10 Best Free Blog Sites to Start Blogging (2024 Edition)- Pros and Cons

Best Free Blog Sites to Start Blogging

Looking for the best free blog sites to start a blog? If so, you’ve reached the right place.

Technology, health, finance, fashion, or something else. It is not a matter what’s your niche, you need a platform to create a blog. There are more than 50 blogging platforms available to start a blog and make money in 2024. Most of them are free. But premium blog sites are also available with advanced features like custom domain address, daily backups, eCommerce integration, premium customer support, and many others.

Today, we pick the best free blog sites and list them along with their key features. So you can choose the right one to start a blog instantly or in less than 10 minutes.

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Best Free Blog Sites 2024

Let us get started.

1. WordPress.Org

WordPress org

WordPress.org is our favorite place to create free blog sites. It is super easy to use and flexible to create any type of website like blogs, eCommerce portals, and others. There are thousands of free as well as premium WordPress themes available to decorate your site as you need.

Third-party plugin integration is a major advantage of WordPress.org. They will help you to do almost anything like SEO, marketing, caching, audience tracking, etc without editing theme files.

WordPress.org is a freeware, but you need to buy a hosting plan to create and host your blog. Bluehost is a cheap web hosting provider officially recommended by WordPress. Their plans start at $3.95/mo with a free domain, free SSL, and 50 GB SSD storage. They also offer a 24/7 customer support to address your queries and complaints fast.

DreamHost is another budget-friendly web host for WordPress blogs. Starting at just $2.59/mo, you can start a blog with DreamHost with a free domain, free SSL, unlimited storage and many other features. They also provide a 97-days money-back guarantee to all customers. If you are not satisfied with DreamHost’s service, contact their customer support within the period to get the full refund.

Pros

  • Free
  • Easy to use
  • Highly customizable
  • Super flexible to create all types of websites
  • Thousands of website themes
  • Thousands of third-party plugins
  • Thousands of free tutorials and knowledgebase
  • Fast support from WordPress experts and developers

Cons

  • No free hosting
  • Recurring payment is required for hosting

WordPress.org is a great platform to create business websites and blogs. It powers more than 30 percentage of total websites at this time. There will be WordPress-optimized plans with all hosting providers to manage and run your WordPress site smoothly.

2. WordPress.com

WordPress

WordPress is a popular free blog site to start your career in blogging. It is developed and managed by Automattic INC, the name behind WooCommerce and Jetpack. It is free and helps you to establish your online presence with a free SSL, beautiful themes, and other features. Being easy to use, anyone can create and manage blogs on WordPress with a computer and smartphone.

Your website will appear with a WordPress.com sub domain (for instance, www.yourwebsite.wordpress.com) and a 3 GB free storage. This storage limit is enough to run a typical website smoothly.

If you want to remove restrictions and unlock more features, you should go for premium plans which start from $4 per month. It comes with a free domain, custom domain redirecting, premium support, payment intagration, etc.

Pros

  • Free
  • Easy to use
  • Best for any kind of website
  • Free SSL
  • Free website themes
  • Free hosting
  • Desktop and mobile apps

Cons

  • Custom domain address is available in premium plans only
  • Limited customization options in the free plan
  • Ads in the free plan
  • No WordPress plugins in the basic plans

WordPress.com is a good place to start blogging. It fits for any budget and website type. You can add a custom domain (www.example.com), beautify sites with stunning premium themes, install plugins, and even run an eCommerce portal on the platform. So if you’re planning to start a blog or an online business, WordPress is a good choice.

WordPress Pricing

WordPress.com has different types of subscription plans including Free, Personal, Premium, Business, and eCommerce.

Free: Free SSL + Free themes + 3 GB storage

Personal: (All features in the Free plan, plus) Free domain + custom domain address + no ads + payment integration + email & live chat support + 6 GB storage = $4/mo

Premium: (All features in the Personal plan, plus) Unlimited premium themes + advanced customization + PayPal integration + social media scheduling + Google Analytics + 13 GB = $8/mo

Business: (All features in the Premium plan, plus) SEO tools + install plugins + upload themes + remove WordPress branding + automated backups + priority customer support + 200 GB storage = $25/mo

eCommerce: (All features in the Business plan, plus) Advanced eCommerce integration + premium starter themes + expert support + 200 GB storage =$45/mo

3. Blogger

Blogger

Blogger is one of the best free blog sites for beginners. It is owned by Google and allows you create up to 100 blogs per Google account. All websites will have a .blogspot.com extension. But you can override it and apply a custom domain address without any additional cost.

