Medium is a blogging platform as well as an online publishing platform owned by Medium co-operation. Here bloggers and writers publish their content and Medium gets 40 million views a month. Medium is more like a publishing platform though people blog in it. However, if you are looking to blog further than submitting articles on your own, Medium is not a good choice. And that is why you need to look for alternatives. In this article, we will see Medium alternatives with an A-Z comparison.
1. Hyvor BlogsÂ
Hyvor Blogs aka HB is an all-in-one blogging platform where you can create your own blog as the same as you want. It comes with so many cool features in it.
If you are looking to attract more users around the world, you need to enable things that improve user interactions right? For example, adding a user-attractive blog theme, adding commenting spaces, adding new languages to your blog, using attractive themes, etc. In that case, Hyvor Blogs would be the best choice for you rather than Medium because Hyvor Blogs has the following features:
Multi-language support by default - You can add new languages to your blog as you prefer. You can start multi-language blogging using different languages and grow your audience. It is just a piece of cake.
Auto translation - No tedious tasks of translating blog posts into different languages. With just one click, you can translate your blog posts easily.
Powerful rich text editor - Hyvor Blogs’s carefully crafted rich text editor makes writing blog posts effortless. Add headings, blockquotes, images, embeds, code blocks, and more.
Customizable Themes - Raydo, Pela, Zing, and more. All of these themes are editable and completely free for anyone using Hyvor Blogs. You can make your own theme for your blog if default themes do not satisfy you.
Custom domains
Right-to-left (RTL) languages supported
Free commenting system - Hyvor Talk is completely FREE in Hyvor Blogs. So, you can have a commenting space on your blog at no cost. A blog without a commenting space is dull.
Real-time SEO analysis - This real-time SEO analyzer gives you suggestions to improve your post's SEO as you write. It checks for keyword usage, internal and external links, and more SEO-related factors.
GPT (AI) for content creation - Chat with GPT to generate content, blog post outlines, and more. GPT is integrated directly into the editor, making it easy to use generated content in your posts.
Broken link analyzer - Hyvor Blogs’s link analyzer checks for broken links in your posts as you write. It also runs a bi-weekly check on all your posts and notifies you via email if any links are broken.
Mobile friendly - You can blog from anywhere using any device. Even using your mobile.
Google fonts, locally
Privacy protected
Complete control - HB does not inject ads, trackers, affiliate links, or paywalls into your blog. It's your blog - You decide everything!
Data Ownership - You own the content you write. You can export your content and move to another platform anytime.
In-built SEO - All you need for technical SEO is in-built in HB
Easy to set up with essential tools
Sub-directory hosting - Host your blog at /blog of your web app: Cloudflare workers, Next.js, Laravel, Symfony
Plus, Hyvor Blogs is completely developer-friendly.
Data API - Access public data of your blog as JSON using our Data API. For example, you can use it to get the latest posts on your blog. The Data API makes Hyvor Blogs work as a headless CMS for an alternative front-end.
Delivery API - Delivery API allows you to host your blog within a subdirectory of your web applications, with the help of Webhooks.
Console API - This is the same API we use in the Console. Automate some of your administrative tasks, or you can even build your own console.
Webhooks - Ping a URL when something happens on your blog (ex: when a post is created).
Not only that but also HB supports web framework integrations such as Symfony, Laravel, Cloudflare Workers, Next.js, etc.
Hyvor Blogs vs Medium
Feature | Hyvor Blogs | Medium |
Multi-language supported and auto-translation | âś… | âś…Â (But no direct support and no multi-language publication) |
Custom Themes | ✅ () | ❌ |
Blog Ownership | ✅ (You own your blog completely) | ❌ (Medium owns it) |
User-friendly powerful blog console | ✅ | ❌ |
Full control of your blog | ✅ (Only you have the control) | ❌ (Not only you but also Medium has the control) |
Custom Domains | ✅ | ❌ |
Ads-free | ✅ | ❌ |
Real-time SEO analyzer | ✅ | ❌ |
Real-time Link Analyzer | ✅ | ❌ |
GPT (AI) for content creation | ✅ | ❌ |
No annoying popups | ✅ | ❌ |
Powerful API | ✅ | ❌ |
Developer Friendly | ✅ (Data API, Delivery API, Console API, Webhooks) | ❌ |
Metadata control | ✅ | ❌ |
Google fonts, locally | ✅ | ❌ |
No vendor lock-in | ✅ | ❌ |
Content exporting | âś… | âś… (Can export to HTML and .zip files only) |
Both Medium and Hyvor Blogs lets you start blogging within a snap so that you do not need much work when getting started.
