The 6 Best Blogging Platforms in 2023: Our Top Picks

Get a quick overview of our top six blogging platforms below. You can compare ratings, pricing, features, and more side-by-side to help you choose the best blog website builder for you.

Swipe right to see more

0 out of 0

• backward
• forward

BEST IN TEST
Wix	Squarespace	WordPress.org	WordPress.com	Webflow	Hostinger
Overall Rating 4.9	Overall Rating 4.8	Overall Rating 4.1	Overall Rating 4.1	Overall Rating 3.5	Overall Rating 3.5
Starting from $16 $14.40 with code ‘GET10!’	Starting from $16 $14.40 with code “WBE”	Starting from $2.95	Starting from $4	Starting from $14	Starting from $11.99 $2.99 + 3 months free (with the 48-month plan)
Publish for free	Publish for free	Publish for free	Publish for free	Publish for free	Publish for free
Storage space 2GB – Unlimited	Storage space Unlimited	Storage space 50GB – Unlimited	Storage space 3GB – 200GB	Storage space 1GB – 400GB	Storage space Unlimited
Archive	Archive	Archive	Archive	Archive	Archive
Comments	Comments	Comments	Comments	Comments	Comments
Search feature	Search feature	Search feature	Search feature	Search feature	Search feature
Analytics	Analytics	Analytics	Analytics	Analytics	Analytics
Scheduled posts	Scheduled posts	Scheduled posts	Scheduled posts	Scheduled posts	Scheduled posts
Ease of use 4.4	Ease of use 4.4	Ease of use 3.2	Ease of use 2.7	Ease of use 2.1	Ease of use 3.9
Visit Wix	View Squarespace	Visit WordPress	Visit WordPress	Visit Webflow	Visit Hostinger
See our Wix Review	See our Squarespace Review	See our WordPress.org review	See our WordPress.com Review	See our Webflow Review	See our Hostinger review

We’ve done hours of research to make sure that our rankings and recommendations are as honest and accurate as possible. You can read more about our methodology in our dedicated section at the end of the article.

When it comes to finding the right blogging platform, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. Read on to find the right platform for you.

Best for built-in blogging features

$16 – $159 per month, billed annually (free plan also available)

Editor's Choice

Wix

Best for built-in blogging features

Outstanding

4.9

out of 5

• Easy platform to use
• Publish on free plan
• Endless creative freedom

Free plan available

Paid Plans: $16 - $159 / month

Pros

• Create a whole website including a blog
• Beginner-friendly editor
• Advanced SEO support

Cons

• Can't switch template once site is live
• Premium plans start at $16 per month
• Lacks storage on cheap plans

Wix Review

Use code GET10! for 10% off

Visit Site

Wix Overview

Wix is the best blogging platform on the market, scoring 4.9 out of 5 in our 2023 research. It’s an intuitive website builder that excels in the majority of research areas, particularly website features and customer satisfaction, and it also comes out on top in our list of the best website builders.

Wix lets you integrate a blog at the click of a button, whether that’s from scratch or to an existing website. It’s a beginner-friendly platform and comes packed with useful blogging features, such as analytics and powerful SEO tools.

Wix Blogging Features

Wix scores a perfect 5 out of 5 for its blogging features, offering users the following:

• Analytics, so you can track your blog’s performance
• Comments sections, so readers can engage with your content
• Social bookmarking, so readers can easily revisit your blog
• Search feature to help both you and your users make the most of your blog
• Best SEO practice tools to get your website ranking higher on Google

Plus, Wix is also strong on mobile, meaning updating your blog on mobile is a painless experience. This makes Wix super handy if you’re someone who travels a lot and plans to blog on the move.

You can also create an archive and add an RSS feed with Wix’s blogging tools, meaning you can keep your blog looking fresh and up to date with ease.

Wix SEO Features

Wix strikes again with its SEO features, scoring 5 out of 5 in the category and maintaining its top score from last year’s research.

SEO is a crucial part of running a successful blog – after all, you want people to find your posts with ease! Wix makes the process easy thanks to its SEO Wiz which creates a personalized checklist to help you get your website ready for search engines. There’s also a detailed Wix SEO Hub if you want extra guidance, including SEO webinars, video tutorials, and expert articles.

You can also receive keyword support through Wix’s integration with Semrush, and we highly recommend you make the most of this feature if you want to create targeted blog posts to reach your desired audience.

Wix Design

In our recent round of research, Wix scores 4.6 out of 5 for its design functionalities, sitting in second place with Webflow. When it comes to blog design, Wix has a great selection of stunning templates for you to choose from. Some even have Wix Blog pre-installed, while others let you add it in a simple click when in the editor.

