Blogging website - recommendations?

[BobsYourUncle]

We have a couple blogs going through the free stuff that Google Blogger offers:

There are inherent limitations of course, largely because we are not paying for the service, just using the free part.

I'm looking for input on what some of you may be using, or suggest or recommend for a decent blogging site.

We are limited with Google Blogger unless we sign up for a big monthly fee. I don't mind paying for a service, but dont want to have a hefty fee for something that is non commercial, and really, only a hobby. Hundreds a year is not happening.

One is an art blog for work created.

The other is for our life together, as a couple, and our journey. We want to post about our RV travels and adventures, then offer it up to family and friends as a story of our life. The idea would be to provide a running story for the kids and grandkids to follow us around with.

Didn't really want to make it completely public, but rather just have it for select people, family, friends and others who ask. Google I think limits us to 7 emails to have access to it. Not enough with only 7.

We want to have the ability to post by topics with separate pages from there, such as RV trip to XYZ and the trip outlined there etc. Then other sections for other topics, not necessarily RV related.

Looking for suggestions and examples.

Thanks.

[AsheGuy]

I've been using the Google Blogger for years to document our travels for family and friends and it hasn't cost me a penny. You may have needs I don't understand but it has met my needs. Our blog link is in signature section at bottom.

[BobsYourUncle]

Thanks guys for the suggestions, and 1492 for taking the time to detail your reply.
I shall check it out.

[Iatrarchy]

I also think wordpress would be a good site to blog. I have been using it for quite some time now which I feature all the best ultralight backpack https://totalguide.org/best-tactical-backpack/best-ultralight-backpack/ brand you can find in the market. I find it very user friendly and very easy to understand.

[1492]

BobsYourUncle wrote:


Didn't really want to make it completely public, but rather just have it for select people, family, friends and others who ask. Google I think limits us to 7 emails to have access to it. Not enough with only 7.

I haven't used Blogger in years, so don't know it's current capabilities? Have you looked at free Wordpress.com? Though don't know if they allow specific 'roles' in the free version which could restrict access to pages?

Drupal can do this easily, and is open-source with a large support community? It's used by millions of websites worldwide. Though you will likely need to pay for suitable hosting? Pantheon.io used to offer free Drupal hosting, though orientated toward developers, so can be confusing to use?

As someone who admins/develops Drupal sites, the biggest drawback is that it has a high learning curve? Drupal is actually considered a CMS framework, which is along the lines of if you want a blog site, use Wordpress. If you want to build Wordpress, use Drupal? Or stated differently, you can build a blog to work the way you want?

What is particularly useful about Drupal that you mentioned, is that you can restrict access to pages based on roles or permissions when users 'Sign-in' to your site. You can even control who sees what content on a particular page based on these permissions?

If you know someone who works with Drupal, they may be able to help setup a site. You would then just have to learn how to administer the site, which is not as difficult a task?