Blogs and publishing platforms

A blog platform is built around posts: writing, publishing, archives, tags, feeds and readers who come back. If most of your site will be articles, essays, updates or newsletters, a platform made for publishing usually serves you better than a general business builder with a blog bolted on. The writing experience is calmer, posts load quickly, and features such as email subscriptions, comments and RSS feeds are part of the core.

The platforms here range from fully self-run to fully hosted. WordPress.org is free software you install on your own hosting, with complete control and complete responsibility for updates, backups and security. Ghost is open-source too, and its makers also offer managed hosting with newsletters and paid memberships included. Blogger is free and simple, run by Google. Micro.blog and Write.as are small, independent services with a quieter, more personal style and links to the fediverse.

Decide first whether email matters. Many writers now treat the newsletter as the main product and the website as the archive. Ghost combines both in one tool. With WordPress you add a newsletter plugin or an outside service. Some smaller platforms leave email to you entirely.

Then decide how much you want to own. Self-run software lets you move hosts, keep every file and change anything, but you are the maintenance team. Hosted platforms handle the technical work and set limits on themes, plugins and data export. Whatever you pick, check that you can export your posts and subscriber list in a standard format, and do a test export early.