Is WordPress ready for businesses? Can it handle the demands of large websites?
Is this the right CMS choice for websites with hundreds of thousands or millions of visitors?
These are questions that many people looking for an enterprise-level CMS will likely ask themselves. In the past, Drupal was the platform of choice for large-scale website projects. However, in recent years, you can also find more and more examples of enterprise-level websites running on [other platforms]. Wordpress For businesses.
There are good reasons to use the platform if you want to build a site of that scale. On the other hand, there are also reasons not to.
To help you make a decision, in this post we want to ask the question of whether WordPress is really ready for business and the factors that speak for and against it.
¿Wordpress Is it good for large websites?
We present you with a list of pros and cons
Next, we'll look at what makes WordPress suitable and unsuitable for websites with enterprise-level needs.
[blockquote author=»» link=»» target=»_blank»]We recommend you read: Two trends that e-commerce should take advantage of[/blockquote]
As a first step, let's take a look at what's already happening. At this point, it's probably common knowledge that WordPress leads the CMS market and currently powers over 40% of the entire internet.
However, you can easily dismiss this by saying it's probably just a lot of hobby blogs and other small-time sites. After all, it's a free tool, so it's likely used mostly by people who can't afford anything else.
However, reality paints a different picture.
According to BuiltWith, Wordpress It powers over 37% of the top 10,000 CMS-based websites. That's 15% of the entire top tier, outperforming all other systems that don't fall into the "Other" category.
If you look at W3Techs, they even see WordPress's share among the top 1,000 websites at just over 50%, of those using a CMS, of course.
In any case, what should I take away from this? The fact that a significant portion of high-end websites already use WordPress. It seems they've answered the question "Is WordPress ready for businesses?" with a resounding yes.
Pro: WordPress without a header
WordPress without header It seeks to become something important and was one of the main themes in WordCamp Europe 2020.
In case you're not aware, it's a way to decouple the CMS back-end from the front-end. Doing so allows you to create a custom user interface, e.g., based on a JavaScript framework, and connect it to the back-end via APIs.
As a result, you get the best of both worlds: superior content management along with a faster-performing front-end.
Main blogs and websites, e.g. Backlinko, TechCrunch and other examples have already made the change to increase their site's performance in an increasingly speed-focused environment (see core web vitals).
WordPress is equipped to adapt to this approach, thanks to its REST API. Not only that, the API can also populate almost anything else with content, including mobile apps. As a result, headless can transform WordPress from a simple website into an omnichannel publishing tool.
Pros: ease of use and capabilities of the equipment
Ease of use is arguably the main reason for WordPress's success. The fact that the platform makes it so easy for people without technical knowledge to start and run a website is probably why it's in the position it's in today.
What's true for single-author blogs and small business websites also applies to companies with dozens or hundreds of stakeholders. They, too, can benefit from an accessible user interface from which they can control all aspects of their website.
From WordPress 5.8This also includes full site editing and the ability to make site-wide changes through the WYSIWYG editor will only increase.
So, more power for the same easy interface you can manage it from, what's not to love?
Furthermore, WordPress is highly adaptable to team needs. It comes with a variety of user roles with different capabilities, ready to use.
There are also plugins like User Role Editor that allow you to make more granular adjustments to who can do what on your website. In addition, there are many plugins to improve your editorial workflow and further facilitate teamwork.
Pros: freedom and flexibility
WordPress is open source, which offers a great deal of freedom. It's not just that the platform is free to use. Under its license, you can also do whatever you want with it. With the right technical skills, literally every part of the CMS can be customized to suit any need you might have.
- Create your own theme (or use a child theme of an existing one)
- Customize the WordPress back-end, including the editor.
- Take advantage of custom page templates to create the design you need.
- Configure your own WordPress blocks and reusable design patterns.
- Choose from over 58,000 add-ons and over 8,600 themes to add functionality and design.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Whatever you need WordPress to do, there's likely a way to do it.
And the best part: you're allowed to make all those changes. This is in stark contrast to commercial products where you're dependent on the vendor's roadmap and decisions for your product. In short, WordPress gives you a lot of flexibility for your company website.
Pros: Other benefits
We could go on for a while, but there's plenty of space in this article. So, here's a short list of other benefits that ensure WordPress is enterprise-ready:
- Cost-effective: Cost is always a concern in business. In this case, WordPress is ahead because it has the best price of all: zero. While there are always costs associated with running a website (hosting, domain, extensions, etc.), the core product itself won't cost you anything.
- Multisite capability: You can create multiple websites from a single installation (for example, for different languages or countries) and manage them from a central location. A perfect option for multinational companies.
- Multilingual options: There are many solutions to make WordPress multilingual, which is often key for enterprise-level websites.
- Regular updates: WordPress is constantly being developed to keep up with trends, offer performance improvements, and provide security updates (which can be installed automatically). It's also backward compatible, so unlike other CMS platforms, you don't have to rebuild your site from scratch when a new major version is released.
- Mobile-friendly: Mobile devices are an absolute necessity these days. All WordPress themes in the official directory are now responsive out of the box, and there are many things you can do to make WordPress mobile-friendly. Consequently, this is definitely not a problem.