Wix uses a simple drag-and-drop editor across its platform, giving you total creative control over how you want your blog to look. It also has a bunch of useful blog elements built-in, including:

• Image galleries
• Captions and links on images
• The ability to insert videos from YouTube or Vimeo

The rich editor in Wix makes you feel like you’re crafting your blog with the finest materials, and though it doesn’t quite have the stylish appearance of Squarespace’s templates, Wix makes powerful customization simple.

Wix Pricing

You can launch a blog with your Wix site on any plan, free or paid. However, to connect your domain name you’ll need to sign up to the $16/month Light plan. This will also enable you to get rid of Wix ads.

The more professional your blog, the more readers will trust you.

Because of this, we’d recommend upgrading to a paid Wix plan as soon as possible, despite it being more costly. It’s a small price to pay to make your blog look professional, but we understand that Wix isn’t the most affordable, especially following the industry’s price increases over the last year.

Due to these reasons, Wix scores a measly 3 out of 5 in our value for money testing – putting Wix near the bottom of the six for this category. 

Here’s a full list of Wix’s website plans, all billed annually:

• Free: $0 per month
• Light: $16 per month
• Core: $27 per month (Basic ecommerce)
• Business: $32 per month (Standard ecommerce)
• Business Elite: $159 per month (Advanced ecommerce)

As we’ve already mentioned, we’d recommend the Light or Core plan since they remove ads, allow custom domains, and increase your website features to help you run and grow your blog.

Wix Gallery

Click the image below to expand

Close

I could edit my blog from Wix's dedicated blog dashboard, and even add new posts from here.

From the dashboard, I could also find blog-specific SEO support to help improve my blog's visibility.

I was also able to monetize my blog, with Wix offering me plenty of options to help get me started.

I was also able to edit my blogs in the website editor, which was super helpful when building my site.

In the blog post editor, I saw in a side menu I could add images, videos, GIFS and more to each post.

More Information

• Wix Review: Read about the pros and cons of Wix in our full review.
• Wix Pricing Plans: See which Wix plan is right for you.
• Wix SEO Review: For a detailed look at Wix’s SEO tools.

Best for designing a unique blog

$16 – $49 per month, billed annually

Squarespace

Best for designing a unique blog

Excellent

4.8

out of 5

• Beautiful blog designs
• Beginner-friendly builder
• Save 10% with code WBE

Free trial available

Paid Plans: $16 - $49 / month

Pros

• Professionally-designed blog templates
• Tons of creative freedom
• High-quality blogging features

Cons

• No free plan
• Need to upgrade to monetize your blog
• No autosave when editing

Squarespace Review

Use code WBE for 10% off

Visit Site

Squarespace Overview

With an overall score of 4.8 out of 5, Squarespace takes the silver medal in our list of the best blogging platforms. Thanks to high scores across our research, we can confidently say that Squarespace is a very strong choice if Wix doesn’t interest you.

Its stunning designs – which can’t be beaten – make for beautiful posts, and its powerful SEO tools can help you get your content in front of tons of readers. Squarespace is also incredibly easy to use, and its affordable plans are stuffed full of impressive blogging features, including blog categories and scheduling.

Squarespace Blogging Features

Squarespace sees no change since last year’s research, maintaining its blogging features score of 5 out of 5. With this builder, you can:

• Display blogging categories
• Archive posts
• Allow comments
• Add an RSS Feed
• Set up social sharing
• Create a paid newsletter
• Track blog analytics
• SEO tools
• Schedule your posts

Squarespace’s blogging features are strong, and you can access them on any paid plan without any limitations. There’s also built-in analytics to use, along with Google Analytics, to closely monitor your blog’s performance.

Squarespace SEO Features

For SEO, Squarespace shares the same score as Wix – 5 out of 5. With a blog, you need to drive traffic toward your pages and build authority within your market. These steps support long-term growth, but it can’t be achieved without good SEO practices.

Squarespace provides a plethora of built-in SEO tools, including SEO page settings to edit your page details and hide pages from search results, automatic sitemaps, static URLs, and Google My Business listing integration. All of this can be managed via Squarespace’s dedicated SEO panel which you can find in the backend.

Squarespace Design

Squarespace is well known for its stunning templates and design capabilities, so it’s no surprise that Squarespace is the best for design, scoring 4.7 out of 5 in our 2023 research.

You can browse free and paid templates by industry and select one that suits your blog’s needs. There are even dedicated “Blog” templates to choose from. And, when it comes to building your blog, Squarespace has taken great care with how your content is laid out on its templates thanks to its grid-style drag-and-drop editor. When we tested the builder out for ourselves, we appreciated how the editor steered us away from creating messy and overcrowded pages!

The designs are top-of-the-range and there are powerful features, such as 3D scrolling and animation styles, that can give your blog a unique look and feel. If building your blog from scratch seems overwhelming to you, have no fear! Squarespace has recently released a guided web design system, Squarespace Blueprint, which builds a custom template for you based on your preferences.

