11 Best Blogging Platforms of 2025

In addition to the blogging features you’d expect, Squarespace offers powerful monetization tools for blogs that many other providers lack, pushing it higher on my list. It’s ideal for solopreneurs creating premium content or offering memberships and subscriptions, such as fitness instructors or authors releasing digital serial story series.

Specifically, paywalled content tools add a lot of monetization freedom for SMBs and solo creators needing a way to deliver content publicized on social media accounts. Square includes the ability to paywall courses or content series, individual items and offer memberships or subscriptions. However, bear in mind that storage for video can be fairly limited on entry-level plans.

Admittedly, Squarespace isn’t my favorite website builder because of its limited customization. While I’m a fan of premade color palettes and design shortcuts in builders meant for beginners, Squarespace often feels too limited. However, with a bit of time investment, it’s quite possible to bend the templates into something that reflects your brand.

Squarespace makes it simple to add a blog to your website and offers paywall features.

Adding a blog is as simple as adding a new page from the menu, picking a layout and starting to create content. Scheduling, basic SEO tools and settings such as date display and author controls are easily handled for each post as well.

Learn more: Read our full Squarespace review.

Overall, Squarespace’s website builder and blog sections work as advertised. However, within the blog sections specifically, there is a random glitch loop that sometimes results in being stuck in blog design editing where the exit to content creation doesn’t work. To get around that, I found it necessary to jump back to the main dashboard and re-enter the website from there.

As is becoming more common with many SaaS platforms, Squarespace seems to be becoming less compatible with secondary browsers and leaning heavily towards only staying up to date for Chrome.

Strikingly does a great job of walking the line between not overloading new users and near drag-and-drop builder functionality. Most users starting their first blog will find it a relatively quick onboarding process without needing to stop and dig into documentation, resulting in professional-looking blogs in short order.

Blogs are just one part of the full website builder included in plans, so creating the surrounding website is much simpler than on some blog-only platforms. Once your blog section is added to your website from the dashboard, you’ll have access to core features such as scheduling and categories.

That said, there are only six blog layouts to choose from, but they work with the larger set of theme choices that Strikingly frequently updates. Between the layout options, ability to add content blocks to those layouts and larger theme customization choices, it is quite possible to create a blog that doesn’t look like a cookie-cutter version of other websites and blogs.

I also like how simple post scheduling is. However, while SEO controls are also simple, I do wish they were better organized in fewer locations.

Strikingly allows you to add sections to your blog from a fairly robust list of options.

That said, as much as I like the way Strikingly’s builder and blog management work, there are so many complaints about billing practices that I must urge caution. When dealing with concerns of this nature, I often suggest using a prepaid card for purchases so that excess charges can’t be taken out of your account without approval.

Learn more: Read our full Strikingly review.

Strikingly is easy to work with, and I appreciate how many browsers it plays nice with. While part of the easy design experience is due to the lack of deeper customization features, the menu layout is still better thought out than many competitors.

Probably my favorite tool found in testing is the ability to add four action buttons on the mobile version of your blog. There are plenty to choose from, such as contact us, shop now and location. These are easy to add and make a huge difference in getting people to take action on mobile devices.

Love it or hate it, Wix is a major player in DIY web design due to the strength of the tools and third-party integrations. While it offers a full website builder, blogging functions are built-in and mostly easy to set up, with a few exceptions.

Plus, it has introduced the Studio builder and plans to attract agencies and indie designers. In spite of the agency and designer focus, the Studio builder is quite usable for DIY design and the Studio plans generally offer more hosting resources for nearly the same prices as the Classic builder.

For monetization, you’re fine to add affiliate links and similar on any plan, but you can only accept payments and set up memberships or subscriptions for paywalled content on higher-tier paid plans.

While Wix offers strong blogging tools, finding the core controls, such as layout, can often be complicated.

The hardest part about Wix for most users is the jumbled menus and lack of guidance on what sections have to be selected in the editor to activate certain controls, such as layouts. Once you figure out where to click, it isn’t bad, but getting to that right spot is convoluted, and help files often don’t match the latest builder versions.

Learn more: Read our full Wix review.

