The themes of wordpress are fantastic and that’s what attracted me to it. I shifted my blog from Blogger to wordpress precisely because of the themes. The blogger themes are mundane and dull. After the transition, I realized that blogger was better in some aspects or say many.
One plus point of WordPress.com is the ability to customize the way the date is displayed. Though Blogger gives you a lot of options to do so and is easier to use, WordPress.com lets you use the PHP Date format.
The domain “.wordpress” might sound better than “.blogspot” but this isn’t enough for sacrificing the freedoms one gets in blogger. For a web-designer, blogger would seem heavenly and wordpress-exactly contrary to this. The bigget bug I find here this that I need to purchase CSS to edit the javascript of my blog. Huh! If I can’t edit it, how the hell is it MY blog? The name and articles are mine but the blog is not. Blogger provides you with javascript which can be fully edited. It improves your web-designing skills. Most importantly, You are on the driving seat of your blog and your blog seems to be truly yours.
If wordpress starts providing the so called “CSS” for free, they can surely be the most popular blogging service in the world. WordPress people, are you listening? Even if you are, I don’t think you’ll implement this. Great minds think alike or…………….
I’m sure, it’s the other half of the equation you all will agree to.
Wait.. let me correct you. You have got certain facts wrong.. wordpress too has an autosave feature… it saves every 30secs..
Plus, WordPress allows you replace the .css file (but not edit it) if you are not happy with the defualt one via http://FTP..
Now the advocacy.. have u ever opened bloggers CSS? Can you make a head and tail of it? Its extremely complex even for proffessional webDs..
WordPress ont he other hand has an extremely simple coding scheme.. just check it up.. open ur blog’s CSS in the dashboard and see.. a person who doesnt know much abt CSS can actually sit editing it..
It is infact so simple, that anyone can start weaving a theme from scratch using Dreamweaver, Nvu.. or any webD app..
Bloggers themes.. well forget them.. how many blogs do you know which have a theme built from scratch..??
WordPress has better developer support.. it is actually built for a different purpose.. WordPress was riginally making money by its popular blogging CMS called WordPress.. something like Drupal or Joomla but only optimised for blogging.. it was originally supporting self-hosted blogs.. which blogger doesnt! It was just recently that WordPress started supporting un-hosted blogs as well.. and why do you actually need CSS for? The themes are good enough.. and most changes that u make r provided with GUI.. want to add more sidebar widgets? Just make a text widget and copy-paste the coding there.. it works.. just like the PR thing did..!!
In most cases.. wordpress provided enough flexibility to customise ur blog.. plus the themes of wordpress arent limited to just there…
here
there are so many places where you can find wordpress themes.. totally new.. all replacable with http://FTP.. and moreover, you make one of ur own from scratch as well..!!
By: Prashanth on March 22, 2007
at 12:04 pm
Oh yeah, i see that now it has started providing an autosave feature and FTP too, but at the time I had shifted my blog here, these 2 features weren’t there. After some searching, I found that they have been included some 2 months back. Gosh! I never noticed that! I used to notice every minute thing the time I shifted it. Will edit the post. thanx prashanth.
By: Shakti Mehra on March 22, 2007
at 2:35 pm
I came to visit your blog by chance and found this comparison. I had two blogs at blogger, one in Urdu and one in English.
http://iftikharajmal.blogspot.com/
http://hypocrisythyname.blogspot.com/
Then came the stupid ban on on Blogspot and I created copies of those two blogs on WordPress in April, 2006 and, because wordpress had many ristrictions, I kept those running parallel till December, 2006 when WordPress had changed so much that it had many plus points over Blogspot. You can visit my blogs to confirm. My other blog on WordPress is
http://iftikharajmal.wordpress.com/
By: iabhopal on March 22, 2007
at 6:29 pm
Auto save has been there since iv been using WordPress. but for people like me, who dont know much about coding and other stuff wordpress is better than blogger. inserting links…inserting images..
and i had to shift to WordPress because of the ban placed by PTCL..and blogger was banned too..so many of my fellowe bloggers shifted from Blogger.
u can even shift your previous Blogger posts from Blogger to wordpress.
plus the security features of wordpress are far better than blogger.
