Want to build a blog for free? You’re in luck! Today, there are plenty of free blogging sites like WordPress, Wix, Weebly, and more to help you visually build the blog of your dreams.
People have been blogging for years now to either share personal updates or make passive income. Whether you want to start a blog to make money or just to build a personal hobby blog, you probably don’t want to spend too much money to get started.
With that in mind, I decided to write a blog post where I highlight some of the best free blogging sites to build a blog with. But with so many to choose from, which is the best one to start a blog with?
Let’s find out! Here are the best free blogging sites, ranked, rated, and reviewed.
7. Best free blogging sites to build a blog
1. WordPress.org (with HostGator)
WordPress.org is one of the most recognizable brands in websites and website buildings. This is because it’s so popular; it currently powers 39.5% of websites across the internet (source).
However, there is an important distinction to recognize between the two halves of WordPress. WordPress is made of two different programs: WordPress.org and WordPress.com.
About WordPress.com
The popular WordPress.com platform is a free blogging site that hosts your blog for you. When you host with WordPress.com, you get a free URL like yourname.wordpress.com. However, while it is free, you are limited by which plugins and themes you can install.
About WordPress.org
WordPress.org is an entirely free, open-source, self-hosted software for blogging. With your own hosting, you can install this free blog platform and create a stunning blog for free with a little hard work and skill.
The site is set up to work with many different blogger or technical genius levels, from the very beginner to a total technical savant. No matter what level of blog skill you have, WordPress.org will help you create a site that looks, functions, and designs exactly how you want it to.
The only fee associated with using the self-hosted WordPress platform is a web hosting plan or domain name. In addition, you can choose from over a thousand themes in addition to many plug-ins that add commerce, photo gallery, and other important functionalities.
WordPress.org also provides an easy path to monetization, so if you’re hoping to turn blogging into a career, this is a great way to start your six-figure journey to turning blogging into a full-time career.
The bottom line
WordPress.org is one of the best free blogging sites completely self-controlled and designed for your personal use. Building and hosting your own site is a rarity in the online world, but if you want to create a full, expansive blog, it’s an absolute must-have capability.
It also allows you to have full control over every part of your blog, a level of influence that many other free blogging sites just don’t have.
Start a blog with HostGator + WordPress here
2. Wix
Wix has been around for 15 years and hosts over 180 million blogs (source), so it’s fair to say it’s one of the biggest free blogging sites around. What sets Wix apart is how easy they are to use, even for the most unfriendly tech users.
This simple blog-building platform lets you build your very own website from the ground up with simple drag and drop tools that are easy to alter or adapt to your taste. The fast adapting software provides live updates as you edit, so you can always see how your site looks before uploading it. This lets you test out different blog designs before you publish them.
Their website options are all hosted by the company, so you won’t have to worry about security, backups, hosting, and more. Instead, Wix provides all of those services for free, so you can focus on simply creating your blogs and putting them out into the open.
You can easily manipulate and create a professional quality website on their free version with simple page-building applications. That makes Wix one of the simplest and easiest blog builders to get started with.
Wix’s blogging interface allows you to personalize every part of your blog, but it also lets you use their self-guided questionnaire option as well. So if building the actual blog feels just too complicated, you have help with Wix. You can answer a few questions and let their automatic site builder create a customized site that matches your needs without you ever lifting a finger.
Publishing your blog is as simple as writing your content and hitting publish, and with every post, you can be satisfied you’re putting out a quality blog on a free site.
The bottom line
The free version of Wix provides you with 500MG of storage and 500 MB of bandwidth, which is more than enough for blogging newbies to get started.
Start a blog with Wix free here
3. Weebly
Weebly is a great free blogging site if you want to eventually expand to commerce or service portfolios in addition to their blog.
Blogging is often a first step to transform your online presence into an empire or a self-run business. Weebly is one of those sites designed to perfectly fit every stage of your internet business plan (aka your master plan).
Weebly is also an easy-to-use website builder with similar drag-and-drop capabilities as Wix, but with the addition of ad spaces on their free plan that allow you to monetize your blog right away. They also provide you with a free subdomain, so you don’t need to purchase a domain right away to get your site up and running on the internet.
As a new blogger, Weebly’s eCommerce tools may not seem valuable at first glance, but the more your blog establishes itself, the more important these functions become. They allow you to eventually expand from simply blogging to sales.
Weebly allows a lot of personalization even in their free templates and options. You can pick from content-based designs that are styled around the general category of content they’re intended for, or you can build one from scratch using drag and drop tools.
They let you post highly competitive and professional blog posts as often as you like that all benefit from in-app optimizations that will help drive customers and traffic to your blog. As a first-time blogger, this help is invaluable, and to get all of this content on a free blogging site is practically unheard of.
The bottom line
Weebly comes with free SSL security, 500MB of blog storage, built-in SEO tools to help build search engine recognition for your site, and lead generation services in addition to community forums, chat, and email support.
4. Medium
Are you an established blogger or writer who has a lot of content prepared but no place to share it? Medium is one of the best ways to get your story and content out into the world without struggling to build and manage your own website.
Medium provides all the benefits of a regular blog without the time, expense, or energy it requires to maintain. Best of all, it’s completely free to sign up and begin taking advantage of their services. In addition, the multipurpose platform is versatile both in content and design, so there are plenty of opportunities for writers from all walks of life to create.
They are different from many other free blogging sites in that it does not host individual blogs. Rather, it functions as a submission site that hosts your content as one of many articles hosted on the submission site.
