Best WordPress Alternatives for Bloggers
If you’ve blogged on WordPress , whether self-hosted or on WordPress.com , you’re not alone. WordPress was originally seen as a blogging tool – although it has moved beyond that identity, it is often used by people who want to start a blog. However, WordPress, if you are self-hosted, can be difficult to maintain. You may also be concerned by news that WordPress.com blogs that have not opted out may be selling their content to AI training libraries. If you want to make the move, there are several alternatives to WordPress. These typically come in the form of hosted platforms, but there are also several stand-alone content management systems.
Blogger
Even before WordPress existed, there was Google’s Blogger. And it doesn’t suck. While it lacks features, design, or a lot of bells and whistles, it still does one thing well: being a blogging destination. You can even purchase new themes from sites like Etsy. While Google tends to be a little cavalier in shutting down its products, Blogger still has a large user base and it would be hard to imagine Google doing this to all of them.
Drupal
Open source CMS like WordPress, Drupal used to compete with WordPress for the same user base. Twenty years later, Drupal has a strong but much smaller audience. However, it is open source so it is free and any web hosting with cPanel can be installed in one click. Even without this, it is relatively easy to install on any web host and is not completely different from WordPress. There is a template system, the content is stored in a database, and you can connect extensions to implement many additional functions. However, if you just need a blog, Drupal will do it out of the box.
Ghost
The thing about open source projects is that people can ” fork ” them at any time: they can just take a technology, fork it, and start building it into something completely new. Although people have been threatening to fork WordPress for a long time (and nothing will stop them), only Ghost has successfully done it. About 10 years ago, a WordPress developer decided it had become too complex and wanted to free it up to create a cleaner writing experience, and Ghost was born. As with WordPress (and Ghost is still VERY similar to WordPress on the server side), you can host the CMS yourself or pay Ghost to host it, starting at $9 per month.
Livejournal
I assure you, no one is happier to learn that Livejournal still exists than 90’s fangirls like me. Livejournal, the original self-discovery blog, is a hosting solution that allows you to use basic themes and, apparently, lots and lots of advertising. This, of course, does not provide the atmosphere of security that the original owners of Six Apart once created before selling to a Russian firm many years ago. However, if you’re looking for nostalgic GIFs, LJ has you covered.
Substack
If you’re looking for something more modern and professional, Substack is a good option. Substack’s hosting solution offers you the ability to charge for your work through a subscription, and also offers a neat blog, newsletter, and even podcast hosting. Your blog won’t look personalized and you won’t get a ton of blog functionality, but it will allow users to get the same experience they expect and focus on writing. As long as you don’t charge readers, Substack doesn’t charge you. Once you do this, they take 10% of the pie.
Middle
Medium has a lot in common with Substack in that you can’t personalize the look of your blog and can choose to monetize your content or not. Although Medium doesn’t offer the same newsletter and podcast hosting, Medium is slightly better at promoting your work to its internal audience than Substack and has a larger user base. The algorithm that calculates how much you get paid is a bit like TikTok: it’s based on fuzzy math about how much time people spend reading your work and how many of them become paying users based on your work. You can write for free on Medium, but many people report that the $5 per month membership gives access to a larger audience.
Tumblr
Tumblr , one of WordPress’s original competitors, was rescued by Automattic, which owns WordPress.com, when it was purchased in 2019. If Livejournal seems too sketchy for you, you can get much the same gifs and oomph—with Automattic security behind it—on Tumblr. Due to the owner, it has the same problem with selling content to AI learning engines, but again, this is a simple setting that can be turned off. You can’t style a Tumblr blog to the same extent as WordPress or Drupal, but you can give it a little shine with colors and fonts. Your blog won’t be professional, but it will be amazing .