Squarespace Pricing

If value for money is an important factor when choosing a blogging platform, Squarespace remains a strong contender. With a score of 4.6 out of 5, it takes second place, sitting behind our top choice for price, WordPress.org.

Squarespace’s $16/month Personal plan is its cheapest pricing plan, and offers plenty of scalable features, including access to Squarespace Extensions for additional third-party tools.

The Personal plan will give you everything you need to start blogging, but if you ever want to monetize your blog, then you’ll need to upgrade to the $23/month Business plan.

Squarespace also has two specialized ecommerce plans, but these are designed for online stores rather than blogs. Here’s a quick look at all of Squarespace’s plans, billed annually:

• Personal: $16 per month
• Business: $23 per month
• Basic Commerce: $27 per month
• Advanced Commerce: $49 per month

Although Squarespace doesn’t come with a free plan, it does start every plan with a 14-day free trial so you can test it out yourself risk-free.

And, despite not being the cheapest option out of the six, we still think that Squarespace’s plans offer awesome value for money. You can realize your blogging dreams without having to plunder your savings, and upgrading your plan requires a small step up, not a giant leap.

Sure, you can choose a builder with a cheaper starting plan, but it won’t be able to match Squarespace’s quality reputation. Squarespace provides a premium service – without the premium price tag!

Squarespace Gallery

Click the image below to expand

Close

When I added a blog to my site, it gave me options for layouts.

I could also add a new blog post to my Squarespace website in under than a minute.

Squarespace has an AI Text Writer which generated a blog post based on my prompt.

Squarespace provided a dedicated dashboard to monitor my blog's traffic.

I could really easily look at each blog post's settings, and manage its status from the editor.

Are you a student? Squarespace also offers students 50% off any plan with a valid academic email address (Terms and Conditions apply).

More Information

• Squarespace Review: Read all about design-powerhouse Squarespace.
• Squarespace Pricing: Browse Squarespace’s premium plans to find your perfect fit.
• Squarespace SEO Review: See how Squarespace can support your site’s SEO.
• Squarespace vs WordPress: We compare two of the biggest website builders.

Best for content-heavy blogs

WordPress: free to use!
Bluehost hosting: $2.95 – $13.95 per month

WordPress.org

Best for content-heavy blogs

Very Good

4.1

out of 5

• Famous for blogging
• Limitless customizations
• Requires separate hosting

Paid Plans: $2.95 - $5.45 / month

Pros

• 60,000+ plugins to customize your blog
• Build from scratch with total control
• Add whatever blogging tools you need

Cons

• Steep learning curve for beginners
• You manage security, hosting, updates
• No in-house support team or resources

WordPress.org Review

We recommend using Bluehost

Visit Site

WordPress.org Overview

WordPress.org completes our top three with a score of 4.1 out of 5 overall. Not only is it the best value for money blogging platform (seeing as you only pay for your hosting), but it performed well in our website features and customer satisfaction categories as well.

WordPress.org is a free and open source software that has helped millions of people launch blogs online. In fact, WordPress.org is so popular that it now powers 43% of all websites. That’s one heck of a social recommendation!

That being said, according to our research, WordPress.org is the weakest option when it comes to help and support, and it’s not too hot on design or ease of use either. So keep these things in mind if you’re looking for a smooth-sailing blog building journey. You might be better off with Wix!

What sets WordPress.org apart is that, in order to use it, you need hosting. WordPress.org itself recommends Bluehost for this and so do we, because of how well it performed in our WordPress hosting research.

WordPress.org Blogging Features

There’s a reason why WordPress.org is a popular favorite among bloggers worldwide. It offers a range of powerful blogging tools which score 5 out of 5 in our research, from forums and comments sections to RSS feeds and analytics.

Plus, WordPress integrates with thousands of plugins, both free and paid, so the world is your oyster! These plugins can add a range of extra functionalities to your blog, including:

• Comment management
• Email marketing
• Visual analytics
• SEO
• Anti-spam

The possibilities are virtually endless! It’s no wonder we gave it top marks for this category.

However, with WordPress.org, a lot of your core features come from your web host, such as storage space, bandwidth, and security.

If you choose Bluehost for your provider, you get automatic WordPress installation (saving you time and effort), automatic WordPress updates (to keep your site secure and running smoothly), a free domain for one year, and at least 10GB storage. All on its cheapest plan!

WordPress.org SEO Features

When it comes to SEO, WordPress.org matches the other top performers in our list with a score of 5 out of 5. There are a handful of built-in features included with your account to help search engines crawl your blog, including static URLs and blogrolling, but WordPress.org also relies on third-party plugins.

For example, Yoast SEO is one of the most popular SEO tools available – the software automates your technical SEO, helps you create SEO-friendly content, and improves your website’s structure.

