WordPress plugins are cool.
WordPress plugins are awesome.
But WordPress plugins can also be your worst enemy!
A Few Things to Keep in Mind
When you’re first setting up your WordPress site, it’s important not to go crazy with your plugins. You want to make sure you use as few as possible.
Here’s why:
Too many plugins will slow down your website
For every plugin you’re using in WordPress, it sends a request to your server. The more requests, the longer it will take your site to load.
Some WordPress plugins have security issues
A common mistake made by WordPress users is looking to plugins for all their needs and desires. Unfortunately, there are plugins out there that have security issues. Although it only takes one leaky plugin to make your website unsecure, why increase your risk by jamming up your site with a crap load of unneeded plugins?
Conflicts
There it is. One word. Conflicts. The more plugins you have, the greater chance you have with plugins interfering with one another. In fact, one of the first things you do when troubleshooting an error with WordPress itself or theme, is by deactivating all your plugins. Why? So you can try to isolate and find a plugin conflict. Make life easier, trim down those plugins if you can.
Conclusion
The actual number of plugins you should use is not concrete. A really basic business website could get away with only one or two while something more advanced may need a dozen or so. This is why I like using a solid theme, like Standard by 8BIT, since many of the functions I want/need a website to have is baked into the theme. I don’t need to worry about Standard conflicting with itself, right!?!
Also, you may find solutions like Jetpack a nice plugin, as it is packed full of functions that are all wrapped-up into one plugin. Again, you don’t have to worry about all of these elements conflicting with one another, either!
BONUS TIP!
If you already have your WordPress site up and running, go look at your list of plugins. Can you get rid of any? If you add one here or there of a year or so, your list of plugins may balloon without even realizing it! So, give your list of plugins a good hard look and see if you can deactivate and delete some plugins!
[Image via Kaje]
Dustin W. Stout says
I go through regularly and check to see if I can get rid of any plugins. Good habit to have.
Eric Dye says
Agreed.
Chris Wilson says
For a long time I used a principle of no more than 10 plugins and every time I install one I try to get rid of one. It works really well but I am now around the 12 mark :S
Correct me If I’m wrong but can’t inactive plugins still slow your site down?
Eric Dye says
As long as their inactive, you should be fine as it’s not getting hooked in. They do, however, leave some drips of info in your database, even after you delete them sometimes.
James Cooper says
Agreed that too many plugins can kill your site – but sometimes it’s not the plugins fault – some hosts don’t help either! A certain large hosting company with the initials DH has driven me mad with it’s bonkers configuration!
They bumped a client’s site onto VPS because it was ‘too much’ for shared hosting. And then even on VPS there was no end of trouble – and DH’s answer was ‘buy more RAM’ to everything… The site was pretty small and got a couple fo thousand pageloads a day top and had a very small memory footprint (and cached and optimised to the max). The issue was the fact that their servers don’t have memory swap limit, they just continue to run *everything* at max until the server falls over and say it’s the site’s fault! (and their hosting also really didn’t like jetpack…)
I generally use a host with the initials HG and the only problem I’ve had with them (on shared) was when a client had over 50(!) plugins running including several memory gobblers like YARPP and about every social one you could have! I had a chat with the client – and when they understood they really didn’t need all those social plugins – all was well!
Eric Dye says
Feel free to use actual names, James, so we know who to avoid. 😉
James Cooper says
OK, Dreamhost – BAD; Hostgator = GOOD!
Eric Dye says
No that’s more like it … 😉
Mark Robinson says
I’m having similar issues with a client on Site5 only their support team aren;t very helpful in helping us to identify the bad bits of code.
Anyone got any good server monitoring solutions for WordPress sites?
Eric Dye says
I would be interested, too. Although Site5 is managed hosting, you can’t expect them to manage your WordPress install. There are, however, some managed WordPress solutions cropping up here and here. Very interesting … 🙂
Deby says
May I just ask about plugins. I am worried too about load speed, although as a newbie I don’t know much about it. But I do try to restrict my plugins. If I keep the plugin in my directory but have it deactivated until I want to use it – is that OK? Or should I delete it and then re-install if I want to use it.
For example I use a broken link checker and WP Optimize, both of which I run once every 2 weeks and then deactivate. Am I doing the right thing, or wasting my time and I should leave then running? Thanks
Eric Dye says
As long as you’re still using them, deactivating is fine; however, I think you can keep WP Optimize activated all the time. As for Broken Link Checker, this is a real database resource slasher. Use it sparingly as you already are, or use a broken link checker that runs outside of WordPress.
Ernest says
Great discussion, and I read an article recently that speaks to the coding of the plugin that may be the real culprit. Plugins coded properly, not necessarily just effectively, will not slow down the site. In other words, there are many plugins available that work, but that doesn’t mean they are coded correctly. Some websites have many plugins and still retain better speed than websites with 5 plugins. My understanding of this article is basically that the quality of the plugin, is what we should be concerned with. We all realize that the number of free wordpress themes offered, leads to many issues for those willing to use those themes. Premium themes work more efficiently, with greater functionality, integration, and security. Well that goes for plugins as well.
Eric Dye says
Yes, but even when everything is coded well, having too many plugins will slow your site down. It’s a good idea to routinely re-evaluate the usefulness of the plugins you’re using.