Oh, Wix, how you’ve overcomplicated things. Two of Wix’s biggest problems are that the help files for Studio and Classic get mixed up and that there are often many different menu options with the same name. It’s very common to spend a half hour trying to figure out which “layout” menu you need and which “blog” menu that specific “layout” menu is located under.

There’s no denying that the builders are powerful, and the tools are there. But working in the platform, especially if it’s a new section for you, is often an exercise in taking many dead ends until you find the right blind alley. Even after working in Wix for years, I’m constantly finding features that are far less straightforward than they should be.

Hostinger’s AI builder blogging tools are good and the customization options are mostly spot on. All the basic blogging tools—such as scheduling, post SEO and author details—are there, plus there’s a nice batch of stock images. I also love that you can edit while in mobile preview mode for a truly mobile-first look.

That said, there are big holes if you want to monetize your blog. There’s no paywall or membership tools and e-commerce isn’t available on the starter plan. Likewise, the AI tools (beyond the builder itself) are severely limited on the starter plan. Now, if you can afford to pay several years upfront, Hostinger offers great discounts.

Hostinger’s AI builder makes it easy to add and adjust pages on your blog or full website.

Like most AI builders, it’s not always easy to find templates as such, it’s more about tweaking what AI gives you with sections, colors and fonts. That brings me to another point. While the AI is surprisingly good at blurbs, headlines and subheads, one little font change and everything is jumbled like an overcaffeinated gremlin playing 52 card pick up.

There is a lot I like in Hostinger’s blog creation. The AI builder design features work in mobile preview, sections can be added to the baked-in blog layout pages and you can drag and drop elements within sections. However, there are a few nitpicks with the system.

First, you can easily publish and unpublish posts with a toggle click, but to schedule the post, you must go into the full post settings menu and scroll all the way to the bottom. Second, moving from blog design to blog creation after hitting “new post” means activating a different edit screen instead of just clicking to edit content.

Third, if you try to verify your email address while the AI builder is working on creating your website, it has a digital meltdown and freezes up. Fourth, a personal pet peeve: You have to hit Ctrl-Enter to get single spacing in the post text editor.

GoDaddy’s stellar advertising campaigns and bottom-dollar introductory prices make it a platform almost everyone is aware of, even for blogging. I know, GoDaddy is the platform that Reddit (and most of the rest of the internet) loves to hate. Think of it kind of like Walmart at 2 in the morning. Nobody wants to be seen there, but it has the basic supplies you need, so there you are with your hoodie pulled tight against your face so no one recognizes you.

However, giant price jumps after the initial term, almost constant add-on costs and a decided lack of quality support (including live chat currently disabled as I write this) are pretty big negatives you should consider before diving into a GoDaddy plan.

In spite of my misgivings, the website builder and blog tool always seem to work well when I test them from a DIY beginner perspective. Plus, after a hiatus while the new Airo tools and site features/limits were finalized, the free plan with publishing capacity is back as a single-page scroller website.

Blogging is handled as a section block added to an existing website page, and while layouts are limited, busting sections gives extra freedom in how you present your content. That said, monetizing your blog could be trickier than with other providers as commerce and marketing are more split up instead of natively joined with the blog features.

GoDaddy’s blogging platform includes several image management and editing tools along with a stock photography library.

The biggest draw for blogging with GoDaddy is the ease of initial design with the AI builder and the AI SEO help. However, that lack of strong blog monetization integration means it isn’t a great fit for content-on-demand monetization.

Learn more: Read our full GoDaddy website builder review.

GoDaddy is relying more and more on AI-led design tools. While I was pleasantly surprised in my latest testing to see that the free plan was back, I was disappointed with the AI text generation. The design setup is well done, and the stock imagery selection is reasonable, but the AI text that is prepopulated needs a lot of work to be publishable.

I also wasn’t happy with the limited text formatting in the blog posts. It feels like it was treated as an afterthought in the rush to push new AI design tools, so the text editor is rudimentary.

WordPress.com is the partner hosting powered by Automattic for WordPress.org’s full CMS. The kicker is that it includes a visual page builder, hosting, simplifies the hosting dashboard processes and includes extra security. So, you get the power of WordPress.org in a simplified interface for beginners because, let’s face it, WordPress.org’s interface is clunky.

