Which Blogging Platform Should You Use?

With so many publishing platforms out there, it’s difficult to decide which one to use.

I’d like to share some of my favorite blogging sites and explain what I see as some strengths and weaknesses of each.

WordPress: WordPress has been a popular blogging platform both for free accounts and self-hosted .org accounts. It’s highly customizable, with an overwhelming number of themes, add-ons, plugins, and other options. However it isn’t always the easiest to understand, and has to update frequently. Where it might lack in user friendliness however, it makes up for in utility. Many use WordPress to manage their primary website, so it’s only natural to add the blog element to it. WordPress is very compatible with many other publishing tools out there, so you shouldn’t run into any issue on that end.

Tumblr: What I love about Tumblr is its highly-social features. Following, favoriting, reblogging, etc. are pinnacles of the platform. Where Tumblr shines is its simplicity with power. You can also customize the themes with HTML and CSS like with WordPress, albeit with a few limitations. You can also use your own domain name for free. You can either use a subdomain or top domain, which many services like Twitter do (Twitter Status). A few downsides of Tumblr are a few limitations, such as plugin support and theme customization (although you can relatively easily create your own themes). Also visually-heavy posts often gain more traction on this platform if you’re looking to create viral pieces of content.

Blogger: Since it’s owned by Google, it’s got some cool integrations with YouTube, Google+, and Google Search. It’s also another solid choice for simple blogging. Like Tumblr, you can use a domain you own for free. Nothing particularly special about Blogger, but provides a user-friendly experience and does a good job of focusing on getting you to write.

Medium: Medium has integration with Twitter, which means followers carry over from the other social network. Medium is blogging at its most simple. You can follow users and be followed, and its very stripped-down interface pushes you to write. It lacks fluff and chrome, and breaks it back down to straight blogging. That being said, there are no options for customizing a theme. You can “recommend” other posts, like them, and comment. Medium can be viewed on mobile with the same ease as desktop.

Svbtle: Even more stripped-down than Medium, Svbtle is a mobile-first blogging community. Its only form of customizability is to pick a color, and an icon to represent the brand of your blog. You can “give kudoz” to posts by holding your mouse cursor in a certain area, which is like “liking” a post. But there is not a place for comments. A strength of Svbtle is the dashboard, which is a place to scratch down topics and ideas for writing. It’s helpful to get you in the zone and start writing. No plugin support, but you can put links to an external site and add your email address for another level of interaction.

LinkedIn Pulse: Writing posts on LinkedIn is a great way to establish credibility as a professional. The service itself doesn’t offer much compared to other blogging platforms, but the community is driven and dedicated to writing professionally. Pulse is less a personal blogging platform and more of a way to share your insights on business.

There are plenty of other blogging platforms - Quota, SquareSpace, TypePad, LiveJournal, Weebly, just to name a few. And, if you love premium, distraction-free services like Svbtle, here’s a Mashable post about more of them: 16 Blogging Platforms That Won’t Distract From Your Writing. However it all comes down to what platform you believe fits your needs

So which platform is for you? It all comes down to what platform you believe fits your needs best. Hopefully this post helped you understand some of the differences.