Which one is Best CMS Platform for Blogging Website

Do you love writing and wish to start your own blog?

Do you want to design your own website but want a very simple platform where you can write, update and manage your blog posts?

This article is dedicated to new bloggers who wish to start their own blog and still wondering which technology will be good to setup their Blog. As we know that in a blog website we don’t need any complicated functionality, we just need a user friendly admin environment, where we can write articles for our blog in a very simple manner. We should not have to be worry about any programming skills.

We have a solution for this and the answer is to use CMS (Content Management System) to setup our blog website.  A content management system (CMS) allow you to create a blog website( any other type of website as well) without understanding any programming code.

There could be a question in your mind

What is this CMS (Content Management System)?

In simple words, A CMS (content management system) is software which allows us to create a website and manage its content in a very user friendly environment. Normally, once any user or developer creates a website they use some web development programming languages. For example: php, Java, asp.net, html, css, JavaScript etc.

But what if you are a normal user and don’t have any knowledge about such programming languages. CMS is solution for you!

Let me share few features of CMS, it will help you to understand it in a better way:

• user-friendliness
• quick deployment
• ease of maintenance, including updates
• cost-efficiency, especially with out-the-box solutions, open source or freeware
• extendable functionality, through a large number of plugins and extensions
• SEO-friendly features developer and community support

One of the main advance of CMS is, it allow you to create a full functional blog website (or any other type of website) with any technical knowledge and update its pages/posts content yourself.

There are so many CMS software’s available in the market and everyone has its unique features. Before starting this articles, I was planning to explain each CMS in details to you here in this post but finally I thought it can make your confuse to decide a one from them.

That is why I am trying to make this article as short as possible and trying to list out only 5 but best possible CMS as per my understanding to start your Own Blog website on your Own Domain name.

Let me share few popular CMS platform which are widely used by the bloggers:

1. WordPress
2. Ghost
3. Wix
4. Shopify
5. Joomla

WORDPRESS CMS

Once we are talking about the WordPress CMS, it makes a confusion among the users between WordPress.org and WordPress.com

Let me share a very short and useful different between these, so that you can understand it in a better way.

WordPress.org is “the real WordPress”, it is open source and 100% free for everyone. You will need a domain name and web hosting. After this, you will just need to setup your domain and your hosting and install WordPress CMS in your hosting and now you are all set to manage your blog very easily. You don’t have to pay anything to use this WordPress CMS to anyone.

In this way, you will have full control over your website.

If you don’t have any knowledge about how to setup domain on hosting then you can take your hosting company support team help. They will do this for you.  I will also write a separate article about it very soon in coming days for sure!

Now, let’s talk about WordPress.com, WordPress.com is a hosting services created by the co-founder of WordPress.

The WordPress.com hosting service has 5 plans:

• Free – Very limited.
• Personal – $48 per year
• Premium – $96 per year
• Business – $300 per year
• Ecommerce – $540 per year
• VIP – starting at $5000 per month

IF you use WordPress.com hosting services then you will not have full control over your website. They will have control over your websites as well. Let me share few cons using WordPress.com hosting

• They place ads on all over websites.
• You can’t sell ads on your website
• You will not have full control over uploading plugins
• You cannot upload custom themes (you will need to buy a business plan to use your own domain and use custom theme)
• Your website will show “Powered by WordPress Link”
• You cannot build membership websites.

I hope now, you understand the difference. I suggest you to use “WordPress.org” full open source software to develop your blog website. Now, let me share few features:

• Very user friendly admin environment
• You don’t need any technical knowledge to handle your website
• You can develop almost any type of website here
• You have complete freedom over your website and you can make money using this as well J
• There are so many themes and plugins available on WP market
• It is search engine friendly

CONS

• You will need to buy and setup your domain and hosting

GHOST

This is one of another popular CMS which is best suitable for bloggers to create their blog website. Ghost is the most popular open source headless Node.js CMS — it ships with a default admin client and front-end, but you can also swap them out with your own JAMstack.

