Why not use WordPress? Top 5 negatively overhyped opinions.

#1 Performance

WordPress is slow.

Most common as well as most annoying. I’ve been already working on many optimisation cases and believe me - most of them lead to one simple conclusion. The software does what we tell them to do so if WordPress is slow, that's because someone has forced it to do so. This can be caused by a number of factors, but there are three most common:

“Plugin Driven Development” - There are already plugins for everything and that’s something that many developers like most. Need to implement multilingual for e-commerce that has 5 products? Let’s use WPML. Security concerns? Let’s use WordFence. Facebook sharing button? Plugin! Of course, it must be the one that provides 80 other sharing buttons that we won’t ever use.
“What the eyes don’t see, the heart doesn’t regret” - Querying database 10 000 times in one template? What’s the problem? Installing 15 huge visual dependencies for something that we can do from scratch with a small effort? Sounds fine. Responsive images? Who needs them?
“I need everything” Need to make money? Let’s add as many ads as possible. Let's also add Hotjar, Facebook Pixel, Google Optimize and 10 other tracking scripts because SEO company said that's required.

There is nothing wrong if they happen for achieving a specific goal. For example, when we build MVP so time and price are more important than quality. I also don't want to say that we should not use any external solutions at all. If we use only carefully selected solutions that are really needed and do not slow down the system - that's ok. Unfortunately, in most cases, someone didn't want to think about the consequences and do their job well so as a result of using the techniques described above they get a system slow by default.

Due to this, the optimization process became the process of digging in a big ball of mud and removing tons of plugins whose features are used maybe 20%, rewriting major theme parts, optimizing database queries and reducing the number of external visual libraries or external integrations. Those processes should be taken care of from the beginning of development, not when the page is deployed and the client has already paid.

When someone deliberately forces the site to do more than it can handle, such as running too many plugins or customizations that are not optimized for performance - we can't be surprised that the system works slowly. And complaining about such cases is super annoying because it’s blaming something that is completely in our hands. It’s like blaming Fiat 500 for driving slowly if someone filled it with 500 kg of weight. That’s our fault that we don’t think about what we’re doing, not WordPress.

#2 Security

WordPress is not secure.

While it is true that WordPress may be less secure by default due to its open-source nature, I do believe that it can be secure enough to allow us to feel confident about our website's security. It's also true that many WordPress pages have experienced malware attacks, but this is not surprising given that more than 40% of websites use this CMS.

In my experience, many "hacking" cases are often caused by careless or reckless behaviour. For example, once a large website that was supposed to be "strongly secured with plugins" was hacked because it shared FTP with smaller pages that no one bothered to secure. Another incident occurred because of a "no need to change passwords" policy, and yet another because of using numerous untested plugins.

If we rely too heavily on plugins for everything, we may be less secure, as there is more code that may contain security vulnerabilities. Similarly, if we do not change passwords frequently or set inappropriate directory permissions because someone somewhere wrote that 777 permissions should solve our issue with the plugin X, we risk making our website less secure.

Ultimately, the level of security of our website depends on our actions, regardless of the CMS we use. Our house also might be insecure if we won’t take attention to this. Installing a security plugin and then setting directory privileges to 777 is like buying secure window blinds for our house and leaving them open. That’s not their fault if we were being robbed.

We have many tools at our disposal to make our website infrastructure more secure, but the most important one is our brain. If we don't use it, we can't be confident in our website's security no matter what CMS we use.

#3 Purpose

WordPress is only for simple blogs.

I often hear people blame performance, security, maintenance processes, and other factors when asked why WordPress isn't suitable for more complex websites. However, I believe that the success of a website depends on our approach and decisions, not on the limitations of the platform.

Coca-Cola has invented a cure for morphine addiction, bubble wrap supposes to be wallpaper and Listerine was originally marketed as a floor cleaner. And what success have they become? Although WordPress was initially intended for blogging, it has evolved into a powerful ecosystem that allows us to create almost anything we can imagine. Of course, if we for example rely too heavily on plugins without taking care of the architecture and best practices from the beginning, we may run into issues with larger projects. That's obvious. But if we make well-thought-out decisions, we can achieve big results.

I and the team spent the past year developing a website that was originally intended to be a simple blog but expanded into something much bigger. We faced challenges due to the previous developers' use of techniques described in #1, but we overcame them by setting the bar high from the beginning and prioritizing quality and scalability. Through hard work and dedication, we designed a system that handles millions of views (per month), entries, and unique users, and does it really well! We've also successfully developed many CRM systems or other bigger applications using WordPress. And we're sure that it was worth it.

Our success is a testament to the fact that WordPress can be used for much more than just simple blogs - it all depends on us and comes down to our approach and decision-making. I'm sure that if we understand what we're doing and what impact our decisions have, we are able to achieve great results not only with blogs.

#4 Maintenance

WordPress is hard in maintaining.

Maintaining a website can be challenging, but with the right approach, it doesn't have to be. While it's easy to blame WordPress or incompatible plugins for maintenance issues, it's important to understand that our website's success ultimately relies on our actions. For instance, if we overload our website with too many plugins, we can't expect it to run smoothly/

However, based on my experience, implementing a solid architecture from the beginning can make maintenance and updates a breeze. With a well-thought-out structure, we can confidently click the "update" button without fear of negative consequences.

Głębokość dupy w jakiej się znajdujesz podczas sesji jest wprost proporcjonalna do długości chuja jakiego położyłeś na semestr.

So, let's focus on building a solid foundation and taking control of our website's success, and not on blaming WordPress for things that are in our hands.

#5 Uniqueness

WordPress is not unique.

Let's analyze the CNN's of Lebron James throwing his record-breaking point. Pay attention to the people who take photos, and basically what devices they take them with. It's not hard to find Apple devices there. So do you blame Apple for their iPhones because those are not unique? Do you blame the people there? I'm sure that not. So why you're blaming WordPress for things that are in your hands?

If uniqueness is so important to you - why won't you create something that is really unique? Does WordPress stop you? In my opinion, do not, unless you decide to use ThemeForest and Avada theme that has been used thousand times. You can build a website with React, Vue or Angular. You can add as many visual effects as possible. You can create something significantly outstanding if you have a great designer or idea for interesting components.