People have been blogging publicly since the beginning of the internet, but anonymous blogging platforms have been gaining in popularity over the last several years.
With more people aware of and worried about privacy concerns than ever before, these platforms provide a safer way to express your thoughts without attaching your name or other personal information to the content.
We’ve compiled our definitive list of the best anonymous blogging platforms and also which ones will best suit your needs, but before we jump into that, it may help to give some background.
What is anonymous blogging?
Think of anonymous blogging like an author who uses a pseudonym. Authors have done this for centuries to protect their identities.
Fast forward to the relatively recent world of blogging, and it provides a great way to discuss sensitive topics without feeling like you may be personally attacked for an opinion or even a question you may have.
But it doesn’t just have to be sensitive in the sense of potentially offending someone – a great example of someone using an anonymous blogging platform to provide information they would not feel safe sharing otherwise is a personal finance blogger who shares an exact breakdown of their net worth to help their readers understand how to diversify their investments. Obviously, someone COULD share this information with identifiable information attached, but an anonymous blog would allow you to share this insight without fear of being targeted or attacked in any way.
Can I blog anonymously?
You absolutely can! In fact, anyone can set up an anonymous blog for free. There are certain paid platforms that offer a few more features, but that’s definitely not required.
Depending on what type of experience you’re looking for, there are options for pretty much anyone, including both desktop and mobile platforms, as well as both long and short form content-focused ones. There are even niche communities out there that are similar to tumblr, but anonymously written.
Reasons to start an anonymous blog
As we’ve hit on so far, anonymous blogging has the benefit of increased privacy when expressing yourself online. But in addition to that, there are many reasons this style of blogging can help you get your thoughts out.
For example, it could give you a safe way to speak on topics you may be ashamed or embarrassed to talk about in public, to voice your opinion on and have discussions about controversial topics, to keep your personal life totally separate from your blog, and even having conversations of which your workplace may not approve.
Reasons not to start an anonymous blog
With the good always comes at least some bad, and there are definitely some things to consider when deciding whether or not to create an anonymous blog.
To start, despite mentioning how it’s a way to discuss topics your workplace might not agree with, that does not give you free reign to trash talk your company, speak hate towards another group, or in any way attack anyone else. There can still be consequences for your actions, and so you need to consider the legality and ethics of what you write about.
You should also be very cognizant of any personally identifying information you provide in your posts because if enough bits and pieces are revealed, it’s always possible your identity could be discovered. So be sure you’re extra careful, and also ok if you are outed.
This probably goes without saying, but if your goal is to be famous, then writing anonymously probably isn’t the way to go. This is only referring to recognition and fame and is NOT to say that anonymous bloggers can’t make a great living, and we’ll get into that right now.
Do anonymous blogs make money?
It’s 100% possible to earn money from an anonymous blog! The work involved can be a little tougher than having a regular blog, but there are still multiple ways to generate revenue.
One common way is to write sponsored content. This is where a company will pay you to promote their products or services in an organic way on your blog. Keep in mind that you’ll have to reveal your identity to the companies you work with, but you can arrange a nondisclosure agreement so they never out you to the public.
Another way is through affiliate marketing. If you can generate enough traffic to your blog, using affiliate links to promote products or services for a percentage of each sale is a great way to earn some money.
You can also use Google Adwords to add display ads to your anonymous blog. Once you build up more monthly visits you’ll be able to apply for higher paying ad networks, but Google is still an awesome place to start!
And finally, once you build up some credibility in your niche, you can reach out to see if businesses or other blogs are looking for guest posts. Businesses often have a blog that drives traffic, which they hope will turn into sales, and sometimes they’re receptive to having an expert guest post for them in exchange for payment.
What is the most useful blogging platform?
The short answer is that there is not one anonymous blogging platform to rule them all. You need to figure out what’s best for your personal needs in terms of long or short form content, desktop or mobile access, having a built-in community or not, and many other features.
Where can I write blogs anonymously?
1) Write.as – best for concentration and no distractions
In our opinion, this is the best free anonymous blogging platform in town. Write.as simplifies the blog writing process with a super clean editor that leaves you with just your words and the page. You won’t get any of the bells and whistles that you typically get with a platform like WordPress, but if you do your best work when you close all your computer windows and focus in, then this is the perfect anonymous blogging platform for you.
The “publish” button can also be configured to post your new content to the blog, your social media channels, and even send an email to your subscribers, or any combination of those options making sharing your latest thoughts as easy as clicking a single button.
It’s also ad-free for you and your subscribers, which is great for usability, but not so great if you’re hoping to monetize through ads, so that’s something to consider.
Not only can you write anonymously, but you can create as many identities as you’d like, which can further obscure your identity.
They also make it really easy to export your posts so you’re never locked down and can always move to a different platform if you choose.
One of the only cons is that a bunch of features, including custom themes and newsletters, are behind a paywall, but at $6/month, it’s still very affordable.
2) notepin.co – best combo notebook/blog platform
notepin.co is unique in the sense that it blends the spur-of-the-moment writing and posting of telegra.ph (see below) with the option to create a full-on blog. The main downside is that the best and most desired features for bloggers are behind a paywall, but at $11/yr and $29/yr, respectively for the pro and blogging plans, it’s still extremely affordable.