WordPress.org Design

Despite offering excellent blogging and SEO features, WordPress.org is one of the worst performing platforms for design. It sits just ahead of its counterpart, WordPress.com, with a score of 2.2 out of 5. There’s also a considerable drop in score between WordPress.org and the next best platform – Webflow and Hostinger rank above with a score of 4.6 out of 5.

WordPress.org uses an open source editor which means you can play around with the code. The upshot of this is you get complete control over the look and feel of your blog, but it’s not as beginner-friendly as other builders, such as Wix and Squarespace. You’ll need some technical skill (or money to hire a developer) to take full advantage of this flexibility.

As a result, WordPress.org is a particularly good option for more technical bloggers looking to develop a complex or content-heavy blog for the long-term. The downside to WordPress’ power is that less technical users will find the learning curve steeper than launching a blog on a drag-and-drop website builder, like Wix or Squarespace. WordPress.org isn’t ideal for someone looking to create a blog that’s eye-catching or pleasing to browse.

WordPress.org Pricing

WordPress.org is the best value for money, scoring 4.8 out of 5 in this year’s research. The platform is free to use, making it kind on your wallet, but you’ll still need to cover some costs.

Essentials like hosting, security, and registering your domain name can add up. That’s why we recommend a good value web host like Bluehost, which provides a free domain for one year, plus built-in security features to protect your blog.

The good news is Bluehost provides one-click integration with WordPress.org to save you time and headaches. Just choose one of its shared WordPress hosting plans for hosting that’s specifically designed to support WordPress websites.

Here’s a run-down of Bluehost’s price plans. For ease, we’ve listed annual plans, but you can save money if you sign up for a longer contract:

• Basic: $2.95 per month
• Choice Plus: $5.45 per month
• Online Store: $9.95 per month
• Pro: $13.95 per month

Just be warned that these are introductory prices, and after the initial term, the discounts will be replaced with the standard fee. For example, the Basic plan rises to $10.99 per month following the first year. This is great if you’re starting out on a budget, but make sure you check out the renewal price before you commit – you don’t want to be caught off-guard with a huge price tag when it comes to your second term!

And we want to remind you again that though WordPress.org itself is free to use, you’ll need a hosting provider (like Bluehost) to publish your blog. This gives you more control over your site costs than with a set subscription that comes with builders like Squarespace.

WordPress.org Gallery

Click the image below to expand

Close

This was the first site that greeted me in WordPress.org. It can look confusing at first, but it's been designed for blogging.

Here I could write my blog posts. The dashboard is separated from the website editor.

WordPress.org's editor gave me a ton of creative control over how my blog looked, but it wasn't the most user-friendly.

WordPress.org lets you create templates so all your posts can be structured the same. It also has a large list of embeds.

WordPress.org has a handful of built-in SEO tools but relies more heavily on its advanced plugins, like Yoast.

More Information

• WordPress Review: Everything you need to know about WordPress.org.
• How To Install WordPress With Bluehost: We walk you through the process of installing WordPress with Bluehost.
• How to Write a Blog Post: Learn more about writing a blog post in our detailed guide.
• Best Cheap Website Builders: Need a blog on a budget? Find a cheap website builder that’s up to the task.

Best for easy blog management

$4 – $45 per month, billed annually (free plan also available)

WordPress.com

Best for easy blog management

Very Good

4.1

out of 5

• Built purely for blogging
• More advanced platform
• Coding skills are helpful

Free plan available

Paid Plans: $4 - $45 / month

Pros

• Powerful built-in blogging tools
• Easier version of the CMS WordPress.org
• Cheapest starting price at $4/month

Cons

• Not user-friendly for beginners
• Not as powerful as WordPress.org
• No autosave function in editor

WordPress.com Review

Visit Site

WordPress.com Overview

WordPress.com is a hosted blogging website builder from the same company that’s behind WordPress.org. It’s a great option for building a blog (with hosting already included) and it cruises along in most of our research categories, scoring 4.1 out of 5 overall.

One of the key benefits of WordPress.com is that it’s free to launch your blog, but you have to pay to remove ads and access extra features like storage and your own domain name. What lets WordPress.com down most of all is its poor website features and limited design options, scoring the lowest rating for both of these performance areas.

WordPress.com Blogging Features

It’s hard to compare any of these blogging platforms on their features since the majority of them perform so well in our research. WordPress.com is no exception thanks to its score of 5 out of 5.

Here’s a snapshot of the key WordPress.com features that make it one of the best blogging platforms:

• Mobile-optimized themes make your blog look great on all devices
• Technical upkeep managed, including software updates, hosting and domain registration
• Modern site design
• Advanced analytics
• Archive
• Comments
• Social sharing
• Post scheduling

WordPress.com comes with almost everything you’ll ever need to run a blog, however, it doesn’t have a built-in search function or blog-specific SEO.

