Some people have a couple dozen plugins installed and some have nearly 100 plugins installed in WordPress. However, how many plugins should you install in WordPress?
I know at WordCamps, I get quite a few people asking about how many plugins they should install. I have covered a little bit about plugins before. So have both Ryan Inmel in his article Stop telling users they shouldn’t be running very many plugins, and Syed Balkhi in his article How Many Plugins Should You Install In WordPress?. Both are excellent articles. However, I need to cover my own opinion as I have been on several panels relating to WordPress plugins at WordCamps in the past, and it just needs to come off of my chest.
To give you a brief experience with my own site, I don’t even use 2 dozen plugins myself. I use a lot of PHP filters, actions, and hooks to get some parts of my site functioning the way I want. I am a developer, so my experience is different from a regular WordPress designer or user. However, I do have a lot of clients, fans, and followers that I have done consultations or answered questions concerning plugins, especially considering their own experience.
Plugins: For The Non-Technical WordPress Users
Not everyone is code savvy. There are great tutorials out there to do almost anything with your WordPress powered site. However, not everyone can understand those… no matter how simple you have written a tutorial. A lot of WordPress users do not even want to put their hands into coding. They just want to use WordPress. It may even be difficult enough for them to understand learning what a plugin can do for them, especially if it has a lot of options.
There are thousands of free and premium paid plugins. Each provides a function that make WordPress more dynamic. It could be adding a contact form, a featured content slider, related posts feature, a photo gallery, and much more. Often developers design because they feel a need for a certain function and feel that their method would be the best contribution.
For the user, not every plugin is understandable. While a user may install and try out several plugins that provide the same type of function the need, they will always choose the one that they can use the easiest. Come on, WordPress has been known to be the most user-friendly content management system, so why not some of the plugins as well?
For the person not wanting to dabble in code, plugins are important. However, there are a few things to consider when installing a plugin:
- Is that plugin necessary?
- Does that plugin do what you want it to do?
- Is that plugin easy for you to use?
- Does that plugin actually work without any problems?
Some users get into this funny funk that WordPress is awesome and just install whatever they want, even if they do no need it. Then, as their site grows, and gets traffic, they start realizing other things like site load time, converting visitors into buyers or subscribers, and much more. They also run into plugins that cause errors to come up or interfere with how their site is suppose to work.
Plain as day, return on investment is a huge thing for bloggers and business owners. And, by the way, if you are a blogger that is monetizing your site, then you own a business. Your blog is a business because like visiting a retail store, you are trying to get them to do something. That something might be buying a product, filling out a form, subscribing to an email list, sharing a post, or even commenting on a post.
It is extremely important to check out a plugin’s description to see if there are any reviews or any known problems. It might even be wise to have a beta site prepared to test a plugin before using it live.
Plugins: For the WordPress Designer
WordPress Designers are different from the user and designer. They know some code to get around HTML, and CSS, and maybe some PHP, but they are usually one to solely do customizing from an existing theme. They do not write code for plugins.
Designers do have to consider if the plugin is necessary, and if it works. Normally they are making the decision for the client on what plugin should be installed, so the thought process for a WordPress web designer should be:
- What is the WordPress skill level of the client?
- Is the plugin user-friendly and quick to learn?
- If the user is having difficulty using the plugin, even if it seems easy to use, are there alternate plugins to try out that are similar?
- Will the plugin be easy to style if it produces front-end user interface elements?
Again, even though the WordPress web designer may be making money building a site for another person, the end result they are trying to produce is a product that has a return on investment for their client. Plugins do help give that added functionality to make e-commerce sites, web forms, and other things possible without having to get down and dirty in coding.
Plugins: For the WordPress Developer
WordPress developers get to do a lot of dirty work. They are neck deep in code or working on different ways to extend the functionality of WordPress through plugins or code snippets. Some designers are also developers, but not all developers are designers. A developer’s art is spoken through their code.
And sometimes what is produced is not as user-friendly for the WordPress designer or the WordPress user.
A developer must consider when developing and installing a plugin:
- Will the plugin work in all browsers?
- Does the code work on most types of hosting?
- Is the plugin user-friendly and well documented?
- Does the plugin use few or many data resources?
