Weebly (6)
- SquareSpace (5)
- Joomla (3)
WordPress has held the number one spot in blogging for quite some time. However, since last year the up-and-coming blog platform seems to be Wix. Tumblr took a tumble in the rankings since last year. Another platform to note is Joomla, which wasn’t on my radar last year.
Personally, I’m going to stay with WordPress because of its customizability. However, Tumblr looks like the best choice for casual bloggers because of its tight integration with social media features. The other 9 contenders listed above are not quite as popular, but each has their own niches in which they rule.
You should also not discount social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn as legitimate blogging platforms.
Conclusion: For commercial blogs, use WordPress. For personal blogs, look into Wix or social media.
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