WordPress.com SEO Features

WordPress.com scores 5 out of 5 for its SEO features – increasing its score by 25% from last year’s research. You’ll have access to everything you’d expect from a top blogging platform, including mobile optimization, keyword support, and SEO prompts when building.

If you upgrade to a higher-level plan (Business and above), you can unlock advanced SEO tools to preview your site on search engines, and edit your page title structure, for example. It’s just a shame that these features aren’t accessible unless you pay more, since WordPress.com’s free plan is a great place for blogs to start out.

WordPress.com Design

Of the six blogging platforms, WordPress.com is the worst for design, scoring a weak 2 out of 5 in our latest round of research.

Unfortunately, designing your blog with WordPress.com isn’t quite as simple as you might want it to be. It comes with a steep learning curve and little in-editor guidance, which is why it only scored 2.7 out of 5 in our ease of use testing as well. This means that making an attractive blog quickly is pretty unlikely.

One of our users testing WordPress.com had this to say:

“It didn’t feel user-friendly at all, and I spent a lot of time clicking around to figure out what everything is.”

Despite this, once you get your head around the controls, WordPress.com allows for a lot of creative control, giving users access to the HTML code for direct customization.

There’s also more scope for further personalization if you opt for one of WordPress.com’s premium price plans. This is because Premium blogs include custom CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). CSS is a coding language and having the freedom to alter it means you can make really comprehensive changes to your blog. You should bear this in mind if you have long-term ambitions for your blog.

Great customization potential, plus hosting and technical upkeep, make WordPress.com a great middle-ground between WordPress.org and drag-and-drop website builders. So, we’d recommend it for anyone looking to get their hands dirty with the mechanical side of running a blog, but are worried a builder like Wix may feel limiting in the long run. Just be prepared – it isn’t the easiest platform to use when you first get started!

WordPress.com Pricing

With a an overall score of 4.1 out of 5, WordPress.com takes third place in our value for money category – this puts it behind WordPress.org and Squarespace. Here’s a quick look at its price plans, all billed annually:

• Free plan: $0 per month
• Personal: $4 per month
• Premium: $8 per month
• Business: $25 per month
• Commerce: $45 per month

You can blog on WordPress.com’s free plan, but in order to really get started with a custom domain and an ad-free site, we recommend you start with the Personal plan for $4/month. The Personal plan also comes with access to email support and premium content (including paid subscriptions) which isn’t available on the free version.

As you can see, there’s a big jump in price between the Premium plan and the Business plan. That’s because the Business plan offers a huge increase in storage space and ton of advanced features – including unrestricted bandwidth and plugin access. But, for a simple blog that’s just getting started, you should be equipped with everything you need on the Personal plan.

Click the image below to expand

Close

Like WordPress.org, WordPress.com is split between the web editor and the dashboard.

I was able to keep an eye on my website's performance stats in WordPress.com's backend dashboard.

WordPress.com's editor took a while to wrap my head around, but I did get a lot of control over my blog.

I sometimes struggled with generating new content ideas, so luckily WordPress.com has a neat writing prompt!

When I really struggled with what to write, I used WordPress.com's AI Writer. It generated over 500 words with just one prompt!

More Information

• WordPress.com Review: Learn all about this blogging platform in our full review.
• Best Website Builders: See where WordPress.com ranks in our list of the best website builders.

Best for advanced website editing

$14 – $212 per month, billed annually (free plan also available)

Webflow

Best for advanced website editing

Above Average

3.5

out of 5

• Advanced customization
• Dependable support
• CMS-powered templates

Free plan available

Paid Plans: $14 / month

Pros

• No ads on free plan
• Ideal for experienced builders
• 2,000+ templates

Cons

• SEO features not available on free plan
• No drag-and-drop editor
• Not very easy to use

Webflow Review

Visit Site

Webflow Overview

Sitting in fifth place, we have Webflow with a score of 3.5 out of 5 after our latest blogging platform research. To put it simply, it’s not one of the strongest options out there – it scores poorly for value for money, website features, and ease of use. All of which are areas that are important for blogs!

That being said, Webflow will be the right fit for some bloggers. It performed well in our design research, ranking second alongside Wix because of the high level of customization on offer, and it provides dependable support via its Webflow University and email tickets.

To summarize, we’d recommend Webflow for bloggers with previous building experience or technical knowledge. Its advanced editor won’t be suitable for beginners, and it isn’t very affordable – so make sure you read our full review below before committing to a paid plan.

Webflow Blogging Features

Webflow is the first of our six blogging platforms to just miss out on the perfect blogging score – though 4 out of 5 isn’t too bad! Webflow offers CMS-powered templates (which we’ll talk more about later) since these give you on-page editing power, and you get access to a handful of great built-in features with your chosen plan. These include:

• Writer profiles
• Blog categories
• Archive
• Social sharing
• Scheduling tools

While the free plan will give you a taste of what to expect from Webflow, you’ll need to upgrade to at least the Basic plan to unlock better features (like a custom domain and no ads). And, for a blog, the CMS plan – which costs $23 per month, billed annually – is your best bet since you get access to post scheduling tools and an RSS feed, to name just a handful of extra features.