Differences in Blogs (between both platforms)
In Hyvor Blogs, a blog is much more different than a blog that Medium produces. Medium lets you do blogging by publishing posts of content. Users have to scroll the wall in order to see your content. But in Hyvor Blogs, you can create a perfect blog with everything you want. For example, you can have your own custom domain, a blog that is more interactive to the user.
You own your blog
When you blog with Medium, you do not own your blog: Medium owns it. So in any case, if they want to delete your blog content, they will do it and you will lose all your blog data and your precious content within a snap. But in Hyvor Blogs, you completely own your blog and Hyvor Blogs doesn’t own your blog. Not only that, HB doesn’t have control over your blog; you have it.
Metadata control
There is no metadata control in Medium. If you publish on Medium, they automatically create metadata and if you want to make changes in metadata you have got bad luck there. But in HB you can control metadata as you want.
Custom domains
In Hyvor Blogs, they give you a domain like yourblogname.hyvorblogs.io. However, you can also have custom domains that you can use as a unique domain that you own. For example, if you use a custom domain for your blog, then you can have a domain like abc.com, not abc.hyvorblogs.io. Then you can maintain your blog on your own without any hesitation.
Let’s say you have your blog URL as abc.hyvorblogs.io. Eventually, as you promote your blog you will understand that you are promoting the blogging platform instead of your blog. But, if you own a domain on your own and you use it for your blog, and then you promote it, eventually your very own unique blog is promoted. That is a future investment for your blog. And that is why owning a unique domain is important for a blogger. So we encourage you to own a domain for your blog.
Multi-language supported and auto translations
If you want to go with multi-language blogging (going with several different languages) Medium does not have any rule against that but it does not provide you direct support. That means there are no multi-language publications. However, Hyvor Blogs is multi-language supported. This means it directly supports you to go with multi-lingual. Explaining simply, you can post in different languages on Medium. But in HB your posts can be translated into different languages. Translation into different languages in Hyvor Blogs is just a piece of cake. With just one click, you can translate your blog posts within a snap. So no more tedious translation tasks anymore. And that privilege is not there in Medium.
Also with Hyvor Blogs, you can translate your blog posts easily just with 2 clicks. You can translate your blog posts into any language you want.
Custom Themes (Customizable beautiful themes)
Medium does not have any themes at all. But in Hyvor Blogs, there are a bunch of default themes and you can create your own themes for your blog. Not only that, you can customize the existing themes if you like. Beautiful theme colors up your blog so that your blog users will find it more attractive. It increases user engagement but not directly. So, if you wish to do blogging more than just publish some content, then Hyvor Blogs is the right choice for you.
In Hyvor Blogs, official blog themes are free and open-source: for example, “Zing“, “Pela”, “Hello”, “Raydo”, etc. The Hyvor Blogs team is working hard on introducing new themes as well. All official themes will forever be free. Therefore, you can easily switch between themes and find out the best one for you.
Here is the latest theme published “Raydo”. You can discover Hyvor Blogs’s themes here.
You can also develop a completely custom theme for your blog. A beautiful and attractive theme makes your blog visitors feel interested in spending time on your blog. Plus, you can customize Hyvor Blogs’s official themes to your preference.
In-built SEO Analyzer
Hyvor Blogs has a real-time SEO analyzer in the post editor to help you with on-page SEO. You know how SEO is important when you are running a blog right? Everything depends on SEO. Therefore you have to think about all SEO factors when creating content; that’s quite hard and you might miss things. That is why having such a feature is important. It will help you identify common issues and better optimize your blog posts for search engines.
In-built Link Analyzer
According to a study by Ahrefs, 66.5% of links become broken within 10 years. Broken links can significantly harm your blog’s user experience and SEO. This link analyzer analyzes all the links and lets you know their status. It consists of 2 separate features:
Link analysis: It gives real-time feedback for you as you write your post. This will help you publish your blog post without any broken links. This checks for internal, external, and even anchor links in your post.
Full blog link analysis - This does a bi-weekly (14 days) full-blog analysis checks for all links in your posts and provides you with a report via emails. Learn More.
AI (GPT) for content creation
Hyvor Blogs has integrated chat GPT 3.5 for you to easily generate content and add it to the editor. Here is a demo of how it works.
You can generate content and use pre-built commonly used prompts such as SEO keyword ideas, FAQ generators, etc.
Free Commenting System - Hyvor Talk
Having a commenting space for blog users on a blog is a crucial part. So with Hyvor Blogs, you can use Hyvor Talk for FREE. So, you do not have to worry about adding a commenting space and paying for it like Medium.
Google Fonts, Locally
With this, you do not have to deal with multiple CSS files, @font-face rules, uploading assets, etc. Or, you do not have to use a third-party service like Google Fonts, which comes with a privacy liability. This feature combines the simplicity of Google Fonts and the privacy of locally hosting the fonts. All the fonts (CSS and font files) are served directly from your domain - no requests are sent to Google or any other third party. Learn more.
