Blogger
Blogger is Google’s free hosted blogging platform. It runs on Google’s infrastructure with no self-hosted option, gives you a blogspot.com subdomain or a custom domain, and exports content as Atom XML.
How it models content
- Posts are the main content type, shown in reverse chronological order
- Pages are static content outside the post stream
- Labels are flat tags on posts. There are no hierarchical categories
- Comments are built in and tied to posts
- Templates use Blogger’s XML-based system for layout and styling
Blogger’s Atom export includes posts, pages, and comments. Images are hosted on Google’s CDN and are not included in the export file.
Blogger and Joomla compared
| Blogger | Closest in Joomla |
|---|---|
| Posts | Articles |
| Pages | Articles (uncategorised or in a dedicated category) |
| Labels | Tags (Joomla also has hierarchical categories, but labels are flat) |
| Comments | No built-in equivalent. Needs an extension |
| Template (XML) | Template (PHP-based, completely different system) |
Post text moves over as article content without much trouble. The biggest gap is comments: Joomla does not include a comment system in its core, so you need a third-party extension before you can bring those across. Labels can map to Joomla tags, though you may want to organise some into Joomla’s category tree instead. Images need rehosting from Google’s servers. Templates do not transfer between any two platforms.
Current status
Blogger is still operational and free. Google has not announced plans to retire it, though active feature development has been minimal for years.