I think Cleric subclass is more practical than Bard for a few reasons.
-Bless Spell
-Self and Party Heals/Buffs
-Ability to revive fallen party members
-Easy weapon switching
-A powerful last resort nuke
Whereas, the upsides of bard are:
-Speed
-No aggro
-MP Healing
-Tambours
-Fast nukes

Speed can be replaced by drugs or other bard subs. Noise is not too important in my opinion, since you can actually tank quite well on groups of monsters of your level. MP Healing, although it is pretty cool to have, isn't a huge problem especially if you are a Robe user. Even Light Armor users don't run out of MP very often and Vigor grains can be a good solution. Tambours are pretty sweet but then again you probably aren't acting as a Warlock while you're dancing with your harp. The nukes are definitely the best part about being a bard sub, casting 1.5x faster than the Warlock nukes and doing more damage as well. Plus they have the Booming Chord, which is good for group action (or mass murdering noobs).
Cleric is pretty convenient for acting, well, as a cleric. You definitely have more tankability with Healing Cycle and Bless, and immunity with Holy Spell, too. In addition, you are not required to re-equip your shield every time you switch weapons, unlike a harp.
You stated that you don't pvp a lot: I would still pick Cleric over Bard, because a few bonuses of being a Bard can be replaced. If you don't want to farm, Bard is the least SP-intense sub out there, and you really don't need to use MP potions if you want to switch every 16 seconds to use Mana cycle. That's probably what you want to do since you are a low level who doesn't have support from high level friends/accounts. Otherwise, Cleric will keep you alive.