GEEK QUEEN
Why I Don't Use Wordpress
Jenny Marsden • Nov 05, 2019
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Why I Don't Use Wordpress
I am asked repeatedly why I don't use Wordpress and to be brutally honest, I would say that at least one client per month doesn't come over to me because I don't use Wordpress.
That's a lot of money I can hear you thinking and I'm sure you are also thinking, why don't you just do it if that is what people want??
6 Reasons Why I Don't Use Wordpress!
1. Wordpress is open source.
Simply put, that means that any developer can write plugins and extras to work on the Wordpress platform. Awesome I hear you think and yes there are over fifty thousand Wordpress plugins available. However, if you don't know, I'm from a Database and Programming background and the thought of having client websites on a platform that some wiz kid in his mum's basement can write malicious code and upload via his plugin, makes my hair stand on end.
In my mind, that's just not secure enough. Oh and beware:
2. It's not free
To be clear, yes there is a free version, however if you look at their Plan Comparison
you get almost nothing with it. Not suitable for anything that isn't a weekend blog. You need to use their business level plan before you get the Wordpress branding removed and have the plugin capability. That's A$33 per month. The ecommerce option starts at $59 per month. So, not free!
Wordpress.org is the other option available to you. Much less restrictive in terms of being able to use and add plugins and options yourself, however this option means you must host the website with a third party web host. You will have to pay for the web host yourself, and have the tech skills to create your wordpress site on a shared server. You also have to do all the installations of plugins and ensure that they are compatible with your other extra services. So much cheaper, still not free, and you have to be able to do all the techy stuff yourself.
3. You have to pay for most good plugins
A lot of plugins you might need to get the services you would like on your website are paid plugins. Once you pay for these options, again, it adds to your monthly cost. Free plugins can come with challenges and/or advertising options which leaves you not in full control of your own website.
Even if you don't pay for whatever plugin you might want to use, how do you choose one? Seriously - how? There are thousands of plugins available but how do you choose which image carousel you would like or what form plugin to use? You just have to take a leap of faith and then solve the challenges as they arise which is usually around 4pm on a Friday!
4. Wordpress has the right to your content!
I don't like the generic wording of their License clause.
They do say that it won't be displayed but still, you are saying you give them rights to it along with third parties they choose and that's just not something I think anyone should automatically agree to.
5. You are responsible for updating everything
When Wordpress releases a new update, you have to ensure you install it (for a hosted website). Any plugin updates are also your responsibility to install. The biggest challenge with this for me is that I can spend hours doing this when a big release comes out and then working through the challenges when I've updated the Wordpress installation only to find that two of the plugins are now not compatible. There can be hours that go into checking that plugin updates will work with the new Wordpress update, trying to work out what's going wrong when something fails and of course Wordpress blame the plugin and the plugin blames Wordpress.
No-one wants to pay for that.
It looks no different for you as a client so my time is spent tearing my hair out for no money. I love that I've made some great friends from my business but the word business should tell you that I'm not in this to work for free.
6. Lack of support
Should a new plugin break your theme or clash with another plugin, there is almost no support to help you get your website working as it should again. I love that I have a platform I can instantly chat with and even if their support is ofline, they always get back to me, no matter how daft the question.
7. Wordpress websites are hard to edit for clients
Unless you pay for a WISYWIG editor (what you see is what you get), editing a Wordpress website required a decent level of technical know how. Without a drag and drop editor, it is just too hard for clients to make small changes. My mantra is to ensure that while my clients might need me for more complex tasks, they can add their own blog posts, make small changes and add new images themselves easily and quickly. Without a paid editor, they can't easily do that.
In Summary:
Ok that was 7 and not 6 so you can't accuse me of under delivering!
My website platform is available to web developers and agencies and is built with not only my needs but client needs in mind. There are no plugins required and yes that will mean some kind of limitations here and there, however if anything goes wrong, I have a full team of support crew who's job it is to get things back on track.
They are constantly releasing new features and options and are very proactive in addressing feature requests. They are affordable for my clients and have a great level of security.
Update May 2020
I have a friend who works for a local web company that does only Wordpress websites and they have spent the entire last 3 weeks fixing (or trying to fix) websites that have been hacked during this COVID shut down. It seems hackers are bored too!
Through no fault of their own, almost every one of their clients websites has been down and there is NO WAY they are getting paid for this work.
Can you imagine how stressful this is for them! Not only are they trying to keep all their clients happy they will be at least a month behind in their work by the time this is all fixed.
My life is just not worth that! i love having a platform that is responsible for keeping not just my website but all my client websites up, secure and live.
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About Jenny
I started my IT career in Database Administration and .Net coding. While I LOVED that work, I realised very quickly that I also wanted a life. To be a top end coder or DB Admin, you have to comit your downtime to constantly learning and evolving and while that is also something I love, I wanted it to be my work and not my life. So I morphed my love of design with my knowledge of all things SEO and moved into building small business websites.
Why small business websites? I'm a small business myself and I know how hard it can be so I wanted to give my clients a great service, with an approachable point of contact where no question was a "stupid question".
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