in blogger the template editting thing was cool…though with some help but i alwasy enjoyed editing it…
it might be because of the fact that i started blogging using Blogger..that is why i like it better…
By: esSJee on March 22, 2007
at 6:29 pm
Yeah essjee, you can shift your posts from blogger to wordpress but not vice-versa. Shifting blog from wordpress to blogger is a big headache. Well, I guess I didnt note the auto-save feature then. And editing javascript is immense pleasure. But now, I wont shift to blogger as my blog featured in top 20 blogs of wordpress for 2 days in a row and all thanx to you ESSJEE. The post I took from your blog made my blog #18 for 2 days. Thanx a lot.
By: Shakti Mehra on March 22, 2007
at 11:06 pm
iabhopal,
am srry first of all for this bug akismet. It marked your comment as spam as it had links. Coming to the point, Half of ur blogs are urdu and i dont understand a word of it. Will visit the other half of them. Anyways, what makes you say that wordpress scores over blogger?
By: Shakti Mehra on March 22, 2007
at 11:19 pm
oh really..thats great…
By: esSJee on March 23, 2007
at 2:54 am
I had used Blogger for about 3 years and had fallen in love with it but blockade of Blogspot forced me to look for other options. The best I found was WordPress but in those days user was allowed to change anything. I wrote to the owners to help telling them many like me wanted to change over. They were nice to promise but wanted to do it slowly. So they did and kept on adding features gradually. Though ban on Blogspot has been lifted after a long legal battle by the ISPs, I do not like to go back. Firstly, it has a large variety of presentations (templates) and there are options within each presentation while in case of Blogger, I designed the template and that consumes lot of time. There is a long list. One remarkable thing in WordPress is that as you bring the cursor of mouse on a link, you can see what it is. If it is a website, you can see the shape of it.
By: iabhopal on March 23, 2007
at 10:57 am
You can enable the snap view in blogger too by just adding 3 lines in your javascript. In wordpress, you have limited choices. For instance, you have just one anti-spam which is AKISMET. Only one site to provide songs for your blog which is songific songspot (it has pathetic songs). In blogger, you have 1000s of options. I liked itunes but it ain’t available in wordpress. The sidebar widgets dont leave you with any choice. One has to choose from the given widgets only.
By: Shakti Mehra on March 23, 2007
at 11:20 am
I’m lazy so I don’t customize. Much. That’s all. (smiley, or something)
By: flyingchicken on March 23, 2007
at 8:21 pm
Hey buddy, I think you are confusing the whole concept here. Look , Javascript is totally different. If you remember , JS SOH had JAvascript on his blog. His blog was damn slow ! Even in broadband connection. Intially BLOGGER doesn’t provide JAVASCRIPT in its blog. It just uses Javascript in tag , and nowhere else ! The tag where a blogger should concentrate to enhance his/her blog is BODY tag. JAvascript is hardly used by Bloggers as it slows down the loading time ! And editing BODY tag of blogger is very easy. But it just need patience ‘n skills !
Prashanth , just don’t throw things away. Who said , Blogs themes can be easily created by DREAMWEAVER and all ? Its very difficult to use DREAMWEAVER ! There are lot of things which you can’t make in dreamweaver – the comment tag , the post tag , the archive tag , ‘n blah blah. So please don’t say -” It is infact so simple, that anyone can start weaving a theme from scratch using Dreamweaver, Nvu.. or any webD app..
!” . Actually ,Its very tough. If you think you are right then please make a good ‘n sensible theme for us ! And make it for blog not for a site . I hope you can understand what I’m saying !
And yes , ban on blogger was a very bad phase for bloggin community. Thats why wordpress.com is flourshing now ! Shak , you are right WOrdpress themes are awesome. And SPAM COMMENT blocker is also a good feature !
One more thing , if ” there are so many places where you can find wordpress themes.. totally new.. all replacable with http://FTP.. and moreover, you make one of ur own from scratch as well..!!
”
who is providing us with WEB HOST ? Please be practical. Its so expensive to have a web host man !