- Does the plugin’s output load slowly or quickly?
Not all developers create a plugin to sell and make money. Those that do share their WordPress plugins with the world on the WordPress Plugin Repository allow others to use it however they wish. Developers do not always consider return on investment in that case. However, developers who do sell plugins, are definitely hoping their plugin does make their some type of ROI because that means they make money when their customers spread the word.
In both free plugins and premium plugins, developers need to document their plugins and try to consider how to make their plugin as easy to use as possible. Not everyone is a genius when it comes to using WordPress, or even the Internet itself, so all that tech jargon is alien.
So, How Many Plugins Should You Install In WordPress?
It does not matter how many plugins you install. It matters how your site works when they are all working together. If your site is loading slow, and you don’t have a lot of plugins, but maybe it is the theme that has a lot of graphics, that might be the problem. It might even be your web host.
It is up to you on what you want on your website. Anyone that is an expert in WordPress can make suggestions on giving you a plugin diet, but it is your choice in the end. Use common sense and the simple guidelines mentioned in this article, and you should be fine.
If the plugin does not work, produces an error, or takes your site down, do not use it. Inform the developer of whatever the issue may be. Also, remember before installing a plugin or upgrading your WordPress site to make a backup of your site.
How many plugins do you have installed on your site? How many do you usually recommend to others? What is your thought process when you consider installing a plugin?
I have so many plugins installed and sometimes my website gets slow. I don’t know what is the reason. I don’t want to delete them because all of them are quite beneficial.
I know the feeling. Some plugins you cannot seem to live without because it works for you. Some plugins are designed in a way that while it might be easier for some to use or it has what they need… others, they might find it hard to use, or it does not have everything that need.
Maria,
Here’s a plugin that will let you know, unequivocally, what plugins, if any, are slowing down your site.
~ Jupiter Jim
I know it’s important to not bog your site down with too many plugins as it can slow site performance down. I have a set list of plugins that I want to use on each site.
To be honest, this questions always puzzled me: how many plugins are enough for doing everything I want to do. Thanks for dispelling my doubts and sharing your perspective on this issue.
If I can do the same thing without a plugin, then I usually go for that option, but saying that, with something like CommentLuv where you can have one plugin that removes 7 or 8 then that makes up for something.
But I always found that too many plugins severely affected the speed with a blog and sometimes other issues such as plugin to plugin compatibility problems.
I only use 4 plugins
1) SEO by Yoast
2)W3 Total cache
3)Google XML site maps
4)Jetpack by WordPress
I have less than 1 dozen plugins. Sometimes site slowdown because of the hosting company and not with the plugins though, plugins are big factor. This is based on my experience.
I have about ten plugins that I find improve the speed and useability of my website, eg. wp super cache, mobile pack, an seo pack, broken links checker, etc… I tend to stick to those that are useful rather than just cosmetic.
I agree with the line of thought that one should run only necessary plugins and deactivated plugins should be removed entirely from your wordpress backend.
great post, and thanks for giving us those other articles. I am not techy but fasincated by all the plugins and do tend to experiment too much when not needed.
Great information – I love WordPress plugins and can’t imagine not using them. Even though everything is working well now (knock on wood) I will still take time before the end of the year to audit my plugins to make sure none are seriously out of date, and I’ll also check to see if there are any new plugins that will do the job even better just to keep everything up to date.
I think the no. doesn’t even matter, when everything is working fine. And plugins just make work simple and reduce the efforts. They are like handy tools. According to me we should use more and more plugins till everything is working fine.
Hi Nile,
I currently use 14 plugins on my site and I think that is enough for now. I wish I were more technical so I could remove some unnecessary ones.
Take Care.
Hi
I am using wordpress.com not wordpress.org. There are no custom plugin option on wordpress.com. But the community is larger.
I just wonder if you ever tried wordpress.com and if you did could you please tell me which one is better?
I know the basic things that wordpress.org lets you to publish ads and customize everything but the thing i wonder if you spend same time on both which is easier to reach larger community.
Thanks
WordPress is WordPress no matter the community. One option is self hosting (.org) and the other is basically like free hosting (.com). You do not get a lot of options for installing themes and plugins. You only get what they allow. Self hosting is always going to be a lot better. You get to use the plugins you want and have more control over your website. You can also monetize your site on self hosted.