Likewise, WordPress.org alternatives such as Drupal and Joomla have power but an even steeper learning curve, so WordPress.com gives a more level playing field option for non-technically experienced users.

Depending on the plan you choose (because features are locked depending on plans), you get the full power of WordPress.org with a lower learning curve. It’s the same huge template and plugin library and the same WordPress.org dashboard once you finish building your site and blog.

The biggest downside of using a WordPress.org engine is that almost all functionality beyond basic post editing, tags and scheduling is going to need a plugin. Need a paywall = plugin. Need SEO tools = plugin. Need to boost speed = plugin. While I make no secret of disliking WordPress.com’s pricing tiers compared to feature availability, it does give you more security than raw WordPress.org.

WordPress.com offers different monetization options depending on the plan tier.

WordPress.com includes SSL protections, auto-installs and manages Jetpack scans, includes backups and recovery and WordPress.com’s security team monitors for malware, DDoS attacks and other common threats. That said, like all WordPress.com features, the depth of protection varies by plan level.

In testing, I always find WordPress.com’s builder to be a double-edged sword. It’s very limited and almost complicates some editing features when compared to WordPress.org plugin builders such as Bricks Builder or Elementor. Plus, the locked features by plan can hobble your blogging efforts pretty severely.

That said, getting a new blog set up is a quicker process than getting hosting set up on most stand-alone hosts.

A true drag-and-drop visual website builder combined with easy block additions makes Duda very flexible for creating custom designs. Likewise, the ability to embed custom code blocks and include custom CSS for those with coding experience (or if you bought a custom CSS design) means you can easily recreate the look of your existing blog if moving from a different builder.

While the design freedom can lead to stumbles along the way if you’re new to design, it has the power to grow with you and editing menus such as layer lists will be much appreciated as you dig deeper into designing on the platform. That said, it isn’t as turnkey as builders such as Squarespace, so expect a learning curve.

Likewise, Duda isn’t as focused on e-commerce and blog monetization as some other blogging platforms. E-commerce takes an additional add-on plan but is a native e-commerce platform. Plus, the membership features are comparatively new and were only released in 2022. However, I applaud the increased capability, and Duda seems to be committed to continuing to respond to user feature needs.

Duda offers powerful customization options, including custom CSS coding access.

Overall, Duda offers deep design options that mostly justify higher pricing. However, with Amazon AWS servers powering your websites, it still feels like Duda could easily be a bit more generous on included hosting resources for each plan.

Learn more: Read our full Duda review.

Duda’s blog tools menu organization is some of the best I’ve seen. That said, editing the blog post layout is tricky if you haven’t done it before. The power is there for a truly custom look, but beginners will likely stumble until they get the hang of placeholders.

Once the design is set, the actual content creation and settings management is a breeze and most users will find it far less confusing to handle the backend details with Duda than other platforms.

Web.com doesn’t make picking a plan particularly easy, and it is notoriously slow in processing requests to turn off auto-renewals, so I don’t recommend using it as your first host/builder experience.

That said, you can get started cheaply with its traditional theme-based builder included in the regular hosting plans. If you want e-commerce or AI tools, you’ll need to move to the more expensive AI builder plans, which don’t have defined details for storage and bandwidth.

Specifically, working with the AI builder, the initial setup is very easy, with theme selection being the most problematic. That’s because the builder initially routes you directly into editing a single-page site, but you need to go back to the main dashboard to see all themes and multi-page options available. So, if you don’t want a one-page site, you’ll basically have to toss out everything from the onboarding and start over.

Web.com’s AI builder removes much of the technical experience needed to start a blog.

The blog features themselves work well, and I love that you can easily drag and drop extra sections and elements around the post feed placeholder. There’s no paywall or membership support, though, and e-commerce functions are dependent on which plan you choose, so it’s best for noncommercial blogging.

Every single time I’ve contacted Web.com using live chat, the experience has been awful.

The pinnacle of insanity was when a live chat agent told me that websites published using the AI website builder plans included no hosting, storage or bandwidth. Obviously, that was impossible, and a quick phone call with a more qualified support person resulted in more accurate data. Bottom line: Never use the live chat for Web.com.