Webflow SEO Features

Webflow scores 3 out of 5 for its SEO features – they’re not terrible, but they’re nothing special. In comparison to Wix which generates a personalized SEO checklist to help your blog succeed online, Webflow falls short. If you opt for a paid plan, you’ll get access to:

• 301 redirects to navigate old and new content
• Sitemaps to help search engines find and crawl your blog
• Schema markup support to optimize your blog’s SEO rankings
• Meta tags from Open Graph to manage how your pages appear in search results
• Structured search support to improve visibility and clicks

Unfortunately, none of these features are available on Webflow’s free plan so you’ll have to be willing to pay to unlock these SEO tools.

Webflow Design

Webflow really shines when it comes to design, scoring 4.6 out of 5 in our 2023 research. This puts it on par with our top blogging platform Wix – the two builders share second place behind our number one design choice, Squarespace.

There are over 2,000 templates to choose from and you can filter these to “blog” or “CMS” if you want something specific to your needs. Just bear in mind that some of these templates have a price tag, but you can find a good handful of free options too. As we mentioned earlier, these CMS-specific themes come equipped with blogging features, so you’ll be ready to go as soon as you sign up.

What we found when testing Webflow is that it offers a high-level of customization, advanced enough to rival our top recommendations. But its editor has an extreme difficulty level, so we wouldn’t recommend Webflow for beginners – it’s best for complex blogs.

Webflow Pricing

Webflow scores the lowest in our value for money research, sitting at the bottom of the group with a rating of 2.3 out of 5. While there is a free plan, you get very few features and no option for a custom domain – plus all of Webflow’s blogging features are locked behind paid plans.

If you do choose to upgrade, which we suggest you do for a professional-looking blog, here’s a look at Webflow’s price plans (billed annually):

• Free: $0 per month
• Basic: $14 per month
• CMS: $23 per month
• Business: $39 per month

For blogging, we’d recommend the CMS plan, but it’s considerably more expensive than Wix and Squarespace which sit at the top of our list.

Webflow Gallery

Click the image below to expand

Close

I found Webflow's editor and interface difficult to use. It's a shame you can't see a blog post preview when creating new content.

The editor has a ton of details and settings you can tune to your liking. Here, I added a gradient to the blog titles.

I found Webflow's SEO settings directly in the editor, and I was impressed by its detail.

I thought Webflow's dashboard was outdated-looking, but it still let me keep track of my blog posts.

When I went looking for Webflow's more advanced tools, they were locked behind its premium plans.

More Information

• Webflow Review: Learn more about this advanced website builder.

Best for simple blogs

$2.99 per month, billed annually

Hostinger

Best for simple blogs

Above Average

3.4

out of 5

• A single paid plan
• Best for short-term blogs
• Get online quickly

Paid Plans: $2.99 - $109.99 / month

Pros

• Drag-and-drop editor
• Affordable plan
• Simple to use

Cons

• Underdeveloped blogging features
• Lacks advanced SEO tools
• Limited scalability

Hostinger Review

Visit Site

Hostinger Overview

Completing out list of the best six blogging platforms is Hostinger – the hosting provider turned website builder. With an overall score of 3.5 out of 5, its Website Builder + Web Hosting plan makes it easy to get your blog online, but it isn’t ideal for growing your blog since there’s only a single plan to subscribe to.

Hostinger’s website features are limited, and its low score of 2.8 out of 5 reflects this – however, we were impressed by Hostinger’s template offerings and support options. If you don’t need all of the bells and whistles, and simply want a basic blog, read on to find out more about Hostinger’s blogging capabilities.

Hostinger Blogging Features

Hostinger has the lowest score for blogging features out of the six platforms – our 2023 research awarded the platform 3 out of 5. Although it’s clearly not as fleshed out as others, Hostinger does offer some essential blogging features, including:

• Writer profiles
• The ability to display categories
• Social sharing
• Blog-specific SEO

So, if you’re not looking for something too complicated, this should be more than enough to get you on your way. However, Hostinger does miss some notable must-have blogging tools. For example, it doesn’t support comments or an archive, and there’s no search feature.

Plus, the absence of any blog analytics makes it tricky to track performance which isn’t ideal when the aim is more traffic and higher conversions.

Because of this, bloggers who plan to expand and grow their platform might want to look for something more advanced, such as Wix.

Hostinger SEO Features

Hostinger falls short when it comes to SEO features, scoring 4 out of 5 due to its limited offering. A lot of Hostinger’s website builder is powered by AI, including its SEO tools – these are a real help for nervous SEO beginners since they can help you boost your rankings and visibility in search results. However, they’re quite basic in nature.