Well Said! Self-hosted WordPress websites rock! Building a business site on WordPress.com is like building your house on someone else’s property. Not a good business decision by any means.
The Number of WP plugins would also depend on your webhost.If you use shared hosting,having Plugins with High Database queries or those which consume system resources(e.g Google sitemaps with many posts in the sitemap)would not be allowed, But on better Hosting options , you can use as many as Necessary.
Hi Nile,
Well I’m currently using about 20 plugins on my blog, but recently I learned how to properly set up the W3 Total Cache plugin, so my blogs loading time has actually decreased, and is now more quick to load.
I’ve always been curious about how many plugins a blog should stick too. I use the P3 profiler to see how much each plugin affects my blogs performance. It’s a free plugin and a great resource, definitely a must have for every WordPress blog.
Thanks for posting this, I always enjoy reading your articles. Have a great day.
~Philip
The thing is, we cannot put a number to how many plugins, but rather how they work. Some people can get away with using a lot, and sometimes they might have some fantastic host setup… or the plugins are ones that do not call to the database so much.
Use what is necessary…. and at your own risk.
Thank you for stopping by! 🙂
Timely article! I was just having this conversation the other day with a colleague. I like your summary – how many should depend on what you need and if they play together without causing performance or other problems. We are finding issues however with plugins not getting updated and being susceptible to hacking…very bad.
Current count: 26
Hi Joey! 26 is not bad. 🙂 One of the biggest things with the WordPress 2.5 update is requiring plugins that call to the database to use the wpdb prepare, so there is a bit of security. There are always going to be some type of security issue come up, but hopefully WordPress Core team and Security can get to it asap.
In the case that you do find a plugin that is not secure, and it is available in the WordPress Plugin Repository, report it the plugin immediately, whether it be to WordPress (and they can take it down until a fix is found), or the developer.
Hi Nile
Thanks for what clearly is the best article explaining WordPress plugins and how to use them that I’ve seen. And you’ve done it in an easy to understand and follow manor that even the newbies can follow along.
This is one article that I’ll both bookmark and share as it’s truly a wonderful resource.
I am very happy after read your post name of the post and gain some knowledge from your post. Your post proved helpful for me and I am looking for nice article from you. Thanks for sharing
Nile, as usual here is another great learning article that I could use anytime.
I am not a yechy not want to be.. I just do my minimun of what it is needed to do in order to move on with my WordPress Blog platform (if I ma call it that name 🙂 But I must say that when I first start to learn a few things about plugin, I greatly could use your wonderful information you have here so I would understand what all this plugins are thetre for..
Now I use only 4 or 5.. and as you suggested, it does not matter how many but make cr=ertain that when you instal any, yoru site function properly and mine does… so not sure I would add anything else on my own with the help of someone like you who know what to do in case somethinmg go wrong:-)
Thanks so much for sharing.
nickc
I usually don’t have much plugins installed, hardly about 3 plugins. I create functions of my own and directly insert it into theme. That reduces extra php work.
Well I think it depends upon the size of your database and quality of your webhosting.
I try to install as few as possible and use hooks and code to get the results I want. Where possible I prefer premium plugins with a support team and a commitment to upgrading and maintaining the plugin.
I have a client who insists she need 67+ plugins, everytime I login I throw one of them out – she never notices the missing plugin. someone told her it was a must, so she added it.
Sarah,
a client that insists on 67 plugins sounds annoying. My heart goes out to you!
Kim had just about that many on her site before….lol
This article helps me a lot .Before reading this article i have minimum knowledge about word-press plugging but after reading this article i learn more things about word-press pluggins. Thanks a lot for this post.
Hi Nile,
A sigh of relief for me when you mention that for the user, not every plug in is understndable. That is ME! If I personally messed around with plug ins myself, I know I would blow up my blog!
I was doing a happy dance when I plugged in CommentLuv Premium. I felt that I was a techie! But that’s it! Otherwise I hand it over for someone else to do. I have heard many stories of people plugging in all sorts of stuff, and sometimes they work against each other, or worse….slow the blog down.
