Substack or Medium; Which is Better?
My Perception of How Medium and Substack Compare
As I recently expanded from Medium to Substack I started to wonder; Which one is better? While I haven’t had much time on Substack, I wanted to share some of my observations on the differences and similarities between the two.
Medium
Pros:
Writing Experience: Writing on Medium is straightforward and intuitive.
Algorithm: Medium’s algorithm does a pretty good job of pushing work to a variety of audiences.
Community: Medium’s community is engaging and supportive.
Publications: Publication access on Medium is straightforward to figure out.
Cons:
Spammers: The number of people who follow for follow or spam comments to get more attention is excessive.
Monetization: Monetization (as I’ve heard) on Medium has been slowed down significantly due to spammers who manipulate the system.
Membership Requirements: Many articles require some kind of subscription to Medium which takes away the point of gaining a larger audience, however, this is reasonable considering Medium is a business.
Overall Impression:
Medium has been a good fit for me and even though I’ve had my struggles with it I find that it has always been very intuitive for me as a new writer.
Substack
Pros:
Community: Of the few people I’ve interacted with on Substack, most interactions have shown the incredible community.
Notes: The ability to make small posts or notes is a really unique feature that I think is good for promoting articles or supporting other authors.
Writing Experience: I like Substack as a writing platform because of its intuitiveness.
100% Free Experience: By comparison to Medium, the availability to read all articles without membership is very helpful.
Cons:
Spammers: Under the notes section there are quite a few people who will post strings of only 3 words which defeats the purpose of sharing.
Traction: I’ve had a more difficult time finding traction on Substack than Medium.
Publication Access: While I am not completely familiar with the publication process on Substack, I have yet to figure out how to do so.
Monetization: Once again, while there is the ability to pledge on Substack to support writers, I think Medium’s Monetization process is a little bit better.
Overall Impression:
Substack is more accessible to readers and writers than Medium, however, starting on Substack has proved more difficult for me.
While Medium and Substack both have their benefits and flaws, being able to post on both has allowed me to immerse myself in different communities of writers with two applications having very different features. I find great joy in writing on both, but what do you think? Substack or Medium?
If you’re willing to please support both my Substack and Medium accounts! Any tips for expanding on Medium and Substack would be greatly appreciated as a young writer!
