The numbers are still witnessing the vast popularity of the WordPress.org CMS. More than 800M websites are based on WP, making up about 43% of all online sites working worldwide.

WP progressed from the blogging platform to the most widely-used CMS. The platform has been a unique solution with the broadest choice of possibilities and unprecedented freedom of web designs for many years. However, many users were disappointed with their experiences with WordPress.

How could it happen? With the introduction of no-code website builders (like Wix – our review) – less powerful but more convenient, web development has become available for non-coders. Now, a total beginner with zero knowledge of coding can create an effective website for whatever purpose. WordPress looks like a ponderous thing beside them.

It seems that there’s a more straightforward solution for any website project today. Yet, you still may benefit from WordPress in several cases. Let’s observe what’s good in the WordPress CMS for today’s users.

WordPress Pros and Cons

In 2023, you should pay attention to the following advantages and disadvantages of the WordPress platform:

So, WordPress is a very effective site-building instrument. If the WP benefits are crucial for your project, its drawbacks are something you can overcome this or that way.

Features and Design

The WP’s essential features include free download and the highest level of customizability. The platform is based on plugins. WordPress developers continue to add new themes and plugins to keep the platform relevant to today’s challenges.

WordPress Plugins

The best thing about WordPress is that there isn’t any feature you cannot connect to your website here. Need to ensure security? Analytics? SEO? At your disposal will be powerful plugins like WordFence, MonsterInsights, Yoast, or AIOSEO. You can use various add-ons to create forms, chats, quizzes, forums, donation pages, email campaigns, etc.

Many WP users soon become disappointed with the plugin nature of the CMS. Such tools as UpdraftPlus can help them organize automated backups and simplify plugin management. You can find plenty of instruments for your website’s smooth integration with social media, working with databases, scheduling, and, of course, selling products online.

In fact, today’s leading companies with various digital solutions tend to offer special plugins for WP. HubSpot, LiteSpeed Cache, and Mailchimp are only a few examples of such collaboration. So, one more WordPress benefit is excellent integration with the best apps of the present day.

WordPress Themes

Not a site builder or CMS can offer you the same number of themes for creating your website’s original design as WordPress. Although many of them are free, chances are high that you’ll need to purchase a paid theme if you plan a professional business or eCommerce project.

Since the platform is open-source, you can customize your design without limits. WordPress has many plugins for creating specific websites with specific pages and forms. You can add slides, podcasts, search tools, menus, widgets, and many more. Your freedom of style, fonts, images, and other design aspects is unquestionable.

eCommerce

Against the background of multiple online store builders in the market these days, WordPress still ranks high. The platform is indispensable for projects with original designs and complex functional requirements. While most website builders will let you create a standard online store with stereotyped templates and a limited set of features, your possibilities on WordPress will be literally endless.

Can you build an effective eCommerce website on WordPress in 2024? The answer is yes! WP has a number of plugins designed for easy sales. The main plugin here is WooCommerce. This is an online store builder (for WP only) with open-source code and the broadest choice of features. Let’s list the main functions of the plugin:

• Physical & digital products supported;
• Inventory management;
• Shopping cart;
• Secure & convenient payments;
• Checkout tools;
• Automatic tax calculations;
• Shipping instruments;
• Email marketing;
• Multi-currency transactions;
• Full mobile control.

You can easily pick a suitable theme created specifically for WooCommerce. It may cost you $70-$250, but it’ll ensure a professional layout and a customer-appealing design for your online store.

You can power up your website with all the necessary extras, from lead-generating tools like Optin Moster to the WPDiscuz plugin for creating comment forms. The only problem is in keeping all the connected plugins updated and avoiding conflicts between them. Yet, even basic skills in website management will let you control your installed plugins, thanks to the WordPress dashboard.

SEO

WordPress offers an abundance of SEO plugins. No website builder can compete with it in this respect. Most of them offer SEO-friendly templates with the option of limited editing or integrating an SEO add-on. Such an approach has benefits and drawbacks: while you can fully rely upon your built-in SEO tools, there’s no guarantee that they won’t let you down, and it’ll be hard for you to improve the situation.

WordPress, in its turn, entrusts the entire responsibility for your SEO settings to you. You need to care about proper SEO plugins yourself. However, you’ll have access to the best solutions available in the industry!

Free WP SEO tools include such instruments as the SEO Framework for WordPress, Rank Math, Semrush SEO Writing Assistant, and many more. You can use a free or paid version of powerful SEO plugins like Yoast, Squirrly SEO, Google XML Sitemaps, SEOPress, etc. Again, all these plugins are easily added and maintained through the WordPress dashboard.

How Much Does WordPress Cost?

What lures users to WordPress is the “free, open-source” label. Yes, you won’t find traditional subscription plans on the platform. Yet, your WP website will require certain investments anyway. A rough scheme of your WP website costs may look like this:

1. Hosting: $5-$100 a month;
2. Domain: $1-$25 a year;
3. WP theme: $0-$250 (a one-shot purchase);
4. Plugin: $0-$1,000 (a subscription model or a one-shot purchase);
5. Expert help: $0-$1,000.

So, first of all, the CMS is self-hosted. It means you need at least to select a host, subscribe to a suitable plan with it, and connect a free or paid domain to find a ‘home’ in cyberspace for your website. You can solve this problem effectively by dealing with such strong players as HostGator, a hosting company with 20+ years of experience.

The provider has plenty of hosting solutions, including WordPress hosting plans available at $5.95+ per month. HostGator offers all the necessary tools to install the WP software with one click and keep your website’s plugin updated. HostGator will also provide you with such must-have features as a free SSL certificate, free daily backups, unmetered bandwidth, and industry-standard 99.9% uptime guaranteed.

As to other aspects and the final cost of your WordPress project, everything will depend on your preferences. The more complex site you wish to build, the more expensive plugins and themes may be required to implement it into reality.

Pay attention that certain expenses will be necessary for maintaining your website. Surely, you can launch a WordPress site for free. However, a serious eCommerce or business project may cost you from $500 to $100,000 a year.

Tech Support

Unlike popular site builders with included hosting and 24/7 support, WordPress does not offer anything like this. Of course, the platform unites a gigantic community of users, many of which are WordPress experts ready to render help.

However, there’s no support team that will monitor your website, guard its security, or respond to your requests via online chat on WP. All this is your responsibility here. You can easily find a WordPress specialist who can guide you through a difficult issue or help you build and maintain your website in general. Yet, be ready to pay. Moreover, finding a pro may take time.

Conclusion

WordPress is still a great choice for those who wish to build a fully original website with diverse functional capabilities. The CMS is ideal for developers. The platform offers an unprecedented number of themes and plugins ready to implement any idea of yours. You’ll get a fully customizable website that will be yours forever.

That said, the same themes and plugins may serve as a factor against WordPress. Your website may be overloaded with them and thus experience frequent errors. You’ll need to maintain your project carefully all the time to avoid this. Moreover, you’ll have to take care of hosting, a domain, security measures, and SEO yourself. If you’re searching for a simpler management model, you’d better try another site builder like Wix (read our comparison) or Squarespace.