For a new personal site I would say go for D7. D7 is a lot more mature now than D6 was when it was launched. Many of the popular modules are in the process of being ported and there are < 40 critical bugs left.

Most of the more difficult bugs were in the upgade path from D6 rather than core D7 functionality.

Why not try out Drupal Gardens first. It is hosted by Aquia, which is the company owend by the guy who started Drupal, they think D7 is ok. (Eating their own dog food).

Jump to the water !
Use Drupal, since its capabilies are really unlimited, and the community is strong and work fast.
Which version ?
I beleive it will take a while till the majority of the sites, modules, themes and developers will pass to 7. Although the move from 5 to 6 was (at least for me) suprisingly fast, I feel that nowadays Drupal as a whole is much bigger, and the move from 6 to 7 will take longer.

So, it depends what you want to achieve -

• Starting with 7 now will mean you will lead, but will mean you won t be able to use all of the existing modules, etc. It will give you a good start, but won t be very useful to your customers/users.
• Starting with 6 will mean much stronger base, but will eventually require learning 7, and maybe upgrading.

My bottom line - 6, so you will be able to start right away.
As I see it, 6 Won t disappear very fast.

Good Luck,
Shushu

Drupal Gardens is regular Drupal 7 as SaaS and a whole lot more - See this FAQ about what Drupal Gardens adds to Drupal 7. Best part is it is based on OpenSaaS which means you can export your site s database, files, and source code at any time and host it yourself if you ever outgrow Drupal Gardens.

Disclaimer: I am the VP engineering at Acquia, but don t listen to me, listen to our customers - just click the "Customer quotes" link on the footer of the Drupal Gardens site

NO WAY!

We speaking about alpha not a release candidate

They are still critical security issue with D7.

If it s for you personal blog, why not but forget about a serious website.