WordPress remained no 1 website development platform for years and we saw more WordPress websites on the Internet than websites. But why are we not recommending it to our clients anymore?
There are many benefits of using WordPress, it’s a great software and the whole community behind it. But today we want to specifically discuss issues we are facing today with WP websites and why we recommend building with other technologies.
SPEED
The speed of a website is very important today for better usability. If your website does not load up in a few seconds for a first-time user on it – big chances are that you will lose the user. WordPress is built with PHP which is a server-side language and has a slower response time as compared to JavaScript-based websites which process most of the data on the front end. Such as applications built with Node.js are much faster than PHP.
Often we use page builders with WordPress such as Elementor and others to easily design pages on a WP website. These page builders are full-scale applications equipped with a lot of widgets, templates, and styling options. It comes with a price of speed as it overloads your site and which can result in slow performance on standard hostings.
Today the majority of the end users, approximately more than 80% users are accessing websites with a cell phone. A cell phone has less processing power as compared to a desktop system or laptop. Websites that are bulky, WP sites with a lot of plugins will work very slowly on a cell phone.
SECURITY
If you are running a WP site on default configuration it’s likely to be hacked and you may not even know about it. Since WP is so popular and its Open Source hackers know where exactly the configuration files are located on the server. They can easily access and crack these files if you do not take extra security measures.
Secondly, new updates for WP and the plugins keep coming in frequently, and if you do not keep your site up to date that results in security issues for your website and also adds additional maintenance/upgradation work on the site.
MAINTENANCE
As explained previously we need to keep WP sites up to date when new versions for WP, and or the theme and plugins are released. It’s an ongoing task that is necessary as well as if an update from any of the components is not compatible with your other site component can result in errors and issues with your site. That makes WP sites fragile and requires ongoing maintenance and quality assurance. So it may be easier to set up a WordPress website but harder to maintain and keep it alive.
Why some developers would insist on a WP site than other options?
Mainly because a lot of people are familiar with WordPress and also beginners and non-technical developers can build websites with WordPress without coding and add additional functionality using plugins. That’s why they would prefer WordPress not realizing the issues they may face in the longer.
If you run a WordPress website and are looking for professionals to secure and optimize it – we can help you. Or if you want to move from WordPress to custom development and or some other JavaScript-based CMS platform such as built with Node.js – we can help with that as well.
English
Italiano