By: Tarun on March 24, 2007
at 3:45 pm
@Tarun,
I guess you havent done your research well before commenting. U have seen a blogger template’s CSS right? have you seen how complecated and lengthy it is? Like you have to click the scroll bar abt 15 times to completely navigate it. At the same time, please download some open themes from the link i provided and see the themes for urself.. they are just so simply made, you can do it urself. Check it out, and then tell me. You will be marvelled by wordpress’s simplicity.
Speaking of Tags, Comments, etc.. that code is the same for all the themes.. just the interface is what you need to design. And that is extremely simple in WordPress. There are so many sites that make wordpress themes.. there are so many to choose from.
And, wordpress has full FTP publishing support, which allows you to replace the theme’s .css file with your own template if but it doesnt allow you to edit the CSS once you put it there.. and all this without a webhost..
And Webhosts start at 5$ per year cost.. i really dont think thats very expensive.. considering all the privilages and rights you get on ur blog once its hosted.. check this ..
@Shakti
You are confusing urself with the terms Javascript and CSS..
javascript is actually a web programming language that allows you make your sites do cool things, a flash addons, widgets, tags, comments are examples of it. basically they are used to make tiny applications on the web. What we use on our blog is CSS or custom style sheet which we can edit using HTML, XML, or add Javascript in middle or whatever we want using the platform of ur choice.
And coming back to widgets, whichever site gives you the source for a widget, you can apply it on you sidebar using the text widget. Check my blog, i have put the widget of an animated feedburner RSS thing.
Same is true with MOST (not all) widgets, they are compatible with wordpress, alas iTunes isnt one of them.
By: Prashanth on March 24, 2007
at 4:29 pm
Oops, that link looks broken.. here ..
The wordpress CMS which is like any other leading CMS such as Joomla or Drupal but only its optimised for blogging is something that no other blogging service offers..
Webhost based blogging is simply matchless in wordpress. Even Abhishek Nandakumar has got his blog hosted using wordpress CMS. With web hosts getting this cheap, I may host my blog too with my custom theme!
By: Prashanth on March 24, 2007
at 4:34 pm
Prashanth , I don’t need to do any research work NOW ! I have an experience of editing blog CSS since 2005 winters . See if you wanna make your blog look good then knowing basic HTML is must. How can one gone making superb themes without basic HTML knowledge as you are saying ? I believe , those who don’t HTML should not critisize blogger so much , specially by comparing it with wordpress.
And you are saying that WordPress Themes are so simple , please Prashanth , the tiny-miny codings may have impressed you but implementing them in a style sheet is a big head-ache. I’ve worked on dreamweaver ‘n even on frontpage to enhance my blog but the codings doesn’t fit there. What you see on ONLINE PREVIEW of your blog is totally different what you do on DREAMWEAVER. Trust me , its very tough !
And by the way, I tried wordpress theme yesterday . But I couldn’t find any better theme than what shakti is presently using. Editing them , is big pain in the head except the banner-maker. Yes, the banner toolbar in itself is a good thing.
If you are saying there are limited blogger themes , then you are wrong. Just check out google search , you’ll find billions of blogger theme. Check out my empty blog – Mr. Brightside . Here you can easily find a link of BLOGGER TEMPLATES , check that out.
Adios
- Tarun
By: Tarun on March 25, 2007
at 12:34 pm
Tarun, I never said that there are limited blogger themes..
Secondly, thats the beauty of wordpress, what you see in the blog online is actually the same what you do on dreamweaver. Try it out and then tell me..
And I am in no ways critisizing blogger.. I am just advocating the lack of CSS in wordpress which is made up by extremely powerful UI..
Also, one can make a superb theme of wordpress with basic HTML knowledge.. which is a totally difficult task in blogger… Like me, I dont know many tags in HTML.. actually I can count the no. of tags I know with my fingers.. but still I am confident enough to say that I very easily edit or to some extent create my own theme in wordpress..!!
And search a bit more, you will tons of amazing wordpress themes all ready to be downloaded and used.. the same is true for blogger as well. You will find tons of blogger themes.. but none of them is as easy to edit as a wordpress theme is. Will show you all this after the boreds.. till then -
Adios.
Prashanth.
By: Prashanth on March 25, 2007
at 2:49 pm
i have used them both, and i found wordpress far far far better !! no comparision !
By: crybaby on October 13, 2007
at 11:54 am