Today, WordPress is king. Somewhere around 1/3 of the websites online today are built on it and it’s not hard to see why.
The seemingly endless array of plugins and themes enable the average Joe to build a website that does anything, and looks anyway, they want. And if you’re an experienced developer, it’s flexible enough to easily alter whatever you want.
WordPress’ Issues
With all its upsides, it has its drawbacks too.
Security
When you’re the biggest player, you have the biggest target on your back. Most of the time hackers aren’t targeting a specific website. They target specific vulnerabilities, and use bots to find them.
Keeping a WordPress website secure isn’t very difficult, but it does require some know-how and attention. Average Joe is short on both. That’s why we hear about sites getting hacked so often.
Management
What was once WordPress’ greatest advantage, is now its downfall. There is, or was, a plugin for anything you wanted to do. Now managing all those plugins has become an ongoing battle that is cumbersome for even seasoned developers to manage.
Times they are a changin.
From average Joe to experienced developers, WordPress isn’t the best option anymore.
Site Builder Websites for Average Joe
Services like Wix and Square Space have matured into great options for simple websites. They are cheap, easy to alter and require no maintenance. The only potential issue is it’s limitations, you can’t do whatever you want to it. For most blogs and marketing websites that level of customization isn’t necessary.
Websites to Web Apps for Developers
Best practices for web developers are very different now than they were 5 years ago. Today if you’re not using a JS framework like React or Vue.js to build a website that functions as a PWA… you’re out of touch.
That being the case sites rendered via PHP are old fashioned. Meaning WordPress.
It’s already begun.
I’ve seen a trend over the last 2 years. Plugin support has dropped drastically. Sure the big players are keeping there’s up, but the small simple plugins are falling version behind. Or aren’t being updated anymore.
That means those developers aren’t building in WordPress anymore. And the less developers using the platform, the less community support. Meaning less will use it.
WordPress in the Future
There is a beacon of hope for WordPress. The native Rest API was added ages ago, and API’s are what the new web is running on.
WordPress still my favorite CMS that is user friendly and flexible. Which is great for developers and users alike. So I see the future of WordPress being a headless CMS. Embracing that future will keep WordPress relevant for years to come. And you don’t get the flexibility developers love from the other headless CMS options at this point. That’s a big leg up.
As for Average Joe… unless they are using the CMS built/maintained by an experienced developer, it’s just not a good option anymore. They will move on, and that’s ok.