Ease of use, free themes, and Google AdSense integration make Blogger a favorite spot for many to start a career in blogging. Built-in visitors analytics is another advantage to track your audience effectively and get an idea about what kind of post they like.

Unfortunately, Blogger lacks plugin functionalities. So you should edit theme files to add social sharing icons and other widgets to the site. If you have no coding knowledge, it may be difficult for you to find relevant tools as Blogger resources or tutorials are very limited on the web.

Blogger blogs will appear with a .blogspot.com sub domain. But you can use a custom domain on a Blogger site without paying anything.

Open your blog’s settings and choose the ‘Custom domain’ (under Publishing) option, enter the domain name you want to use and save. Now you will see Blogger’s CNAMES in a pop-up box. Copy and paste them in your domain records to connect. It may take up to 48hours to verify your domain ownership. Once it verified, your blog will serve from the new address.

Pros

  • Free
  • Custom domain address
  • Free SSL
  • Free website themes
  • Free hosting
  • Google AdSense integration
  • Built-in analytics to track your audience

Cons

  • Limited number of themes
  • Limited customization options
  • No plugins like WordPress
  • Dashboard is not attractive
  • Suitable for blogs only
  • Not user-friendly

Blogger is another free blog site for beginners. It lets you create as many blogs as you want and activate custom domain addresses on them. Blogger is a good option if you are working on a tight budget. Once your site starts growing, you can consider shifting to any other platform like WordPress.org.

4. Weebly

weebly

Weebly is a another free blog site with a drag and drop builder. It mainly focuses on business websites and eCommerce portals. But you can create any type of website through the visual builder and customize them with professionally-designed themes and powerful controls.

There are several responsive themes available in different categories like online store, business, blog, personal, portfolio, and events. Choose and install a theme in one click. Create clean pages, add products, and integrate with third-party tools to boost your traffic and sales.

Weebly is a perfect place to start a home-based business or extend your small scale business operations and physical store to online. You can also attach a blog to it to attract more customers to your business.

Free Weebly blogs will appear with a Weebly.com sub domain. If you want to apply a custom domain for the blog, then you should go for a premium plan which starts at $5/mo.

Pros

  • Free
  • Free SSL
  • Free SEO
  • Free contact forms
  • Free website themes
  • Free hosting
  • Best for creating shopping portals
  • Traffic analytics
  • Customer support

Cons

  • Custom domain is available in premium plans only
  • Ads in the basic plans
  • No plugins like WordPress

Weebly is a free platform to create websites, especially eCommerce portals. It also offers support through chat, email, and community forums. So you can easily create a digital store on Weebly and make money by selling products. This Weebly review will show users how easy it is to use the interface.

Weebly Pricing

Weebly has 4 types of subscription plans such as free, Connect, Pro, and Business.

Free: Free SSL + customer support + 500 MB storage

Connect: (All features in the Free plan, plus) Connect a custom domain = $5/mo

Pro: (All features in the Connect plan, plus) Free domain + no ads + search box + shopping cart + payments + analytics + phone support + unlimited storage = $12/mo

Business: (All features in the Pro plan, plus) Inventory management + item badges + item reviews + calculator + coupon codes + shipping discounts + pop-up notifications + advanced eCommerce statistics = $25/mo

Business Plus: (All features in the Business plan, plus) Email marketing + real time shipping + abandoned cart emails = $38/mo

5. Tumblr

Tumblr

Tumblr is one of the best blog hosting sites and famous for reblogging content. It is totally free and lets you create blogs in multiple categories to get a huge number of followers. People can follow each other and reblog posts published by others which works just like Twitter retweets. You can also insert photos, videos, Gif, and links to them if needed.

Tumblr is best for posting photos, videos, articles, audio, quotes, and links. It also enables you to automatically schedule posts at regular intervals to maintain a steady traffic to your pages.

Tumblr blogs will have a tumblr.com extension like other free blog sites. But it is possible to replace this long URL (www.yourwebsite.tumblr.com) with a custom domain address you have. Open your Tumblr blog settings and choose the ‘use a custom domain’ option to set a unique URL for your blog.