The free plan basically just allows you to use text and embed a youtube video if you want. If you’d like to insert photos, customize your theme, access night mode, use a custom domain, create an email list, use google analytics, customize SEO options, and a few other options, you’ll have to upgrade to a paid plan.
Like some of the other platforms, your posts are not indexed by search engines, so people need your domain in order to find your blog. And despite the annual fee, it’s still a great minimal anonymous blogging platform.
3) WordPress – best all-around blog and unmatched customization options
WordPress is the gold standard in the blogging world with nearly unlimited customization options, plugins, templates, SEO checklists, and anything else you can think of. You may not have even considered it as an anonymous blogging platform, given its popularity, but it’s definitely possible!
You just have to be careful about how you sign up and pay for things if you want to be totally anonymous. The first step is to be sure to use a temp-mail address to sign up and create your blog. Be sure to avoid gmail, Yahoo, and other popular email services that require your personal information.
Next up, when it comes to payment, you absolutely cannot use your credit card, PayPal, or anything else directly connected to your bank accounts if you wish to remain anonymous. Instead, be sure to use a proxy name and pay for everything including your domain and hosting using cryptocurrency. This way your transactions are not traceable back to you.
Keep in mind that basically all paid WordPress plugins will also need to be purchased using cryptocurrency, but not all developers will accept it, so your options may be somewhat limited. But even so, you’ll have one of the fanciest anonymous blogs on the block compared to those who use the more minimal platforms mentioned in this post!
Another thing to consider is that WordPress blogs, by default, are set to be indexed by search engines. So if your goal is to be discovered, great! But if you want your writings to be more private and only visible to those you select, then one of the other platforms may be a better choice.
4) Ghost.org – best for monetization and community building
Ghost is similar to WordPress in the sense that you have lots of cool, modern themes to choose from and plugins and integrations to use and customize (Zapier is notable), but the main difference is that Ghost is designed specifically for creators and publishers.
They have an emphasis on building and monetizing your community with built-in features like email list building and automated newsletters with your recent posts. You can even adjust the frequency of these newsletters depending on what each individual subscriber prefers.
The downside is that it’s a paid service with no free plan, so depending on the size of your audience, the cost can get pretty hefty (like $2,000 per year if you have 350,000 subscribers). But most of us aren’t that big, and luckily plans start at just $9/month for up to 500 subscribers. But still, if you start to scale quickly, you could start racking up a big bill.
If you decide this is the platform for you, just be sure to follow the same steps as described in our WordPress section and take all the necessary precautions with payments and email addresses.
5) txt.fyi – best minimal platform
This anonymous blogging platform is as minimal as it gets. It’s similar to telegra.ph (see below), but literally all you can do is use text with basic Markdown formatting. According to the site description, it’s “good for short stories, not-short-enough tweets and adventures” so you can give your thoughts a permanent, yet private place on the internet.
The privacy element is two-fold – first off, all posts on txt.fyi are set to no index, so the search engine scrapers will not find them. And secondly, as a result of that, the URL is required in order to access each post so you have full control over who can read your content.
One downside is that you can’t create a blog with history or links to your other posts in one centralized location, so it’s more of a one-off writing platform than it is a permanent home, if that’s what you’re looking for.
6) Telegra.ph – best for spur of the moment posts and easy sharing
Telegra.ph is an interesting concept and has its use cases, but the main downside is that it’s not really a permanent home for you and your blog.
When you visit the site, you’re instantly greeted with a text editor, which allows you to enter a title, whatever pseudonym you want to go by, and the body text. You can embed youtube/vimeo videos and upload photos to go with your writing, and when you click the “publish” button, it creates a one-off url to that post.
This makes it extremely easy to share, however, you do not have a home page of your own or even a post history, so if people want to read more from you, they’d have to be able to find the individual links to your other posts. This also means that if you lose one of the URLs, you most likely will lose that post forever.
We included it in this list because it’s still a really efficient way to jump into writing straight away. Sometimes, when creativity strikes, you just want to be able to jump into writing without any barriers or distractions and get your thoughts out, and Telegra.ph is perfect for this.
Lyfster is an Android-only app that’s kind of similar to Twitter in the sense that you share thoughts anything going on in your life in short posts. There is a built-in community, so you can connect with others or keep things totally private.
They give you the option to be anonymous when you’re using the platform, but that’s not the default, so make sure you set your profile correctly when you sign up.
It will definitely feel familiar to those who use social media platforms frequently, and the overall vibe is much more casual than a typical blog, but if you’re looking for more of a diary or to connect with people and have conversations anonymously, this could be a fun, mobile-friendly option!
Final Thoughts About the Best Anonymous Blogging Platforms
So these are our definitive recommendations for the best ways to blog anonymously! As you can probably tell, the “best” one really comes down to how you want to blog. If you want all the bells and whistles of a normal blog as well as your posts to be indexed and searchable in search engines, maybe you go with WordPress. If you’re looking to make your blog into a business and wish to monetize your mailing list, maybe you choose Ghost.org. Or maybe you just want a personal blog or diary to share with select people like friends and family, in which case write.as or notepin.co might be your best bet. Whatever you decide, the best thing you can do is just get started!
Want more blogging tips? We’ve got a whole section here!