Thanks Nile, I feel better about my lack of knowledge and more confident of myself in this area.
Donna
I understand a lot of people don’t want to touch the code. However, one tip I have used over the years is to cut and paste the code to textedit or something before messing with the code. I have learned from messing up a clients site and having to have to revert back to the original code before figuring it out. Also, as WordPress 3.5 came out it’s good to make sure your plugins are still working with the new update. Just recently it screwed with a number of my plugins.
A good rule of thumb is to install as little plugins as possible. The more I have the slower my site gets so I try to keep them to a bare minimum, and whenever possible hardcode stuff directly into the theme (similar posts, social buttons etc.).
Hi Nile,
Plug-ins is an interesting topic and it seems that everyone has a different suggestion. I have ten active plug-ins on my blog and they seem to work well. I am suspicious of randomly adding plug-ins due to the possibility of my site slowing down and that definitely affects my readers. Also, I have had conflicts between plug-ins and had to delete certain ones especially cache plug-ins.
Thanks for raising a valuable subject.
Clare
Excellent information. Blogs have a lot of power and your suggestions are great tools for maximizing that power.
hello nile
too many plugins make our blog load slow and having unnecessary plugins is not a good idea. we should take care about the points you mentioned above. they are really good points.
thanks for this post
I only have a couple of plugins installed on my blog (about 5). It’s nothing special. Just the SEO plugin, a social media sharing plugin, and of course WP-Cache. I use some premium plugins to get more traffic as well.
dear nile, i have no ability to write PHP code, so i’m very depending by the plugin to get my website work as i want. i heard that installing to many plugin get hurt my SEO, is ti true..??
Nile,
I have a lot of plugins but not all are activated. I tend to use the ones I need now. For example, I really wanted to be able to change the text size and fonts and colors, so I installed Tinymce advanced. But I had tried several other plugins until that one seemed the best and worked better than the others. It still took awhile until I understood how to use it.
I don’t always take the time to study something new. i prefer a quick explanation from someone like you who has taken the time and made the comparisons already, so I can focus on what I do best – writing and counseling and coaching about love and relationships.
Erica
Thanks Erica! I try my best to explain. I am way behind on a lot of plugin overviews and reviews…. in fact, some of my older plugin reviews look more like overviews, which is okay, but will get revamps with my own rating system.
I admit that I have had a big problem with plugins in the past. However, with time and lessons learned, I know even non-techy bloggers will eventually find out what is going on because they care about having a functioning website.
Every one like plugin at WordPress site but don’t know how many plugins we have to install and how to use it on website. Your post is really helpful to using plugin on website thanks for sharing post.
Nile,
Once again, great article from The WordPress Master or Mistress as the case may be.
Another reason to keep the plugin list short is because they do NOT all get updated on time every time WordPress gets updated. So the more plugins you have, the greater the probability that you will end up with plugins that are just plain out of date. I have seen clients who have been told by other “designers” to use certain plugins that haven’t been updated for 3 years! Gimme a break!
Before downloading a new plugin I check for the last time it was updated, to get a sense of if it will ever be updated again! I also look at the number of stars it receives as a review, the number of people reviewing and the number of downloads for the plugin from WordPress.org. That usually gives me a pretty good idea of what I am downloading!
Thanks again for always cranking out the good stuff here!
~ Jupiter Jim
In many cases the plugin updates are only version wise. However with the wpdb prepare issue, plugins that call to the database need to be switched. If they do not, the plugin issues a message saying that there is a security error. However, if the plugin is not calling to the database, then this is not necessary.
However, plugin developers should try to make sure to update their plugin in the subsversion repository if their plugin is compatible with the latest version, even if they do not have a patch or major update to issue.
Hi Nile, Wow-great article and very informative! I’m not a developer but a user of WP. I currently have a highly customized WP site with 30 plugins installed. I recently had my developer do a complete scrub of the site to clean up a lot of the conflicts stemming from poorly designed plugins. I can attest to the importance of having the right plugins – it definitely makes difference.
Nile, Very informative article, after installation i tried to maintain limited plugins and only required plugins which are useful for the blog. Some of the plugins are very much required for SEO & Website performance, for interaction with readers like ALL IN ONE SEO, BROKEN LINK, backupwordpress, commentluv. Multiple plugins can be avoided for auto posting from blog to social network.