Zero Ads and No Popups
HB is ads-free of course. But Medium is not. Medium has annoying popups that tell you and your users to go for paid plans. But in Hyvor Blogs, there are no annoying pop-ups.
Powerful Rich Text Editor
HB has a rich text editor with markdown syntax support. Medium also has a rich text editor. Not only that, in HB multiple people can contribute to your blog: if you have a team to manage your blog, doing it with HB is completely easy. But with Medium, you cannot. HB has a very powerful API that Medium doesn’t.
Export your content
You can export your content as you prefer in HB but Medium gives you the ability to export your personal data and stories as HTML files in a . zip archive.
Mobile-friendly
Hyvor Blogs is completely mobile-friendly. You can blog from anywhere, anytime using any device: even your mobile.
Easy to set up with essential tools
As a blogger, you may run ads, set up data collection forms, marketing tools, etc. For example, Google Adsense, Google Analytics, Typeform, Mailchimp, ConvertKit, Memberstack, etc. So, working with those tools is way too easier with Hyvor Blogs.
Here are our guides to essential tool integrations.
Hyvor Blogs is cheaper
Hyvor Blogs is not free but it offers you a 7-day trial: no credit/debit cards are required. Hyvor Blogs pricing is based on the number of admin users (writers) on your blog and the total amount of Storage used. There are no feature limitations. Visit Hyvor Blogs’ pricing plans.
Starter Plan - $9/month
Growth Plan - $19/month
Premium - $49/month
Team Plan - $299/month
Business Plan - $699/month
Enterprise Plan - $1299/month
Note that you don’t have to pay for any of the features or themes.
However, Medium is free but if your users have to read more than 5 articles per day they have to pay. That’s quite not user-friendly, right?
In HB vendor lock-in is absent. You can easily transfer to any service that you want from HB.
Additionally…
Hyvor Blogs comes with in-built syntax highlighting with support for 100+ languages and 25+ Vscode themes. Line highlighting, focusing, numbering, and diff highlighting are supported out of the box. Let us know how you found HB as one of the medium alternatives.
2. Tumblr
This is the blogging space that bloggers used before Medium came. It is free as same as medium and it is so easy it get started with.
Tumblr is more popular among young individuals who enjoy visual stuff. Professional writers and those in the media field, on the other hand, prefer to use Medium. It is kind of like Medium but there are a few differences. Unlike Tumblr, Medium is minimalist. It is not customizable. It has got no themes. There is one standard style. So, if you want to go for a minimalist blog, then Medium is the right choice for you. Medium is mainly a publishing platform where you can do a minimal blog. On the other hand, on Tumblr, you can use themes and few customizations compared to Medium. Tumblr is more like social media. On Tumblr, others can repost your content but on Medium users cannot repost, or react to your content. They only can clap react and comment. Medium does not have a variety of reactions as Tumblr has.
You can have custom domains on Tumblr which Medium does not offer you. But there is a drawback on both platforms. You do not own your blog when you blog on both platforms. The particular platform owns it. And, you do not have complete control over your blog. If the platform wants to take down your blog, they will do it right away. You will lose your whole blog including all the blog data.
If you want to publish without the trouble of starting up a blog, attract visitors to your existing popular site, and grow your Twitter following, you can use Medium. You can use Tumblr if you are blogging as a hobby or for fun. Plus Medium and Tumblr are not ads-free. You have to pay Tumblr in order to go ad-free.
You must adapt to Tumblr’s very distinctive format in order to be successful. Tumblr’s algorithm favors posts with lots of pictures and little text. If you want to utilize Tumblr to create long-form posts without images, you’ll have a hard time growing a following. Tumblr, on the other hand, is better suited to aesthetically appealing brands with high-quality photos to distribute. So if you are not very much into media but into copy in blogging, then Medium may be the right choice for you.
Tumblr has three different editors which you can choose as you like; HTML editor, Markdown editor, and rich text editor. But Medium has only a rich text editor. So if you want to play with all of them or use Markdown or HTML editors, then you can go with Tumblr.
As one of the medium alternatives, Tumblr brings you a very similar experience to Medium. So if you want to use a platform like Medium, then go for Tumblr. If you are not happy with Tumblr, then you can search for Tumblr alternatives.
3. Blogger
This is another one of the Medium alternatives; Blogger is the oldest solution founded for blogging years ago.
Blogger is free as same as Medium and it is easy to get started with. As Medium is a paid plan with unlimited access for a beginner that might not be a good choice. But for beginners, Blogger comes as a good choice. Blogger has no ads and if you want then you can activate them. Medium has ads.
In Medium you will not find custom themes but a standard one and only medium design. Apart from that, there is no other design in Medium. But Blogger has themes for you to choose from and use on your blog. You can also do some limited customization on them.
