There are many ways to create a website, but the WordPress content management system (CMS) is probably the most popular option available. WordPress-built sites offer many advantages and, although other CMS are available, alternative platforms fail to offer enough features and options to compete with WordPress. As professional website developers based in Cork, we make use of WordPress on a daily basis.
Some WordPress Benefits
Quick and Easy to Install
Sites created using a CMS have always been quicker and easier to build than sites created using an HTML editor, but WordPress installation can now be faster and easier than ever before because many web hosts provide “one-click” WordPress script installation. It must be noted that the same option is also offered for many other CMS though, so this should not be a primary deciding factor when choosing to say “yay” or “nay” to WordPress.
Easy to Add Fresh Content
As with any system, a learning curve is involved, but it is easy to add fresh content to a WordPress site. It’s just a case of logging into the site’s admin area and adding a new post or page. Uploading fresh media is likewise as simple. Once again though, this is true of many competing CMS.
Easy to Update
WordPress is constantly improving and the latest versions notify the webmaster whenever updates are required by placing alerts in the control panel. Updating is easy because all the webmaster needs to do is choose to update and let the system do all the work.
Plugins and Themes
The availability of numerous plugins and themes is one of the biggest WordPress benefits of all. Thousands of themes and plugins are available to download (for free) from WordPress.org and many more can be purchased from any number of other sources. This abundance of plugins and themes is probably the main reason why WordPress is often considered to be the king of CMS.
Other WordPress Benefits
- Open Source: WordPress is freely available under a GPLv2 license and can be modified and distributed without issue (as long as the restrictions of the license are adhered to). The same can be said for many WordPress plugins and themes
- The WordPress Community: The WordPress community is huge, so it is easy to find help and advice from community sites and forums.
There are, of course, many other WordPress benefits, but WordPress sites are not perfect. We’ll look at some WordPress negatives in the next article section.
Many professional website developers in Cork and Ireland often consider WordPress to be the king of content management systems (CMS) and in many ways, it reigns supreme, but nothing is perfect—and that includes WordPress. Fortunately, any WordPress negatives are amply compensated for the many benefits WordPress provides, but it’s important webmasters be aware of some of the negatives so they can make an informed choice before creating a WordPress-powered blog or website.
A Few WordPress Negatives
Must be Updated
WordPress needs to be constantly updated, as do the various themes and plugins. Regular updates usually offer various improvements on previous releases, but they also often incorporate fixes to bugs and address security issues, so it is important that sites are always kept up to date.
Content Editor
The standard WordPress editor does not always make it easy for webmasters to get their pages to display in the way they wish them to and it lacks some features that could be useful. It’s not a huge issue, and a little perseverance can solve most problems, but the existing editor only deserves marks of about seven out of ten.
Not Optimized for High Traffic
Standard WordPress releases are more than capable of handling the amount of traffic received by the majority of small to medium-sized websites, but sites that regularly get high volumes of traffic or ones that receive a sudden spike in traffic may encounter problems.
Database Reliant
WordPress stores most of its data on a MySQL database. This is a WordPress negative because such reliance can lead to sites becoming unavailable if the database develops a problem or if the communication paths between WordPress and its database are interrupted. If this happens site visitors will be greeted by an error message, such as the dreaded, “Error Establishing a Database Connection”. Such problems often resolve themselves quickly, but if they do not specialist assistance may be required. Databases also need to be backed up regularly, but several WordPress Plugins have been designed to do this automatically.
WordPress Negatives: the Bottom Line
WordPress isn’t perfect, but any problems it may present are more than compensated for by other the benefits it provides and the abundance of plugins and themes available. WordPress isn’t the most popular CMS for nothing. It’s earned it no.1 status. When updates are applied in a timely fashion and the database is backed up regularly webmasters should rarely encounter enough WordPress negatives to be an issue.
