Table of Contents
TL:DR
A recent and absolutely massive disagreement between two major players in the WordPress space has resulted in a VERY popular plugin now having two versions, which is a terrible outcome for security and user experience. Outside of the right and the wrong of each parties actions, this plugin is not something that needs to be used if you have a developer who understands how to build WordPress sites.
Use less plugins.
The Long Version
For a while now there has been a brewing problem between the WordPress Foundation and one of the biggest providers of commercial services to WordPress sites – WP Engine.
WordPress is an open source development platform, which means all of the code that makes it work is publicly available and developers are able to edit it however they like. There’s an expectation and general standard in the open source development community that, where developers monetise extensions to open source platforms, they do so in a way that also improves the platform itself (or otherwise help the platform in other ways).
Due to the sheer volume of websites and the number of non-technical “web developers” who make them, there’s a massive market for no-code or low-code plugins to solve development scenarios that can be managed within WordPress natively.
If you login to your website, there’s a decent chance you’ll see some, and a lot of competent developers use them because they make the development process more efficient and allow lower prices to customers.
The problem emerges where these plugins are used – not because they are the right solution to the customer’s requirements, but to cover a shortfall in the developer’s capability to deliver the correct solution. This happens a lot, especially in situations where design agencies use non-technical team members (such as Graphic Designers) to build websites using WYSIWYG solutions.
Why is this a problem?
There’s a couple of major reasons that over-reliance on plugins can be a problem. The first and foremost one is that more plugins significantly increase the likelihood of software conflict, compatibility issues, bugs, security vulnerabilities and so on. At Web Brains we’ve seen websites that have ultimately become a write-off – there’s just too many incompatible plugins with bad documentation to justify a repair.
Another consideration is cost – each of these ‘extensions’ has a cost – typically annual. Developers will be looking to manage and recover those costs. We use software with ongoing costs where it makes sense compared to the commercial cost of developing an alternative, or where we can take advantage of our scale to offer lower prices than commercially available to our customers. This isn’t always the case, and I’ve had many business owners contact me asking about why their site isn’t working anymore, and it’s because there’s a key piece of software which has no license.
Finally, the WordPress.org plugin directory is not well regulated and the 3rd party premium plugin environment is not regulated at all. There’s nothing to stop your shiny $500USD plugin from being incompatible with a major security patch from WordPress and the developer of the plugin deciding not fix it.
When stacked against the main advantages of WordPress as a platform (open source, easy to develop for, easy to make changes to once deployed), it becomes clear that a WordPress environment with too many plugins starts to defeat the purpose of the platform.
So what about WP Engine?
WP Engine are sort of notorious within the development community – their hosting platform is absurdly overcosted for what it is, and it offers very, very little value over an alternative platform. But the big issue is that they have been making huge money selling WordPress extensions and have not contributed to the environment at all. One of their most popular products, ACF, specifically “fixes” a non-user friendly feature of WordPress.
Without going into the details, a WordPress developer does not need it (our recent delivery of The Business Centre website uses abundant custom post types with no additional plugins) and it can create situations where non-technical users can create extremely messy websites that take a very long time for a developer to figure out.
That said, in an almost totally unprecedented move, The WordPress foundation has executed it’s right to commandeer a plugin on the directory – so basically anyone running the free version of ACF is now running the WordPress version, and heaven knows how well that’s going to be maintained. WP Engine are obviously still looking to keep their cash cow afloat and have sent an all alert letting everyone know that their version is the best and how you can keep using it.
What does this mean for you?
For a long time, Web Development has been getting simpler at a low level. It’s never been easy to knock together a functional website – Wix, Squarespace etc provide great tools for those without technical knowledge to build a website.
WordPress is more complicated. You can absolutely build a website that is easier for a non-technical end user to manage content on. In fact, it’s probably one of the best platforms for this in my opinion. That said, there’s a growing group of non-technical agencies selling WordPress websites without the technical understanding of how to use it, and the result is a site that is unstable and subject to the whims of corporate giants.
So, check your developer’s credentials, make sure they’re a specialist, and if you’re in doubt, give us a call!