I have only 2 plugins installed because website gets slow. I tried to create it manually… lol
There’s really nothing worse than overloading your site with unnecessary plugins. The irony is that a lot of people tend to do that without thinking about it.
I think you should install as many plugins as you need. I made several websites for small company’s with almost none plugins, because they only use it as an information outlet. But i’ve also made sites with tons of plugins, for contact forms, galleries, calendars, events etc.
First of all, let me say that I’m a “plugin junkie”. I’m PHP and CSS challenged, and I love plugins. On this blog site here, I have 21 plugins. It’s on a shared hosting and a little slow. I have a few other sites with about the same number of plugins, but on cloud hosting, and they are 10 times as fast loading. I’m looking at a cheap CDN for this site and am wondering if that will help much. I would appreciate constructive comments and suggestions. Thanks.
WordPress plugins are luckily not as annoying as old Flash ads during the 90’s. Good god that was horrible. It’s also amazing that some rare sites still use the same design practices as back then.
Thank you. I was on the phone yesterday with my hosting company as my blog was running slow. They told me to take off some of my plugins, as it would speed up my site and also recommended a plugin to tell me which of my plugins are taking more time. Good article, thank you and happy holidays.
yeah many plugins maybe problematic for example having all in one SEO and Headspace SEO activated at same time would be problematic and there are many others who can conflict between each other we should only have 1 plugin for each
If you use WordPress SEO, you do not have to use Headspace or some other plugins as the plugin has many capabilities.
I use around 10-15 plugins max, coz i have a history of bad load times and crashes due to plugins when i started wordpress.
so i keep it minimum, thanks Nile for this useful article.
With every plugin installed on a WordPress blog, the site has more and more potential to become less secure. If someone opts to install a lot (100+!) plugins, they will need to keep up to date with ensuring that ALL of the plugins continue to be safe and secure and don’t allow vulnerabilities to their site. That’s a pretty big, continuous TO DO list! yikes!
Luckily, there are so many cool wordpress theme available which have many built-in features in them that you can run your blog without installing ton of plugins.
Always choose or buy a theme wisely which must have built-in features.
Thanx sir for this article. Me too prefer 10-15 plugins. Because, More plugins make a hoch poch in the wordpress. Some time data get erased automatically itself . Thank you 🙂
want to find a blog that can be used as a benchmark, seems to have been met.
useful posts once I feel, read reviews interesting and complete.
please stop by my blog yozidahfilputra.blogspot.com
I have shifted my blog from Blogger to my self hosted WordPress a week before. Today, I came across one of the best posts which taught me, how I can manage my WordPress site in a better way. Thank you so much for helping.
Well, This is one of the best article that every Wodpress blogger should read.
As there hell number of plugins we just keep on adding many plugins to make our blog look attractive and make our job easier. But finally they should know that adding too many plugins will make the loading time of blog to go high and also may cause some conflicts from the other plugins which already have been installed.
So it is better we have limited plugins and make our blog with simple look with great content
There’s really nothing worse than overloading your site with unnecessary plugins. The irony is that a lot of people tend to do that without thinking about it.
Nile, you are right with the few the better as to plugins. I have a little under 5 plugins and my site loads fast. I have vast amount of people as who do I use for hosting based on the speed my site loads.
I learned from the days of building site with code. Less is better if you have nothing to sale. I have no videos, podcast or other items that will slow the loading down.
Lots of people do not have enough power in their computers for 20 plugins from you locations. They end up leaving based on how long it takes them to load. The faster load the more people enjoy being on your site with all that usable information.
Nile, you understand what we need as users and that I appreciate. Thank you again for making these types of situations — Load Time – make sense to all of us. The more you stuff plugins on your site it will slow it down. So, start off with what you need and take it from there. You can always adjust in your dashboard. So, take it easy with plugins when you first create the cool site. Do not over stuff it with junk that you do not need.
Great article!
