Blog software is the platform you can use to write blogs. There are many types of Blog software, but in general, they can fall into 2 categories: Remotely Hosted Blogging Software and Self Hosted Blogging Software.

Remotely Hosted Blogging Software

Blogger.com, MySpace.com stand for this type of blog software. They provide you with a blog platform including blog software, and the hosting. In order to start blogging, you will need to open an acount with them, and everything will be ready in miniutes. And usually, you can get all those as free. 

But there are some cons. of  this type of blogging system, such as:

• They are less configurable - Most of them are very limited in terms of features and it's very hard to design a professional bog template with the functional they provide. You will see that almost all the blogs hosted by them looks close.
• Generic URL - The URL to your blog is either a sub-domain of the site or an inner link of them. You will not have your very own Blog URL. When it comes to a time that you plan to host the blog by yourselves as the growth of it, then there are 2 big issues you have to face: 
  • It's hard to migrate the content of the existing blog to the new blog platform since the technology used is not open
  • All your SEO marketing (or blog promotion) effort will be wasted. Search engine only recognizes the URL, and all your marketing effort are on your old URL, which cannot to go with your new blog. In the other word, you have to rebuild your blog brand online. This will be the biggest lost when you shift from remotely hosted blogging to self hosted blogging. Rebuilding a successful blog really takes time.
• Less control - This means a lot. You cannot fix the bug of the system if there any. There is no guarantee on the reliability of the system since it's free (you are somewhat at the mercy of their platform in terms of whether their blog is working or not). If they plan to close their blogging service, then your blog will be gone.

Self Hosted Blogging Software

For self hosted blogging software, you will need to download the blogging software, and install it in your own hosting environment. There are some Blogging software you can choose, such as WordPress, B2evolution, and MovableType, etc. And the most popular Blog software right now is WordPress, which is used by most of the famous (and serious) bloggers.

Self hosted blogging means that you need to purchase a web host to place your blog, you need to upgrade the blog software when there is a new release, you need to backup and maintain the blog by yourself, but it does bring you a lot of benefits, such as:

• You very owned URL - Having your own domain name is great for many reasons. It's more easily brandable, and it's also more professinal and easier to remember.
• Blog Software is Opensource and free - The beautiful thing about WordPress is that it's developer and maintained by a very active open source community. You can get a more and more powerful application regularly, you can download a huge list of free and beautiful free template to use, and a lot of developers has developed some very useful plugins to power your blog. And it's all because of open source.
• Full Control of Design - You can redesign the whole UI and enhance the function of your blog if you want. Everything is open to you.

What's the Best Blog Software for you

Considering the difficulties in changing the blog software (especially the cost or losts happened during it), it's worthwhile to take you some time with this decision. And below question will help you figure it out.

• What's your main purpose of your blog - If you plan to do the blog long term, if your blog is more than a hobby, if you plan to profit from your blog, or if you want to build up your own brand online, then a self hosted blogging solutiion will be the right choice for you
• What's your budget - Budget is always an issue. To set up your very own blog, you will need to purchase a hosting solution. Here is a list of very top Blog Hosting, and each of them will take your less than $7/month. This is affordable but it means some.
• How technical you are? - For self hosted blogging softwware, you will need to install WordPress by yourself, and then deploy the new template, add new plugins to your blog or redefine the UI if necessary. Although most of the blog hosting solution will provide you with a tool to setup a WordPress blog in some simple clicks, you still need to be skilled to make your blog look professional. All those can be done with some basic knowledge of computer and HTML, and can be outsourced if you want, but it does take some time to learn.