Blogger gives you a subdomain for free and hosting for free. Both of the platforms allow you to have a custom domain. You can easily connect your website with tools like Google Analytics and search console for free without buying a custom domain. It is best for people who want to have a personal blog to keep track of their goals like online journals. On the other hand, Medium is best for people who want to share their knowledge, ideas, and expertise in any topic with a huge amount of audience online. WordPress.com (free WordPress hosting), which does not enable javascript plugins. So that is an advantage of Blogger that you cannot gain from Medium.
Medium is a minimal blog while Blogger is not. So if you want a blog that has to look more attractive, then go for a Blog. If not go with Medium
As Blogger is hosted by Google, you can easily get access to Google’s tools like analytics and search console for free. There is a drawback that means you do not own your blog completely in Blogger too. If you are not satisfied with Blogger. then search for Blogger alternatives.
4. Ghost
This is also can be put in the Medium alternatives basket. Ghost is an open-source CMS (Content Management System) that was founded in 2013. It gives you the privilege to start your own blog in a few steps. Actually, Ghost does not have a free plan just as some other Medium alternatives do. But they offer you a 14-day free trial to try it. On the other hand, Medium is available at no cost to get started. Medium is available at no cost. Blogging and making money are completely free. If you want to read on Medium, you must pay $5 per month (60$ per year), with a portion of the proceeds going to the authors whose articles you read. The cost of Ghost(Pro) is high. It may cost $348 per year. That will be a bit costly for a beginner. But a valuable investment.
But to get started with Ghost you gotta need some steps including some activities using the terminal. So if you are totally fine with those things then it is perfect. But if you are a newbie, just give it a try.
Medium does not have themes but a very standard default design. But, Ghost has themes that you can use on your blogs, and not only that but also you can create your own theme using Ghost handlebars. Medium is a writing-focused social networking website. If you’re a fresh writer, but you’ve written a masterpiece that may earn you hundreds of dollars, it may take some time to get traction on Ghost. But with Medium getting traction is easy. But writing on Medium and promoting it promotes the blogging platform itself, not your blog. You will understand it eventually. It is a good move to build up your own blog using a custom domain. Then all the success will be only yours. Not the blogging platforms’. That is possible with Ghost but not with Medium.
In Ghost, inline comments, and comments discussions are also available. You can integrate third-party services like Hyvor Talk into your blog easily for example. But there is a drawback in Medium that in Medium, you do not own your blog completely. If Medium wants to delete your blog data, they will just do it and you might lose your well-written blog data within a snap. But that will not happen in Ghost. You own your blog and you have full control over your blog.
If you are not satisfied with Ghost. then search for Ghost alternatives.
5. WordPress
WordPress is open-source software you can use to create a beautiful website, blog, or app. This is also one of the Medium alternatives.
Things aren’t the same on WordPress as they are on Medium. It is way too different. One of Medium’s drawbacks is that you do not own your blog and content. But in WordPress, as you set up and host the blog on a server that you pay for, you completely own your blog. Not only that you completely have control over your blog. Nobody at WordPress has it. With Medium, you cannot have such privileges. You can also use your own custom domain in WordPress without any issues.
When moving to customization, WordPress has a lot of options when compared to Medium. Because Medium has zero customization for a blog. Just a standard style. They have a bunch of choices of themes for free that you can try. Not only that WordPress has a dashboard with all the essentials on it. As soon as you come to the dashboard of WordPress, you can get an idea of what is going on with your blog. WordPress has a plugin repository where you can choose plugins and install them to your blog: these plugins help you to improve the functionality of your blog. For example commenting plugins, spam detectors, SEO plugins, etc. For instance the SEO plugin: Yoast.
Though Medium is all about writing content publishing it and making it available to potential readers, WordPress is much more versatile in blogging. You can create any type of blog you want with WordPress. It can be a personal blog, eCommerce store, product blog, news blog, etc.
WordPress’s editor, Gutenberg editor, not only has the same formatting options as Medium’s editor, including the ability to embed pictures, videos, and GIFS, but it also has blocks for adding columns, buttons, image galleries, tables, and shortcodes to your posts and pages. It’s also a drag-and-drop editor, so you can create posts and pages faster.
You have to pay a few dollars a month for a custom domain and hosting in WordPress. It is a pretty great investment. If you are not satisfied with WordPress. then search for WordPress alternatives.
At last…
These Medium alternatives are different from each other and they might suit you according to the type of blog, your intentions of blogging, etc. Make sure to choose the most suitable one considering the above-mentioned points. Let us know how your experiences went with these Medium alternatives by commenting down below. Plus, let us know if you have any questions or suggestions by commenting down below. Happy Blogging!
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