Hi there,
‘out of the box’ the two are not too dissimilar – for example the Dispatch site in the GP Site Library:
https://gpsites.co/dispatch/
The first section below the Header Grid is WP Show Posts which is comparable to the Blog which is GP Theme – there is a little CSS at play but thats more for the style of the site then out of necessity.
The WPSP Pro version does provide more control over font sizes and colors which is where the free version would require CSS.
Lets us know if theres anything particular you need help with.