When you log in to your WordPress website’s backend, you’ll notice on the left side lots of tabs and tools that you can use. These tools are used to create content and manage other website functions, including users, media, and security. Some of these tabs are built into the WordPress CMS (Content Management System) that makes up your website’s backbone. As great as WordPress is on its own, it doesn’t have all of the functions we need to create or manage a website right out of the box.
Website designers need additional functionality to make a website look and behave how we (and our clients) want it to look and act. Website managers also need other functionality to keep the website running smoothly and securely. This extra functionality can be added to WordPress easily by installing a plugin.
Simply put, Plugins are an easy way to add code to a WordPress website without manually changing the code of the WordPress theme directly. Developers create plugins so that we can choose which features (parts of the code) we want, or not, through a designed interface of buttons, switches, and text fields.
If just one plugin is incompatible with your WordPress CMS, website theme, or another plugin, the consequences can often be catastrophic.
While plugins make it easy to create and manage a WordPress website, too many plugins can cause significant problems. If just one plugin is incompatible with your WordPress CMS, website theme, or another plugin, the consequences can often be catastrophic. For this reason, web designers and managers try to use as few plugins as possible to mitigate potential conflicts.
Additionally, plugins not maintained by developers are a risk to both the function and security of your website. Older plugins may become incompatible with updates to the WordPress core code or other plugins. Conversely, an updated plugin that was working may start causing problems due to a bug in the update, causing a sudden incompatibility with another plugin. There are bonafide reasons website managers don’t update plugins when developers make new versions available, including testing them for compatibility and security first.
So, before you install – or update – plugins (including WooCommerce add-ons and extensions), you should check with your website manager. Unless there is a security issue, it is often best to leave the current version you are using as-is.