When comparing Blogger vs Substance, the Slant community recommends Blogger for most people. In the question“What are the best solutions for a personal blog?” Blogger is ranked 19th while Substance is ranked 24th. The most important reason people chose Blogger is:
You can turn on ads if you want, but you can also keep your Blogger blog ad-free. That is different from WordPress.com (free hosted WordPress) where there are ads, and you cannot do anything about it.
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Pros
Pro No ads
You can turn on ads if you want, but you can also keep your Blogger blog ad-free. That is different from WordPress.com (free hosted WordPress) where there are ads, and you cannot do anything about it.
Pro Free
hosted by google
Pro Javascript friendly
You can include Javascript snippets and widgets (like Pinterest widgets for example) in posts and in sidebar items. This makes it very different from WordPress.com (free hosted WordPress) which does not allow javascript plugins.
Pro Every Google account has one
If you have a Google account from any other of their services, such as Gmail, Youtube or Google+, you automatically have a Blogger account as well.
Pro Supports multiple authors
Multiple people can contribute to a single blog.
Pro Custom domain support
You can use either your own URL or a *.blogspot.com URL.
Pro API
The Blogger API allows you to publish and manage your content via a custom client app
Pro Allows custom advertisements
Such as project wonderful, or just google adsense,. so you can make money from your blog.
Pro Android and iOS mobile apps
Allows viewing and editing content from your mobile device.
Pro Analytics integration
There's very basic analytics, but you can upgrade if needed.
Pro Free for one site
One site is free, for other option see pricing.
Pro Easy importing of Jekyll posts
An easy to use interface for migrating from Jekyll is available.
Pro Clean and simple layouts
Substance doesn't clutter your blog, it gets out of the way so people can focus on reading.
Cons
Con Bad post editor
It is a WYSIWYG html editor, and it would be a bit better if it used <p> tags. Instead it uses divs and brs everywhere, which leads to inconsistent or just crappy typography and spacing.
Con Limited authorization system
Sadly the authorization system is fairly limited. Co authors can post and publish, without you getting a chance to pre-check their posts as an admin. e.g. you can't give them "create" and not give them "publish" permissions. They can only edit their own posts however.
Con Can be very slow
Loading times can be huge - results may vary on your use of template, but even a fairly lightweight template can load quite slow.
Con Not fully HTML4 or 5 compliant
And impossible to get it perfectly accepted by the W3C verifier no matter how much you tinker.