You can edit the usual page settings for SEO (think meta titles and page keywords), but Hostinger lacks any advanced SEO support, such as built-in integrations to help your site’s growth online. For blogging, you’d be better off with a platform like Wix which offers personalized SEO guidance.

Hostinger Design

Hostinger’s design functionality isn’t anything to shout home about. The blogging platform sits in the middle of the pack with a score of 3.6 out of 5, putting it below Wix and Webflow.

There are a handful of blog-specific templates, and its drag-and-drop editor means you can easily tailor the pages to suit your style. But its design elements are pretty simple, and we struggled to create anything very eye-catching when testing Hostinger for ourselves.

For this reason, we’d recommend Hostinger for anyone that wants to create a simple blog – you just want the basics and don’t want to fuss around with designing a detailed website. And if you’re really struggling with building your blog, Hostinger’s AI-powered builder can start designing for you.

Hostinger Pricing

Hostinger sits in the middle when it comes to pricing thanks to its value for money score of 4 out of 5. Its single plan (with various subscription terms) makes it simple to evaluate, and its starting price is considerably cheaper than other blogging platforms on this list.

Take a look at how pricing for the Website Builder + Web Hosting plan differs depending on the term:

• One month:$11.99 per month (renews at $11.99/mo)
• One year: $2.99 per month, billed annually (renews at $8.99/mo)
• Two years: $2.99 per month, billed annually (renews at $7.99/mo)
• Four years: $2.99 per month, billed annually (renews at $6.99/mo)

Now, you might be thinking: why is the one year term the same price as the four year term? Well, these are introductory discounts – you’ll pay the same price for your initial term no matter your plan (apart from monthly), but the renewal price will differ. For example, if you pay $2.99 per month for one year, it’ll then cost $8.99 per month following that period. So, keep an eye on the figures before you sign up!

Hostinger Gallery

Click the image below to expand

Close

There is no blog dashboard with Hostinger. Instead, I could edit and write the blogs directly in the editor.

When I clicked Settings on the Blog page, this was the only thing that came up, which was quite disappointing.

When I clicked on my finished blog post Settings, I found these individual settings.

Hostinger has an AI Text Writer like Squarespace and WordPress. However, it didn't produce as much text on one prompt as the others.

I checked out Hostinger's knowledge base and found hundreds of blog-related guides and tutorials.

More Information

• Best Website Builders: Compare Hostinger with other top website builders.

We’ve given you the six best blogging platforms on the market – perhaps one jumped straight out at you, but what if you’re still scratching your head? How are you meant to pick just one to build your blog?

Here are some questions to ask, which will help you find the best blogging platform for you.

#1. Do You Want to Monetize Your Blog?

Wix makes it easy to start monetizing your blog with affiliate marketing and Google AdSense, so it’s the easiest platform for beginners to start making money through blogging. You’ll even get credit with Google Ads if you upgrade to Wix’s Light plan.

If you’re more technically advanced or want to grow your blog into a substantial revenue stream, then WordPress.org with Bluehost is a more scalable solution. With these tools, you can use all kinds of plugins to help your blog start making money.

#2. What’s the Focus of Your Blog?

If you’re a photographer, featuring lots of imagery, or doubling your blog as a portfolio, you’ll need a platform to show off your talent! Choosing a platform like Squarespace will give your work the space and aesthetics it needs to really shine.

#3. How Technically Confident Are You?

Wix and Squarespace are both beginner-friendly options that strike the balance between easy editing functions and advanced features. In other words, you can create an impressive blog without any tech skills.

If you’re happy taking on more technical responsibility, then WordPress.org with Bluehost or Webflow could be very rewarding – but there’s less guidance offered along the way.

#4. How Will People Find You?

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is essential for ranking on Google and getting found in search results. If you choose a builder with weak SEO tools, it’ll be much harder for your blog posts to get the readership they deserve!

Wix ranks number one in our comparison of the best website builders for SEO, and its beginner-oriented SEO tools allow for anyone to promote blog posts with ease.

#5. How Design-Focused Are You?

Is a stylish blog design important to you? If so, you need a blogging platform with modern, attractive templates to give your readers the very best experience of your website.

Squarespace has the best designs on the market, and is perfect for creating a stunning blog. Its designs are fresh, clean, and consistently high quality – check out its blogging templates to see for yourself!

Plus, we’re the first to admit that getting the design of your blog right can be a tricky endeavor – so let us help. We’ve put together a list of the best blog examples to inspire you – why not go explore them for yourself?

#6. Why Are You Creating a Blog?

The motivation behind your blog is a key, but often overlooked, part of choosing the right blogging platform. For example, if you’re creating a personal hobby blog then an affordable platform like Hostinger will be fine. However, if you want to make money from your blog, share it online, or even add it to your resume, then you need a professional, scalable builder like Wix or Squarespace.

