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2011
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13 Best Free Blogging Platforms

This is my thirteenth post in this series. It is a handy list, a one stop shop if you like, of the best free blogging software platforms available nowadays.

There are many blogging platforms available and it can get confusing and difficult to figure out the best ones. But after an extensive research, reviews and trying few of them, below are the best free blog publishing tools.

What is a Blogging Software?

A Blog software or Weblog software, is a software designed to simplify the creation and maintenance of Weblogs. Weblog applications support the authoring, editing and publishing of blog posts and comments, with special functions for image management, Web syndication, and moderation of posts and comments. A blog software is a specialized form of CMS, that´s why many Content Management Systems are also used as blogging platforms. Check out my previous article about the 26 best free CMS available these days.

Which Blog Publishing Application to Choose?

This is really up to you. I personally use and like WordPress. But I can´t discount any of the others, that´s why they are listed here for you to choose from. To help you better make an informed decision and narrow your choices, try the Blog tool demos listed here. And most importantly, if you decide on the self-hosted option before you install your blogging software, make sure that your Web server meets all the technical requirement.

For this post, I followed three criteria for choosing the best blogging application.

  1. It is 100% Free. No Freemium.
  2. In active development: still being updated and maintained (at least since 2010).
  3. In my opinion, the best.

Place your cursor over each image and link for a short description. All links are External. Good Luck!

Self-Hosted Blogging Platforms

This section lists the best Weblog applications that are downloaded and installed on your own Web server or through your Web hosting company. I personally prefer the self-hosted option, since among other things you have more control of your blog and also it is more professional to have your own domain than a subdomain of the Weblog hosting provider. Most professional bloggers, especially those who aim to create commercial sites, prefer to purchase their own domain name and pay for hosting.

1. PHP based

The following Blog Platforms are mainly written in PHP scripting language. Your Web server must be capable of running PHP among other technical requirements.

WordPress is Web software you can use to create Websites or blogs. The core software is built by hundreds of community volunteers, and there are thousands of plugins and themes available to transform your Website into almost anything you can imagine.

WordPress – {Try demo}

b2evolution is a powerful blog tool you install on your own server. It includes all the features of traditional blog tools, and extends them with features such as file & photo management, versatile skins, multiple blogs, detailed user permissions, and plugins. b2evolution is free, runs on any Web server featuring PHP + MySQL.

b2evolution – {Try demo}

Dotclear is an open-source Web publishing software. The project´s purpose is to provide a user-friendly tool allowing anyone to publish on the Web, regardless of their technical skills. Dotclear is a free software primarily designed for its users and regularly improved by their contributions.

Dotclear – {Try demo}

Serendipity is an open-source project for creating a simple CMS for blog authors. It is a PHP based blog and a Web based content management system. It supports PostgreSQL, MySQL, and SQLite database backends, the Smarty template engine, and a plugin architecture for user contributed modifications.

Serendipity – {Try demo}

Nucleus CMS is an open-source blog management software package written in PHP, with a MySQL backend. It is used to manage frequently-updated Web content. With a little tweaking (mainly to skins), it might be considered a lightweight content management system.

Nucleus CMS – {Try demo}

LifeType is an open-source blogging platform with support for multiple blogs and users in a single installation. Each blog can be run in its own language and can be customized using a template engine. LifeType also features Bayesian spam filtering, media uploads, file handling, a customizable search engine friendly URLs and an administration area.

LifeType – {Try demo}

Habari is next-generation blogging. Habari is being written with a firm understanding of the current state of blogging. Habari strongly favors open, standard, and documented protocols. Atom, being both open and documented, is the prefered syndication format. Habari is being written specifically for modern Web hosting environments, and uses modern object-oriented programming techniques.

Habari – {Try demo}

The next generation Pivot, a customizable Weblog tool written in PHP and using flat files or a SQL database as data storage. PivotX is also a great tool to maintain more complex Websites as well. Its powerful core and flexible template system make it easy for developers to adjust and extend. PivotX boasts an extensive feature list and its continued development and an active support community ensure that development is always headed in the direction users want it to go.