Pros

  • Free
  • Custom domain address
  • 100-500 free themes
  • Customizable widgets
  • Automatically post content on blogs and social media
  • Free hosting
  • Unlimited storage
  • Two-factor authentication
  • HTML editor
  • Ability to insert affiliate links
  • Suitable for personal, artist and author blogs
  • iOS and Android apps

Cons

  • Limited number of themes
  • Not suitable for commercial purposes

Tumblr is a clean and simple platform to create free blogs.  It lets you post anything as a blog post like photos, videos, audios, chats, and others on the site. Scheduling is another major feature so you can schedule posts well in advance and share them on Twitter automatically to get traffic.

6. Medium

Medium

Medium is one of the best free blogging sites for businesses and bloggers. Create a user profile and add even multiple publications to schedule and publish posts. It is free and helps you to bring more page visits using tags and social media cards.

Similar to Tumblr, people can follow each other on Medium and re-share content on profiles to build a strong relationship with others.

Medium blogs will have sub domain. But unfortunately, you can’t replace it also. Because Medium doesn’t support custom domain address as of now.

Pros

  • Free
  • Clean look
  • Free hosting
  • Unlimited storage
  • Suitable for personal, artist and author blogs
  • iOS and Android apps

Cons

  • No custom domain address
  • No themes

Medium is one of my favorite sites to create a blog. It has intuitive dashboard where you can create a user profile, add publications, and post articles even with multiple authors. Medium is a good place to share your thoughts and get many followers from the same niche.

7. Wix

Wix

Wix is another free blog hosting site. It has an intuitive website builder to design and customize pages as you like. It is possible to change backgrounds, customize various parts, add plugins and marketing tools on Wix to power up the functionalities of your website.

Wix is best for creating business websites. It comes with 100s of beautiful templates with mobile-friendly layouts and advanced features. Promote products through built-in social media and email marketing tools, collect orders, and process payments t create a converting eCommerce portal.

Add a blog to boost traffic and track your visitors via Google Analytics to update your marketing strategies and grow your business.

Free Wix websites will have a long URL. To replace it with a custom web address, you should go for a premium plan.

Pros

  • Free
  • Customizable
  • Free hosting
  • Wix Editor to design and customize themes
  • Logo maker
  • Online store
  • SEO tools to drive traffic

Cons

  • Ads is basic plans
  • No unlimited plans
  • Wix branding in the free plan

Wix is a free website builder that allows you to create websites with drag and drop functionalities. It is easy to use and best for online businesses as well as digital stores.

Wix Pricing

Let us check the various types of pricing plans on Wix.

Free: Basic features

Connect Domain: (All features in the Free plan, plus) 500MB storage + 1GB bandwidth + custom domain address

Combo: (All features in the Connect Domain plan, plus) 3GB storage + 2GB bandwidth + free domain + remove ads + 30 video limits = $13/mo

Unlimited: (All features in the Combo plan, plus) 10GB  storage + Unlimited bandwidth + 1 video hour _ Site Booster + Analytics = $16/mo

VIP: (All features in the Unlimited plan, plus) 20GB storage + 2 video hours + logo maker + priority customer support = $39/mo

Business Basic: (All features in the VIP plan (except logo and support), plus) Payment integration + 5 video hours = $23/mo

Business Unlimited:  (All features in the Business Basic plan, plus) 35GB storage + 10 video hours + logo maker + pro eCommerce features = $27/mo

Business VIP: (All features in the Business Unlimited plan, plus) 50 GB storage + unlimited video hours + priority customer support = $49/mo

8. Strikingly

Strikingly

Strikingly is a free blog site with a live website editor and built-in eCommerce features. It is packed with many incredible tools like signup forms, newsletters, live chat, social media feed, etc.

Pick a template and edit it using the live editor. Add eCommerce functionalities to sell products, offer discount coupons, and get paid via PayPal or Stripe. Strikingly is perfectly optimized to boost conversions and increase your revenue.

There is a built-in analytics feed to monitor user activities. Find who’s visiting your site, where are they coming from, and create targeted marketing plans to attract more customers.

By default, all websites come with a Mystrikingly subdomain extension. But you can replace it with a custom domain name. Their premium plans start at $8 per month.