#7. Which Features Are Most Important to You?

If you plan on using a lot of images, then you need a builder with generous amounts of storage space. If you’re running your blog as a side-hustle, it’s smart to look for post scheduling so you don’t have to be tied to your blog 24/7.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed with the number of features on offer, so think about which ones are most important to you.

More Information

• How Much Does it Cost to Start a Blog?: Before you get started, it’s a good idea to know how much it’s going to cost you to set up and maintain your blog.
• Writing for the Web: Check out our ultimate guide to writing for the web.
• How to Design a Website: The eight simple steps to a beautiful, functional website.
• How to Start a Fashion Blog: Know your niche? Follow these eight steps to get started!
• How to Start a Travel Blog: Turn your love for travelling into a career.
• How to Start a Lifestyle Blog: A step-by-step guide for getting started.

To bring you a list of the best blogging platforms, we used our rigorous research methodology and our own hands-on experience to weed out the poor performers and showcase the best options. But what does this mean exactly?

We usually rate each builder by these categories through a mix of first-hand testing and expert in-house research by our dedicated team:

• Website features
• Design flexibility
• Value for money
• Help and support
• Customer satisfaction
• Ease of use

But we want to make sure that you are choosing the right blogging platform for you, so for 2023 we’ve changed focus and put all our score weighting on just the specific features that are relevant, like blogging, SEO, storage, and restore options – plus important tools such as analytics and archives. Such features would usually be subcategories of website features, but we want to be sure you are only getting what you came for: the best blogging platforms, so we’ve given these subcategories their own spotlight.

We’ve also rolled less important categories, like value for money, ease of use, and help and support into one singular score, so you rest easy knowing the score we gave only reflects the best of the best when it comes to blogging and blogging alone.

Let’s take a closer look at our full weightings and what each category means in our methodology:

• Overall score – weighting: 5%

We’ve compiled the builder’s value for money, ease of use, and help and support scores into one score, and given it a low weighting of 5%. This category covers everything that isn’t relevant solely to blogging, including (but not limited to) the average pricing plan, what support options are available, and how easy it is to use the builder.

While definitely covering a wide range of topics that get higher weightings in other industries, if you are preoccupied with finding the best blogging platform, these categories shouldn’t be too much of a concern to you. They are still important enough to b acknowledged under this umbrella score, but from our experience, the other categories we tested have more relevance to blogging platforms specifically.

• Website features – weighting: 35%

For website features, we measure the quality of the various features and tools the website builder offers such as domain names, email addresses, members areas, marketing capabilities, and app market. Crucially for bloggers as well, we test the site speed and storage offerings of each builder.

This category serves to measure all the “extra” features users can expect and use to improve their blogs. It is our second-highest weighted category, due to the importance of some of the features. For example, you can’t expect to have a large readership base if your blogging platform has no marketing capabilities.

• SEO – weighting: 10%

How many readers your blog has is the simplest way to measure its success, and often the only way to get new readers is your blog being featured #1 in the Google search results. SEO is therefore vital to any blogger and as such SEO capabilities has been given a respectable 10% weighting in our methodology.

SEO covers a wide range of optimizations for blogs, too, such as keywords, backlinks, headers, and metadata. Not having good SEO on your blog will negatively affect its popularity, so any blogging platform worth its salt will include the necessary features.

• Blogging – weighting: 50%

Accounting for over half the weighting in our methodology is, unsurprisingly, our score for blogging. We rate each builder with blogging capabilities a score from 0 – 5 based on a number of requirements such as writer profiles, analytics, display categories, archive, comments, social posts, scheduling, and blog-specific SEO.

We work out this score through a mix of hands-on testing and our research team’s methodical testing. To give you the ultimate reflection of our research, we wanted to give this sub-category the highest weighting for this methodology, so that when you read this list you know we have put blogging first.

In addition to the blogging-focused research and website builder analysis, we also carried out hands-on testing so we can share our experiences with the platforms when writing our reviews. But it wouldn’t be totally fair if we, as experts, were the only ones testing each platform – we got everyday people to use each builder and share their feedback with us.

We also ask and interview professional bloggers for their take when crafting our methodology. We work out what real bloggers love about their platforms and what they wish they had.

You can read our detailed page if you want to learn more about how we conduct our website builder research.

There you have it – our list of the best blogging platforms! Based on hours of rigorous research, Wix is our top choice for blogging. It’s a great overall builder, offering tons of built-in blog features and powerful SEO tools to help you promote your content online.

But, of course, if you’re looking to create a stylish and image-heavy blog, Squarespace could be more suitable. Alternatively, if you want total creative control over your site and have technical experience, we recommend checking out WordPress.org!

Let’s recap why these six builders made the cut:

Let us know which blogging platform is your favorite in the comments. But, whichever builder you choose, have fun – and happy blogging!