PivotX – {Try demo}

Read What Wikipedia has to Say

  1. WordPress
  2. b2evolution
  3. Dotclear
  4. Serendipity
  5. Nucleus CMS
  6. LifeType
  7. Habari
  8. PivotX

2. Perl based

Movable Type is mainly written in Perl programming language. PHP scripting language is also used for dynamic publishing.

Movable Type is powerful enough for building Websites, blogs, and communities on a single platform. Movable Type makes it simple to manage entire Websites, start new blogs, and build an engaged community of readers and customers.

Movable Type – {No demo available}

Read What Wikipedia has to Say

3. ASP.NET based

The following blogging platform is based on the ASP.NET framework.

BlogEngine.NET is an open source .NET blogging project that was born out of desire for a better blog platform, with less complexity and easy customization. BlogEngine.NET was designed using the current .NET framework and focused on simplicity, ease of extendibility, and innovative features.

BlogEngine.NET – {No demo available}

Blogging Platforms Hosted on Their Servers

This section lists the best free Weblog applications that are offered through their Web servers. This means that the hosting and managing of the blogging software is taken care by the company offering it. In this case the URL of your blog will be a subdomain of the Weblog hosting provider. For example if you choose to run your blog using Google´s Blogger blog publishing service, then your domain name will have the format http://username.blogspot.com/, where “username” is any available name you choose.

Free Weblog publishing tool from Google, for sharing text, photos and video. You need to sign in to Blogger with your Google Account. The blogs are hosted by Google at a subdomain of blogspot.com

Blogger – {No demo available}

A feature rich and free blog hosting platform offering professional and fully customizable templates, bookmarklets, photos, mobile apps, and social networking.

Tumblr – {No demo available}

Posterous is the easiest publishing platform around. If you can email, you can manage a Website and share it with small groups or the world.

Posterous – {No demo available}

Read What Wikipedia has to Say

Freemium Blogging Services Worth Mentioning

The following blogging software platforms are Freemium based, where the hosting and managing of the software is taken care by the Weblog hosting provider.

  1. WordPress.com
  2. LiveJournal
  3. Blog

Try Before You Install

Below are references where you can try the self-hosted blogging software before you install it.

General References

Your Turn to Talk

There are many more free blogging platforms that did not make the list. Which Blog tool do you use? Do you have any others you think I should add? or anything else to say? If so, please share your opinion in the comments section. Your opinion matters, unless it is a Spam.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider: linking back to it, subscribing by email to future posts, or subscribing to the RSS feed to have new articles delivered to your feed reader. Thanks!

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Last Updated: March 20, 2014
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About the Author |
Boutros is a professional Drupal & WordPress developer, Web developer, Web designer, Software Engineer and Blogger. He strives for pixel perfect design, clean robust code, and user-friendly interface. If you have a project in mind and like his work, feel free to contact him. Connect with Boutros on Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Visit Boutros AbiChedid Website.

6 Responses to “13 Best Free Blogging Platforms”

  1. Maricel says:
    April 3, 2013 at 4:50 AM

    WordPress and Blogger are well known and most preferable blogging available platform use by bloggers. Others are rarely chosen by people.

  2. Khaja moin says:
    May 2, 2012 at 12:28 AM

    Pretty good collection of blogging platforms.
    Blogger & tumblr are awesome.

  3. craig says:
    April 11, 2012 at 12:43 AM

    nice inforamtion. I use squarespace but want to know more about platforms.

  4. Manish Singh@SEO Expert says:
    February 17, 2012 at 6:26 AM

    Helpful post. Thank you. Am just setting up a few more blogs and wanted to try other platforms, so I now have a list to choose from.

  5. Mark says:
    December 22, 2011 at 10:50 AM

    I prefer WordPress.org, haven´t used other self hosted platforms, still I use many free blogging platforms to get backlinks to my main sites.

  6. Patricia, promotional products says:
    October 11, 2011 at 7:28 AM

    I’ve been a user of WordPress, Blogger, and Tumblr. I’m pretty satisfied with their blogging platforms. I find no need to purchase my own site yet.