White Printer Paper on a Vintage Typewriter WordPress is undoubtedly one of the most popular content management systems (CMS) globally, powering over 40% of all websites and favoured by many website designers. However, despite its popularity, WordPress might not be the ideal platform for every website.

Not heard of it? What is Wordpress?

Wordpress is a free content-management system that anyone can use to build a website. It started life as a blogging tool, and gradually morphed into a full website system, and with the addition of plugins can now even be used to power a shopping site.

So why do so many website designers use it?

The good bits

Cost - it's free. Wordpress is free as, as in, anyone can download it and make a website with it. For most web designers, why build a website from scratch if most of the work is done for you?
Extensive plugins - There are thousand of plugins website designers can add to a Wordpress site, including an eCommerce plugin called WooCommerce. This saves website designers time, as any functionality they need to add to a site can usually be added just by adding the right plugin.
Themes - Why go to the trouble of making a website look nice, if a website designer can just add a pre-designed theme. Many are again free, but the better ones tend to have a cost associated.
Popularity - Wordpress is one of the most popular website systems in the world, and for many website designers, that popularity is reason enough to use it. Stick with the herd and don't be adventurous!
Coding experience - You don't need to be a website designer, or need to know how to code to make a website with Wordpress. That means many website designers don't actually do much, just a few mouse clicks to add a WordPress theme and add a few plugins, then copy and paste in your content, and charge you a grand for the privilege - not exactly web design! You may as well do it yourself and save some money.

The cons

But let's consider some of the downsides (of which there are far more than we can list here) of using Wordpress for your new website.

1. Security Concerns

Vulnerability to Attacks: WordPress sites are frequent targets for hackers due to their widespread use. The platform's popularity makes it an attractive target, and vulnerabilities in themes, plugins, or outdated core files can be exploited. As the software is open-source, any hackers can study the code and design software to target it. There are articles in the tech press every week like this. Try a Google search for "wordpress vulnerabilities" or visit a site such as https://patchstack.com/database and you'll see how much information exists about WordPress vulnerabilities, which many website designers would rather you didn't know about. As of the time of writing, there are currently 18717 vulnerabilities, most of which have been fixed, but as you can see from that website, 20 or so more new vulnerabilities are found each day.

Every website build with Wordpress will need at least a few plugins, even if it's as simple as a contact form. Most small websites have 10-15 plugins. These plugins are in effect small (or large) programs, written by other companies around the world, and these plugins have to be regularly updated by their authors. Effectively, every website build on Wordpress is allowing other companies to keep modifying the software (and therefore the website), and most of these plugins access the website's database, which is a security risk. You can set the plugins to automatically update, but in some cases, that can lead to catastrophic failure if plugins clash and become incompatible with each other

Maintenance Overhead: To maintain a secure WordPress site, regular updates to the core software, themes, and plugins are necessary. This ongoing maintenance can be time-consuming and requires a certain level of technical expertise, unless it's set to be automatic, which has its own problems.

2. Performance Issues

Resource-Intensive: WordPress can be resource-heavy, especially when using multiple plugins or large themes. This can lead to slow loading times, which negatively impact user experience and search engine rankings.

3. Complexity and Learning Curve

Customisation Complexity: While WordPress is user-friendly for basic sites, extensive customisation often requires coding knowledge in PHP, CSS, and JavaScript. Most website designers who use Wordpress do not do this, and simple use existing plugins and themes produced by others to build websites.

Plugin Overload: The necessity to rely on numerous plugins for added functionality can lead to compatibility issues, making site management more complex and challenging.

4. Cost Considerations

Hidden Costs: While WordPress itself is free, there are hidden costs associated with running a WordPress site. These include premium themes, plugins, hosting, and potential developer fees for customisation and maintenance.

Quality Control: The vast array of available plugins and themes varies greatly in quality. Premium options often come at a cost, and finding reliable, well-supported free options can be challenging.

5. Scalability Issues

Scaling Challenges: WordPress might not be the best option for websites expecting to scale rapidly. High-traffic sites can experience performance bottlenecks, requiring significant optimisation efforts and potentially expensive hosting solutions.

Content Management for Large Sites: Managing a large volume of content can become cumbersome. While WordPress is fine for blogs and small to medium-sized websites, large-scale content management might require more robust solutions.

6. Specific Use Cases Where WordPress Falls Short

E-commerce: While WordPress offers e-commerce capabilities through plugins like WooCommerce, dedicated e-commerce platforms are far better suited to shopping sites, as they have been designed specifically for the purpose.

Complex Web Applications: For websites requiring complex functionalities beyond what plugins can offer (e.g., custom web applications, extensive databases, real-time data processing), there are many better solutions.

High Customisation Needs: Websites needing highly unique designs and functionalities will find WordPress limiting. Custom-built websites using modern web development frameworks provide greater flexibility and control.

Conclusion

While WordPress remains a useable platform for many types of websites, it's not a one-size-fits-all solution. Security concerns, performance issues, hidden costs, scalability challenges, and limitations in certain use cases can make it less suitable for some projects. Quite simply, it's a dated platform and there are now a wealth of better options. It's essential to carefully evaluate your specific needs and consider alternative platforms that might offer better performance, security, and scalability tailored to your requirements. If your current web designer just offers you WordPress, trust your instincts and look elsewhere.

At Deal Website Design, we've built lots of custom websites and applications and have plenty of experience in complex website design. We've even built our own website content management system which we use to enable all our website customers to modify their own websites.

We don't use WordPress at all for our sites, as we prefer a more flexible and secure solution.

If you want a more powerful and flexible website, talk to us today about our unique website editing system which is free for all our customers, gives you more control over your website, and is easier to use than WordPress.