Ghost was founded in April 2013, after a very successful Kickstarter campaign to create a new platform focused solely on professional publishing.

Ghost CMS is getting popular day by day as its number of active installs has crossed over 2,000,000+ till date. This CMS don’t force to deliver content on any specific way. You content published on website can easily be sent to mobile devices and any other devices as well.

PROS

• Ghost has content editor that uses cards. It is very easy to use.
• It is SEO Friendly
• Ghost is perfect for selling content. If you wish to write paid blog articles and it is best for you.
• Ghost use “Markdown” for your content formatting.

CONS:

• It is little bit complex as compare to WordPress CMS

PRICING

• Ghost software is free but you will have to pay for domain name and hosting.
• Ghost Pro prices start from $29 to $199 monthly

WIX

Wix is one of the most popular CMS for beginners If you are a beginner and you have Zero knowledge about any technical terms then go for wix CMS to create your blog or any other simple website.

Just open wix.com and create your account and decide a free or paid plan for your website.

PROS

• Wix offer drag and drop interface, which makes it easy to create pages and manage your website content
• There are many templates available to decide design for your website
• Wix market has a lot of apps, you can use which you need

CONS

• You cannot run ecommerce website on wix
• If you are using free plan, you will hav a wix branded domain
• If you decide a design for your website, you can’t change it to different one

PRICING

• FREE
• PAID plans starts from $13/month

SHOPIFY

Shopify is one of the most popular all in one hosted CMS solution. You don’t have to be worry about domain name purchase or hosting purchase.

You can make everything right here. Just create an account on Shopify and you can buy domain from here and its plan includes hosting charges as well.

It is very simple and more advance drag and drop features like wix and it supports ecommerce websites as well.

This CMS is best for any blogger to create their blogging website and even they can add ecommerce to their website as well.

PROS

• Its 24×7 support team
• Very simple admin interface ( user friendly environment)
• Domain, hosting and website all in in single place
• Many free and paid designs are available
• Many apps are available to add extra functionality on website like: Chat service etc.
• It has inbuilt shopify payment gateway and support the other as well.

CONS

• Your monthly/annual cost can go higher if you use number of paid apps or paid themes

JOOMLA

Joomla is another popular CMS in the market. It is just like the WP CMS, it has so many different templates for website design and extensions for functionality. It is free but you will need to buy domain name and hosting, just like the WordPress CMS.

Joomla! is one of the most popular website softwares, thanks to its global community of developers and volunteers, who make sure the platform is user friendly, extendable, multilingual, accessible, responsive, search engine optimized and so much more.

Unlike the WP CMS, this CMS is not made for beginners. You need to have some technical knowledge about the model-view-controller framework to use this.

Joomla CMS can be used for:

• Corporate websites or portals, intranets and extranets
• Small business websites
• Online magazines, newspapers, and publications
• E-commerce and online reservations
• Government, non-profit and organisational websites
• Community-based, school and church websites or portals
• Personal or family homepages …

PRONS

• If you have some technical knowledge, Joomla will allow you to manage your blog/website in a more advance way
• If you are don’t have much coding knowledge and still want to use Joomla CMS, there is good news for you. Joomla allow you to modify content without touching any line of code.
• You can create complex blog website or any ecommerce website.

CONS

• It is very complex for beginners

PRICING

• Its free but you will need to pay for domain name and hosting

Final Thoughs

I hope above article will help you to decide a best CMS as per your needs now. If you are beginner and don’t’ have any knowledge about domain, hosting or any other technical terms. I suggest go for Shopify or Wix.

You are want some advance features on yours and yet full control over it, the go for WordPress or Ghost.

If you are have techinal knowledge and want to create a complex website which you can control yourself and want it make it different with most of the websites running in market. Go for Joomla.

I believe, it will be your decision to select which is BEST for you!