The world is full of websites. There are websites for individuals, organizations, companies, hobbies, groups, and everything in between. While there are many types of sites and they can be made in various ways, a popular way to build and manage a website is with a content management system (CMS).
A CMS is an application that allows just about anyone to build and maintain a site, all without having to know how to code. While there are many options when it comes to which CMS to use, the most popular is WordPress. It is used by hundreds of millions of websites from all over the world.
It is a very popular option and will work for many people, but it isn’t perfect. Whether you decide to outsource WordPress development or handle it in-house, here are some of the advantages and disadvantages of using WordPress for your website CMS.
Advantages of Using WordPress
One of the biggest benefits of WordPress is that it is incredibly user-friendly. It is easy to create content through the CMS, and navigating through the site is incredibly simple. Everything from uploading content, to organizing it, is very easy to learn and understand. Even if you haven’t managed a site before, you shouldn’t experience any issues. The site you make will also be very responsive and generally work well on many devices.
Another advantage that WordPress has is its thousands of different themes. No matter how you want your site to look or be presented, there is likely a theme that you will adore. While some themes have a cost associated with them, plenty of them is completely free to use.
The cost of using WordPress is also incredibly affordable, and there are many available plugins that can be used to improve your site. WordPress also has a very large community of users who are very helpful, and thousands of guides have been posted around the internet. It is simply a powerful, yet simple, CMS that is more than enough for what most people need.
Disadvantages of Using WordPress
While WordPress is popular and will work for most people, there are some potential drawbacks worth mentioning. One of the biggest is that WordPress can be challenging to update at times. If you use multiple different plugins or themes, updates to one of them can cause issues for the site as a whole. So while the customization is great, it can be cumbersome to make changes after something goes wrong due to an update or compatibility issues.
Because WordPress is open-source, it is potentially vulnerable to attacks from hackers. To reduce the risk, always know the themes and plugins you choose to use on your site and use proper security precautions.
Also, when using many themes or plugins that are code-heavy or full of unnecessary code, there is a chance of your website speed slowing down. Slow loading times can hurt user experience, and make your site annoying to navigate in some cases.
In conclusion, we hope that this guide has been able to help you learn whether or not you should use WordPress for your website CMS or not.