Pros

  • Free
  • Free SSL
  • Unlimited free sites
  • Free domain
  • Free cloud storage
  • Shipping
  • Membership
  • Coupons
  • Collaborators
  • Custom email addresses
  • 24/7 support

Cons

  • Limited features
  • Custom domain, eCommerce, & many other features are available in premium plans only

Strikingly is an outstanding choice for bloggers and online merchants. It provides all money making tools (eCommerce & membership) under one roof. Create blogs, set up your own digital store, and collect payments directly—no intermediaries. Get full control over your online business and money.

Strikingly Pricing

Strikingly has four subscription plans.

Free: Basic features + unlimited free blog sites + 500 MB storage per site + 5 GB monthly bandwidth

Limited: 2 limited sites + Custom domain + free SSL + free domain + 1 GB storage per site + 50 GB monthly bandwidth + Sell 5 products + 5% transaction fees = $8/mo

Pro: (All features in the Limited plan, plus) 3 pro sites + 20 GB storage per site + Unlimited bandwidth + Sell 300 products + Remove branding + Membership + Customization + 2% transaction fees = $16/mo

VIP: (All features in the Pro plan, plus) 5 VIP sites + 100 GB storage per site + Unlimited products + 2000 active contacts + 0% transaction fee + Advanced features & customization + Priority support = $49/mo

9. Squarespace

Squarespace

Squarespace is a popular website builder to create SEO-friendly online shopping sites. It is fast and secure.

If you are going to start a blog or a business site, they have unique templates to fit your needs. Select a template and customize it as you like. Set up an online store to sell products, accept bookings to schedule appointments, or build a stylish portfolio site.

Squarespace is the right place for beginners as well as established brands who want to extend their market with advanced eCommerce tools. It also allows you to build money-making membership websites and update members with email newsletters.

Their pricing starts at $16 per month. It lets you connect to a free custom domain with SSL, and mobile optimized environments.

Pros

  • Free custom domain
  • Free SSL
  • Unlimited bandwidth
  • Free video storage
  • Contributors
  • Extensions
  • 24/7 support

Cons

  • No free plans

Squarespace Pricing

Squarespace has four pricing plans: Personal, Business, Personal Commerce, and Advanced Business.

Personal: Free custom domain + SSL + Unlimited bandwidth Video storage (30 minutes) + Contributors + Extensions + Basic analytics = $16/mo

Business: (All features in the Personal plan, plus) Premium integrations & blocks + Professional email from Google + Customization + Advanced analytics + eCommerce + Unlimited products + 3% transaction fees = $23/mo

Basic Commerce: (All features in the Business plan, plus) No transaction fees + Gift cards + product reviews + Customer accounts + ecommerce analytics + Limited availability labels = $27/mo

Advanced Commerce: (All features in the Basic Commerce plan, plus) Subscriptions + Abandoned cart recovery + Advanced shipping + Advanced discounts + APIs

10. Bravenet

Bravenet

Bravenet is another place to build responsive blog sites and host them for free. It is best for bloggers, businesses, and online merchants to create money making websites.

Start your dream site with a free domain and design it using easy to use website builder and pre-made templates. No coding required to customize any part of the blog. Automated backups, free SSL, and web hosting packages make Bravenet a unique blogging platform for beginners.

Their hosting plans start at $3.59 per month with free emails, 25 GB bandwidth, and 500 MB storage. They have a 30-days money-back guarantee.

Pros

  • Control panel
  • FTP hosting
  • Full website backups
  • Free email accounts
  • Free themes
  • Domain registration
  • Traffic analytics
  • 1-click software installation
  • eCommerce friendly
  • 24/7 support

Cons

  • Limited features

Bravenet Pricing

Bravenet has three subscription plans: Basic, Advanced, and Corporate.

Basic: 1 website + 500 MB storage + 25 GB bandwidth + 3 email accounts = $2.59/mo

Advanced: 10 websites + 10 GB storage + 200 GB bandwidth + 10 email accounts = $6.59/mo

Corporate: 20 websites + 20 GB storage + 600 GB bandwidth + 20 email accounts = $8.99/mo

Which is your choice to create a free blog in 2024? Feel free to share your thoughts through the comment form below,

Read The 20 Best Web Hosting Providers in 2024

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