WordPress is a Popular System
Some potential clients approach us already knowing what they want and on which system, but that’s rare - usually it’s just an opinion imposed by acquaintances. Very often, WordPress is seen as the desired system. This is neither bad nor surprising, as it’s extremely popular. If you have a small startup or a basic corporate website, WordPress can be a great solution. It’s perfect for simple projects, especially if you’re almost entirely satisfied with a ready-made template or a solution based on a page builder. But… things are not always as easy as they may seem - let’s dive deeper into that.
Problems with Updates
WordPress is a free CMS that is maintained and constantly updated - and that’s great! Most websites have a large number of plugins, which can form the project’s structure, expand functionality, or provide essential features - and they also need to be updated on time.
But what happens if a development team abandons their plugin or stops updating it? That’s when the "carnival" begins. For example, Custom Field Suite was a great solution for adding custom fields to different types of content. However, the developers stopped supporting it and it was removed from the official site. All projects relying on that plugin had to either adapt to a new solution or abandon it entirely and code the necessary fields manually. This takes more time and costs more money.
Paid Plugins
Want to save money and time? Plugins can help - and both clients and developers think so. Some features are indeed easier and faster to implement via a plugin - why reinvent the wheel? For instance, adding multilingual support can take more than a week and be expensive. It’s much simpler to extend WordPress with a plugin. But remember, you’ll need to pay for its support every year - quality comes at a price… And when you add the cost of other plugins too, you might end up spending $300–500 annually on licenses.
Plugin Dependency
This point ties into “problems with updates,” but it’s more about the fact that you won’t be able to independently update a plugin’s code if there are security issues or bugs. This can cause difficulties when updating the whole system or other plugins later. On any platform, plugins depend on their developers, but in WordPress, it's like a blank canvas expanded not by libraries or dependencies, but by plugins. If you compare it with frameworks, their packages are less sensitive and have fewer conflicts. And don’t think disabling auto-updates will help: at best, everything will run smoothly for just one or two years.
Plugin Conflicts
This is not a frequent problem, but it happens. You add a new SEO plugin, but it can’t generate a sitemap for your multilingual setup. Here the trouble starts, and you decide to add a third plugin that separately generates a sitemap. Then the site slows down, and you’re advised to add caching plugins, and so on. You can probably see where this is going.
Security Issues
Open logs, exposed config files, outdated plugins, open file permissions - and it all depends not only on your site's developers but also on the plugin developers you rely on.
This can be solved fairly easily with an additional security plugin, such as Wordfence - but again, here comes another extra plugin. Also, I recommend immediately setting up Cloudflare and hiding your site’s IP address - that way you should avoid most problems.
Code Chaos
Projects often change hands between developers. One developer might add custom fields directly into the code, the next one adjusts them using a plugin with a convenient interface, someone else writes new functions manually, and another prefers using hooks… This is all the result of different approaches, different skill levels, and varying attitudes toward the project. After a few years, your site might become very hard to maintain or slow to operate. And of course, somewhere along the way, a developer will probably finish it all off with an Elementor page builder to create a landing page where you’ll be driving traffic later. It's not bad to have so many options, but it makes the site harder to manage and maintain down the road.
Difficulty Replacing the Design or Template
From the previous point, it’s clear that not only maintenance but also updating the site’s template (design) becomes complicated. The lack of strict separation between logic and architecture can create serious problems in the future. It might be simpler to create a new project and a new template rather than trying to update the old one. However, this does not apply to small blogs or simple one-page sites.
Project Scalability - A Potential Trap
We spent several hours discussing a new project for a logistics company with a potential client, but ultimately we declined, which is quite rare! After two hours of talking about what WordPress is and what problems might arise, the client still insisted on using it due to budget constraints. However, the final issue was a client and employee dashboard that needed to sync with accounting systems, CRM, and freight and driver tracking systems. Of course, it’s technically possible to build this on WordPress, but how would you maintain and scale it when a simple anti-spam plugin crashes and shows a white screen? We offered a framework-based solution, but the budget didn't fit - so now someone else might be building that scary machine on WordPress.
Conclusion
It’s quick and easy to make a lightweight site on WordPress. Add a few plugins, don’t be afraid to tweak something yourself in Elementor - millions of developers are ready to help you. But if you want something more scalable and long-lasting than a landing page or a blog - forget about WordPress and start looking toward frameworks or other systems.