In working with the AI builder, I found some very nice features, such as custom overrides to preset color schemes and countdown timers. Plus, Ctrl-Z works, which is always a good sign that editing won’t be tedious. Overall, for me, it boils down to liking the product and absolutely loathing how they deal with billing and support.

Ghost isn’t your standard drag-and-drop or template website builder. It’s a membership-enabled publishing platform. You can make minimal adjustments to headers, colors and fonts, but most of the adjustments are adding integrations and formatting your actual content. If you add a new page, it looks just like a blog page that you populate and design by adding content blocks or code.

That said, for those wanting membership-controlled sites (including free memberships), it’s a fabulously streamlined option without all the extra management tasks many other blogs require. The membership controls are well laid out, and embeddable sign-up forms help grow your audience.

Ghost offers powerful membership content controls that stand out compared to other blogging platforms.

Storage is handled as a per-file limit, which varies by plan, so instead of worrying about overall storage, you just need to keep your specific files within the file size range. For most, video content is the most likely to come close to file size limits.

With regard to self-hosting Ghost, I wouldn’t recommend it unless you are very comfortable with all things hosting. The reason is that integrations, updates and maintenance can get tricky, and even with the sliding scale pricing of Ghost Pro hosting, it is just less of a headache for the vast majority of users.

Ghost reminds me a bit of an onion, in a good, Shrek kind of way. Every time you think you’ve found all the features, you pull back another layer and find a cool new tool to play with. For example, data import from popular platforms such as Mailchimp and WordPress, spam protections or the ability to export analytics.

The interface is very clean and easy to use, but the most likely spot for new users to run into trouble is forgetting to switch from the main dashboard or content creation screens to the settings dashboard (hidden in the far left bottom next to your profile icon) to access the behind-the-scenes tools.

There’s no denying that Blogger isn’t as sleek and full-featured as other top blogging platforms on this list, but it has the advantage of allowing just about unlimited custom coding and custom domain pointing. And it’s a free blogging platform with Google-powered hosting. Domain costs are not included and would come from whatever domain registrar you use.

The included templates are outdated to the point of being funny, but there are plenty of third-party themes out there that you can upload to Blogger that are much more modern and mobile responsive.

The biggest downside of Blogger is the lack of customer support or built-in features such as paywalls and SEO tools. Likewise, there isn’t an app market full of integrations as such, although Blogger does integrate with some Google products, such as AdSense. With custom coding, you do have the option of embedding features, such as an Ecwid store, to overcome some of those issues, though.

Blogger’s built-in themes are limited and dated, but you can easily switch themes and import third-party themes.

Overall, Blogger is a good middle ground for those who want a free solution with custom coding options for more customization and don’t need built-in monetization tools. For shoestring budgets, hobby blogs and grassroots groups, it’s a good starting point.

Like a lot of Google tools, Blogger seems to have been mostly left alone to its own devices. While its features are limited, its simplicity is a great introduction to blogging for first-timers who find more full-featured builders confusing.

I also love some of the small extra features in Blogger that are available courtesy of Google. For example, you can add new fonts directly from the post text editor dashboard using Google Fonts’ huge selection of free fonts. However, I suggest sourcing a third-party theme and uploading it first to overcome the dated appearance of the built-in themes.

Jimdo is a bit of an outlier among blogging platforms as it separates blogging and the full website builder. Instead of integrating blogging as a section of Jimdo’s builder, it offers a fully separate blog platform. While there is a free plan, paid plans cost more than the regular website builder plans as well.

While extremely limited in customization, Jimdo makes getting a blog set up much easier than many other options. While not a good choice for monetization or SEO tools, it’s a quick and easy option for personal blogging or small local organizations.

Jimdo’s blog designer allows easy content block additions and strong text formatting.

Blogging controls are mostly all present but scheduling is oddly missing, limiting usefulness if you like to schedule posts ahead.

I like the intuitive nature of most of the Jimdo blogging controls and how simple publishing a post is with a simple toggle. However, the lack of scheduling features seems like an odd feature to leave out for a blogging platform. While not a huge deal for small blogs, it’s a bigger concern for high-volume posting.