Medium functions as almost a master blog – a place where people can visit and read information on thousands of different topics.
The platform is visited by nearly 100 million readers every month (source). This means there’s the potential to gain exposure to your content without lifting a finger. Medium is almost an independent social media outlet, functioning similarly to Facebook or Twitter, where you can post your own lengthy content and share it with others.
Medium is a great place for a content writer who wants pageviews and visitors without having to self-promote.
If you’re looking for free exposure, Medium is the perfect built-in community that will instantly read and report back on your writing.
The bottom line
If you don’t want to go through the hassle of trying to create your own website, Medium is the perfect place to start. That’s because they’ll handle your blog’s posting, hosting, and management without you having to do any other work. Though not a traditional blog, Medium is still a great free blogging site for you to publish and get feedback on your work.
Start a blog for free on Medium
5. Joomla
Like WordPress.org, Joomla is another popular open-source CMS platform that allows you to self-host your own blog. It’s actually the second most popular open-source blogging platform in the world, second only to WordPress, and has been downloaded over 100 million times (source).
Joomla is WordPress for the technically savvy, as it requires a bit more technical knowledge to create and maintain. However, for those who are technically inclined, Joomla provides some incredibly advanced user features for free. This allows you to get to work creating the perfect site in moments.
Their free service is also noteworthy because it contains multilingual tools. These let you automatically translate your site into many different languages. So if you’re looking to capture an international audience, Joomla is definitely a great option.
Joomla also offers plenty of monetization skills, including ads, affiliate links, and eCommerce tools. In addition, you can link to external extensions and shops that let you add your own products or simply build a site using their tech tools. However, doing so requires moderate to higher-end tech abilities, so as a beginning blogger, this may not be the tool for you.
The bottom line
Joomla’s flexible interface creates many different options for creating your own website, so you can scale and build it however you like. In addition, the platform’s editor is intuitive and is compatible with several different plug-ins to allow you to create and maintain your content.
Like WordPress, Joomla is free to use, but you need to pay for the domain name and hosting tools to make it public, making it a good free blogging site but not one of the most available.
Use Joomla with HostGator here
6. Tumblr
Tumblr is an alternative blogging platform that doubles as a blog and social media platform. The trendy new site is a fun take on traditional blogging that has caught fire with younger generations largely thanks to its easy-to-use interface.
Think of Tumblr as a shorter-form blog site that’s almost a mix between a personal blog and a site like Twitter. On Tumblr, you can share, like, and follow other posts and comment on them, and posts can be anywhere from a few words to lengthy essays.
Tumblr is better if you’re interested in sharing shorter pieces or content about yourself or your interests. However, it isn’t really suited if you’re creating content about a business or niche topic.
They’ve mainly been recognized for their cult followings of media and entertainment sources, known as fandoms. Many different bloggers create content and tag it with their favorite media, ranging from television shows to books, actors, and more.
Tumblr is a very free-form site, almost the indie cousin to platforms like WordPress.org or Medium. The site hosts over 465 million blogs (source) that cover every conceivable topic under the sun and continues to form a closely-knit community between followers and content creators.
Blogging here is absolutely free to create and use. It functions as a pseudo-social media platform in terms of interface and posting style, and you’re never charged any money to create content or host your blog.
It’s very much artist-centered and creates great opportunities for artists and creators to promote their work. But with no built-in eCommerce features, you’d have to link to exterior sites if you want to make money with your Tumblr.
The bottom line
You can monetize through ads and affiliate links, but they’re harder to manipulate, and ads will need to be solicited directly from parties instead of specifically putting in AdSense links. As a free and creative site, Tumblr is a great choice for free bloggers. For those looking for the best traditional free blogging site, you may want to consider another option.
Create your Tumblr blog for free here
7. Blogger
Blogger is Google’s contribution to the blogging platform and atmosphere. Run by them since 2003, Blogger allows you to essentially “rent” a blog space from Google to host your blog.
If you have a lot of other Google Assets, Blogger might be a great way for you to integrate your existing content and even level it up through personalized HTML coding or editing.
A completely free tool, Blogger integrates with all components of Google, including AdSense, to monetize with display ads, their instant web monetizing service.
As a free service, Blogger provides the best free access to monetization, so if you’re looking to make money off your free blog, Blogger is definitely the place to start.
Blogger allows you to customize your personal blog depending entirely on your own preferences. There are many different free themes and skins that you can put on your blog and widgets or gadgets that can build in other different functionalities.
It’s completely free, completely integrated with existing Google tools, and simple to monetize. Though Google technically has ultimate domain and hosting control over the site, it’s still a nice little program that provides a space for you to put out your thoughts into the world without charging you a dime.
The bottom line
As one of the oldest free blogging platforms on the market, Blogger is a good choice if you don’t need something modern and new but rather something functional and trustworthy.
Unfortunately, Blogger is fairly limited in terms of its function and look, which means it can look relatively outdated compared to more modern blog options. However, if you’re just using your blog as a place to write and share your content, Blogger is the perfect tool.
Wrapping it up
While there are plenty of free blogging sites to choose from, nothing beats having the control that a self-hosted WordPress site provides. Even if you choose another option from this list, if you are serious about making money with your blog, you will eventually migrate to WordPress with your own domain and hosting. So, why not start with the best right from the start?
Until next time,
Edwin, DoSixFigures.com
Blogging is one of the most effective ways for large and small businesses to generate new leads that convert into sales and revenue. The best part is that anyone can start blogging for free.