I know that we must limit the use of plugins but the problem with no so tech-savvy people like me is that we depends a lot on plugin to do things on our blog. Even designing and arranging the blog require me to use plugin. But, as time passed by, I started to learn few things manually. Hopefully, I will be able to be less dependable on plugin in the future. Currently I’m still using about a dozens plugin on my blog. Some like commentluv, all-in-one-seo and sitemap plugin might stay there forever 😀 I wonder how many that you use Nile? Any plugin that you feel indispensable to you?
Thanks for your informational post . And i’m pretty sure this blog post should be a must read post for all the newbie bloggers ..
Right now i have just 26 plugins. i previously had over 55. and then funny stuff started happening, i think some plugins were conflicting and my site was unavailable 90 percent of the time. so now my rule is, i do not use any unnecessary plugin.
Using lots of plugins make WordPress site slow. Slow sites always unfriendly to search engine as well as readers don’t love slow loading sites. So we must use only important plugins
Using lots of plugins does not slower the wordpress speed, I think, it all depends on functions the plugin handles.
But i strongly thinks that a security or Firewall plugin should be given first priority, before installing your WordPress.
and thanks for the information buy the way… 😉
It was helpful for sure.
awesome post with great information.
I am totally agree with you that using more number of plugins will slow the blog performance but its very difficult to choose which plugin should we remove. So i think we have to use minimum number of plugins.
Thanx for sharing the information.
Of course using too many plugins make your site run slow but they are necessary. It depends on your needs that how much plugins you should install. I think following plugins are must:-
WP SEO by Yoast
W3 Total Cache
Yet Another Related Post
Jet Pack
Akismet
By the way, it was another great article Nile. 🙂
Yep, most of people use lots of plugins to which their site load lazy. I use over 20 Plugins all of them are useful. We not restrict the resources WordPress give us but also should take care of them by having only useful plugins in our blogs.
Hi Nile,
thanks for a great article! I’m not a wordpress user myself YET but my boyfriend uses wordpress and he is not a developer, thus he has maaaany plugins. I don’t know how many, but it sure makes his page a bit too slow I think..
Where have you learned about php developing? You’re currently studying business, but did you study something IT-ish before that? Your knowledge must be so useful for you I bet. I’m also studying business administration at the moment but am burning for hacking! The problem is that I’m a complete beginner and have just recently started getting into that. If you’d have any tips on that, that’d be awesome 😉
Thanks again,
Hanna
Hi Hanna! I studied much of my PHP and web development between online and books. I have always been into web design and anything creative. Previous, I ran large communities on Yahoo! and even was part of a few minor hackings to allow design elements to Yahoo profiles and clubs back then…lol
We should use minimum number of plugins. As plugins increase the loading time time of our blog. So avoiding the plugins will be beneficial for us.
Nice article Nile..
Ya I am totally agree with you.Optimum use of plugin is very important.Using more plugin increase your loading time.thanks for sharing nice topic.
Hello Nile,
well i am a new blogger and just installed about 6 or 7 plugins now including adsense and SEO plugin, may be i will install some more.
Anyways it was a nice read,Thanks for sharing.
Abhimanyu
Installing plugins is always at your discretion. I have just under 20 installed on my site. Thanks for stopping by and commenting. 🙂
Hello Nile,
Thanks for sharing a nice article. Many people using a lot of plugins that causing their site’s speed slow. A plugin named P3 (Plugin Performance Profiler) can help you to check that which plugin is getting much resources on your blog.
Many thanks for this informative article. unfortunately I have not had good experiences with many plugins within a WP installation. But it is possible
Hey Nile
You have written such a great article and explained properly the number of plugins can be used by a Non – technical WordPress Users, WordPress designer and WordPress developer.
Well I am a Non – technical WordPress user and I always recommend and use very few plugins which I really need.
Because I know that installing too many useless plugins can make our blog load slow. So we should always use few plugins.
Your article is so much helpful to me as well.
I learned so many things from this article.
Thanks for sharing such a great piece of content. 😀
Happy Blogging 😉
Hi Nile,
That’s definitely a good and informative post and there are many bloggers out there who asks this questions in various communities and forums, they should read this post.
It’s definitely not about the number of plugins installed, but about how site works with them. There are so many plugins which works good, but makes website loading speed slow, one should replace them with it’s alternatives.
Nice post.
Regards
Hi Admin, Many thanks for this informative article. This can help in page speed too !