- SEO-optimized: Similarly, WordPress performs well in search engines right out of the box. You can further enhance it with WordPress SEO plugins, so a lack of organic traffic is nothing to worry about.
In summary, WordPress has many advantages that make it enterprise-ready. However, there are also some drawbacks.
Cons: scalability
The ability to scale has long been WordPress's Achilles' heel in terms of being truly useful as an enterprise solution. Some performance issues are inherent. One is the fact that it relies on a database. MySQLThis can be a bottleneck if there are many requests between the browser and the server. It also has a lot of legacy code for backward compatibility, which can be problematic.
Furthermore, many free plugins and themes may not be suitable for business clients. If you have millions of page views, you should think twice about relying on an extension that someone might maintain in their spare time.
At the same time, there are solutions to both problems.
On the one hand, there are many high-quality caching solutions available. And, if you choose a reputable managed WordPress hosting provider, they are often already integrated.
Generally, with a specialized provider, many scaling problems are eliminated. Your site will be integrated into an architecture and environment specifically designed for high performance.
Furthermore, if you're at the enterprise level, you most likely already have a dedicated development team, agency, or department ready to create custom solutions for your needs. Therefore, you no longer need to rely on what the WordPress plugin directory offers.
Against: security
Security is a difficult issue for large-scale businesses. As we've seen with data breaches in recent years, they are increasingly becoming targets for hackers.
This is different from when a personal website is hacked. Having your business website compromised can potentially mean exposing a large amount of sensitive data, which, under the new GDPR, can also lead to hefty fines.
Therefore, security is of paramount importance to enterprise-level businesses and something that WordPress is not necessarily known for.
However, one thing we have to say here is that this perception is slightly biased.
Because WordPress is the most successful platform, it's also a prime target for hackers. It simply offers more opportunities to break in if you target the most popular site on the block. So, while more WordPress websites are falling victim to attacks, it's also because there are more of them.
In addition, WordPress users should follow security best practices just like everyone else. Currently, the most common way WordPress sites are hacked is through human error. This includes weak login credentials and vulnerable plugins and themes. The core product hasn't been breached in years and is constantly monitored by a team of industry experts.
So, again, it all comes down to the resources available. If you know what you're doing, WordPress is no less secure than any other solution out there.
Cons: many moving parts
Something that is an advantage of WordPress is also one of its disadvantages. The platform offers a lean and robust product that you can customize and extend to suit your needs with third-party plugins and themes.
While that's great for customization, it also potentially introduces a lot of uncertainty. Plugins can conflict with each other, developers can abandon them and stop updating them, some extensions can bloat your site's code, and a host of other problems can arise.
However, this argument is only partially true.
As mentioned, when operating at an enterprise level, it's unlikely you'll still rely on free plugins from some unknown developer in the WordPress directory. You're more likely using custom solutions or one of the many premium plugins.
At this point, the WordPress sphere has become so professionalized that it offers numerous high-quality commercial solutions for all the major aspects of website operation. Their creators are often multi-million dollar companies in their own right, with a vested interest in keeping their products up-to-date. They also provide dedicated support and everything else your business might need.
So, just because WordPress is based on open source, it doesn't mean that the usual support architecture doesn't exist.
Against: support
Speaking of support, this is another point of criticism frequently raised when discussing whether WordPress is ready for businesses. As an open-source project, it lacks dedicated technical support. There's no company you can turn to if the "product" doesn't work as expected, no account manager responsible for you, and no technical support number to call.
It's true, there's no support like you'd find for a commercial product. However, at the same time, you're far from alone.
First, there's the extensive documentation, the developer manual, and the support forums you can turn to. Not to mention the wealth of blog articles like this one covering all areas of WordPress.
Secondly, if you opt for the managed hosting mentioned earlier (as you likely will at this level), it also comes with expert support for any technical issues that may arise. Furthermore, as we've already mentioned, commercial add-ons offer just as many support options as any other commercial entity.
In addition, there are several WordPress support companies and agencies that are more than happy to take on development and maintenance work for you. Furthermore, if you want to hire your own dedicated IT department or full-time developer, finding talent is much easier and the pool is simply larger than for other platforms.
WordPress doesn't offer its own support, but there's plenty of help available. Is WordPress suitable for enterprise use?
We're meeting today to answer the question of whether WordPress is truly ready for businesses. It's a question many people might still have, especially those only familiar with it as a blogging platform.
Yes, WordPress is not a SaaS product. Some aspects will require you to have resources in terms of manpower and expertise. However, that's true regardless of which system you end up using. Furthermore, you can eliminate most concerns such as security, performance, and scalability by using a managed hosting provider, of which there are many these days.
EntoncesIs WordPress ready for businesses? The answer is yes. While you need to know what you're doing, all the features are there and easily accessible.
[hover_color align=»center» background=»» background_hover=»» border=»» border_hover=»» border_width=»0px» padding=»60px 60px» link=»https://selfish.com.mx/servicios/» target=»» class=»cta-blog themecolorbg» style=»»] Ready to take your business to the digital plane? [/hover_color]
