WordPress is the most powerful CMS platform, and it powers more than 30% of the web. So obviously there is a buzz about WordPress – good ones and bad ones. As being a WordPress Developer, I do get hear some myths about WordPress which I am about to bust in this articles.
Powering close to one third of web, employing thousands of developers to make their livelihood without doubt there are of myths around WordPress. Mostly the negatives come from the ones who haven’t used WordPress to its full extensibility or someone who have lost their clients to WordPress Developers.
I have made my career out of WordPress. Currently employed at local company as Digital WordPress Developer, I do work as WordPress Freelance Developer too. So all the points listed here in the article are genuine and honest opinions.
WordPress Website is cheap because it’s free
WordPress is open source. And it is free. But this doesn’t mean websites built on WordPress is free or it will be very cheap. WordPress does help in building websites faster and saves lot development time.
The price of any website depends upon its complexity. The less complex the website is cheaper the cost. Website cost increase with the functionalities, if you want more functionalities with your website expect to get a higher quote. Another area where you can save would be hiring a WordPress Developer from the areas where cost of living is cheaper. Doing so be careful when selecting. Go with a reputed developer who knows how WordPress works.
WordPress is cheap – WordPress is free but cost depends upon complexity of websites. But complex websites with functionalities cost money.
WordPress is just for beginners
Let me be honest, WordPress is relatively easy to learn compared to other CMS or framework. But saying so, WordPress is quiet robust and extensible.
With WordPress you can build highly functional websites such as eCommerce website, corporate websites, portals, Learning Management Systems. These type of complex websites aren’t built by just beginner developers, these websites are built in teams with lot of effort and investment.
WordPress is just for beginners – Learning WordPress is easy, but you can build solid full functional websites on WordPress which needs expertise.
WordPress doesn’t support high traffic websites
Its bit nonsense when someone says WordPress can’t handle high traffic websites when websites like news.com.au, metro.co.uk, techcrunch.com etc are built in WordPress.
Configuring WordPress for high traffic is another topic. Its quiet vast and need a fair bit of configuration. But just saying WordPress can’t handle website with high traffic is utter ignorance.
WordPress is slow
Well any website that are badly coded and built are slow. If you built website on any propriety CMS without much caring about code standard, they will be slow and clumsy no matter.
Most of the blame for WordPress being slow comes from the people that does include web developers picking some random theme and using in their or client project. If you pick some bloated WordPress Theme, with too many unwanted functions, without doubt your website will turn to mess and will be slow.
There are some really good Premium WordPress Themes, just do some research before picking one. But nothing compares to the well coded Custom WordPress Themes if you can afford to pay for a good WordPress Developer.
WordPress is dying and there is no future for WordPress
WordPress won’t be dying anytime soon. On contrary, the market share of WordPress is growing. WordPress powers more than 30 percent of web. See details here.
Saying the CMS that powers more than one third of web dying is funny.
WordPress Developer get paid less
Another miss when someone says WordPress Developer gets paid less. The fact is bad developer with less skill sets get it hard to find decent pay no matter what language or script they use.
If you are good WordPress Developer, you will get what your value is. Just improve your skills sets and add some extras that will make you stand out among other developers. Learn some web design or SEO or learn some modern JavaScript frameworks.
WordPress is just for blogging, it’s not content management System
WordPress used to be known for its use as blogging platform, but at the point of writing it’s much more than just a blogging platform. It is much more robust now, flexible and easy to extend.
WordPress had emerged as leading website content management over the time, and more and more people are interested in using in WordPress as Content Management System. The latest stats show that more than 20% of website all over the world use WordPress as CMS.
Just over the previous 6 months I have done fair few website from other Framework such as .Net, migrating to WordPress. And almost all client had been happy by the ease of use, and how easy it’s for them to manage content, most of time.
This is one of the biggest myth about WordPress. WordPress is much more flexible and extensible now.
WordPress is really easy to manage content – just like drag and drop
Most of time, the website that are planned and developed properly can be managed easily.
But a Custom Built websites with different templating structure, you might need to have a good documentation. And also it depends upon how well the overall Content Management System had been planned out and coded.
In conclusion, if the website have functionalities beyond just adding pages or blog post, except some learning time around how to use the system.
WordPress is really really easy to develop – just as dragging and dropping pre existing code
I was once talking to a probable client and when I told him an estimate on how long the development time would take, he was aghast. He told me that Hadn’t WordPress got everything ready, you just need to drop a block of readily available code?
Sometimes I do hear this kind of feedback. And also, people do ask me if using WordPress will automatically help them rank better in Google, which isn’t the case. The latest best practices around SEO had changed, and it takes a decent effort to rank for competitive keywords. But since WordPress is built around good practices around SEO, it can be very good choice to build SEO standard website, provided the website is built around good SEO practices.
Use Plugin for any functionalities
I have seen so many people even including developers using Plugins for something that is really easy to achieve.
Something functionalities can be achieve with few lines of codes and using plugin for small task like those can make website heavy as well as dependent on that particular plugin all the time.
Saying so, there are so many good plugins in the WordPress Plugin Repository. It’s always advised to do proper research when selecting a plugin.
WordPress is not secured
WordPress is an open source CMS, this means the source code of WordPress is visible to all user after downloading. But this doesn’t mean WordPress is vulnerable to security.
It’s always suggested to follow good practices when using WordPress such as:
- Selecting strong user name and password
- Updating to latest version of WordPress
- Minimising usage of plugins or at least doing some research before selecting
- Selecting a web host with good reputation
- Developing website within best practices and WordPress core
On conclusion I have written this article to cover some common myths about WordPress. WordPress had grown over the time and had built up reputation as CMS Framework too, provided how much advantage you can take out of WordPress as platform.
I had been a web developer using WordPress for few years and am just in love with WordPress. Personally, I think any website from small to medium scale, WordPress works wonders.
Conclusion
Irony is most of the accusations for WordPress comes from someone who haven’t used WordPress properly, or form someone who have lost business to WordPress, or form someone whose main priority is cost cutting and using everything that is cheap. Fact is if you use WordPress wisely for your project it can do wonders. And also WordPress may not be right framework for your project if you are thinking of highly customisable websites. Just choose your CMS or framework wisely.