New to blogging but short of cash? These are the best free blogging platforms that you can start your blog with. In this round-up, we explore five of the best blogging platforms for newcomers who want to get a free blog up and running. Off you go!

Wordpress

If the folks over at WordPress are to be believed (and they seem suitably trustworthy sorts), it now 'powers' over a fifth of the internet. It's easy to see why: on WordPress.com, you can rapidly create a new blog entirely for free, with a reasonable amount of customisation. Alternatively, most web hosts provide WordPress as a free single-click install, and more information on what's possible there can be found at WordPress.org. Newcomers might find WordPress a touch bewildering initially, but it's the best free option for anyone wanting a great mix of power, customisation and usability. To help you out, we've rounded up the best WordPress tutorials and the best free WordPress themes to get you started.

Tumblr

To some extent, Tumblr feels a bit like a halfway house between WordPress and Twitter. It offers more scope than the latter, but tends to favour rather more succinct output than the former. Decent mobile apps make it easy to submit content to a Tumblr blog from anywhere, though, and it's reasonably easy to customise your theme to make it your own. Tumblr also has a strong social undercurrent, via a following model combined with notes and favourites. Although be mindful that the service has quite a few porn bots lumbering about, which may give the faint-of-heart a bit of a shock should they check every favourite off of their posts.

Blogger

You'd hope with a name like 'Blogger' that Blogger would be a decent free service for blogging. Fortunately, it is. Sign in with your Google ID, and you can have a blog up and running in seconds, which can then be customised with new themes. It is, however, a Google service, so be a touch wary, given how abruptly that company sometimes shuts things down that millions of people were happily using.

Medium

Medium is the brainchild of Twitter's founders, and appears to be their attempt to do for 'longreads' what they once did for microblogging. The result is a socially-oriented place that emphasises writing, although within an extremely locked-down set-up. It's a place to blog if you want your words to be taken seriously, and if you favour a polished, streamlined experience. But if you're big on customisation and control, look elsewhere.

Ghost

Something slightly different for our final entry. Unlike the others on this list, Ghost is only free if you download and install it yourself; use the Ghost site and you pay on the basis of traffic. However, this system differentiates itself in other important ways: it's entirely open source, and while writing you get a live preview of how your post will end up. You need to be technically minded for this one, then, but it's a worthy alternative to WordPress if you're happy to get your hands dirty and have your own web space that's awaiting a blog.