How to choose between blogging services, Wordpress, TypePad or Blogger

This weekend was evaluating some blogs for my own use.
In this evaluation I looked at following services

• TypePad
• Wordpress
• Blogger

Considering features TypePad looks very impressive with lots of integration from third party to include content from Amazon, Skype, ProStores, Technorati and Pandora. TypePad is a paid blogging service starting at $4.95 per month, but basic version is limited in functionality like just allowing 1 blog for user. Since I am not planning to become a profession blogger and didn't expect any income from my posts. I am not interested to pay monthly fee when I can find similar service for free. So I dropped idea to create an account on TypePad.

Wordpress on the other hand is a free service and very very easy to use. It has wide verity of template to choose from and provide many good features which will be useful in long run. Like you can categorize your post which will be helpful for your readers as well as for you if you write on regular basis. You can also create sub categories which can come handful. Another nice feature for wordpress is that you can install it on your server if your server support PHP and mySql, but that would be useful only if you are advance user and keep all the data in your control. With own installation you can add and customize the solution specific to needs.

With all these features and easy of use it is a great site for users. I was very happy for the first hour. But as soon I tried to add some content from other site using javascript and html(specially iFrame, a technologies behind widgets revolution from Google, netvibes and lot other sites) it failed to display those. After goggling on this problem I found that wordpress stripes all javascript/html changes from your post, so you cann't include this widgets on your post until you install it on your server. Same issue came when I tried to integrate with feedburner. Even with these limitation it is great site for mainstream users and I strongly recommend it for anyone who doesn't have basic knowledge of programming or doesn't need advance features.

Since I am a software programmer by profession I was wanted to something more than just plain blogging( and obviously free of charge). So I continued my search and moved to next to next site in my list.

Blogger.com is another free site owned and operated by Google. It is also decent site, but not as user friendly as Wordpress. Blogger template collection also seems limited w.r.t wordpress. On the other hand blogger provides you option to edit html which is a big plus over competition specially if you know how to decode html. Blogger also have option to customize your different section to your post. e.g. you can add list of your favorite website or movies or books to it. Also it is pretty nice integration with other google services like adsense, feedburner etc. Also it doesn't block inclusion of different widgets on your page.

I finally decided to stick with Google. Mainly due to its greater integration flexibility, better customization and cost benefits.