What are WordPress plugins?

Published: July 31, 2023

WordPress Plugins are what make WordPress amazing. While the base functionalities are sufficient for a blog or a small website, Plugins allow WordPress to expand its abilities well beyond a blogging CMS. Plugins are developed by third-party contributors, and many plugins offer free and paid versions.

There are plugins for all areas of the web, including transforming your WordPress into a forum, eCommerce, or social media website, expanding security such as 2FA & Spam Protection plugins, Page Builders, Backups, Caching & Optimization, as well as integrations with many products such as Google Ads, Analytics, PayPal, Stripe and much more.

Plugins use precious website resources

Plugins are fantastic tools, but they also use resources. It’s important to make sure you have the appropriate assortment of disk space, memory, and I/O in order to run properly for all visitors.

Plugins can make or break a website

Plugins are also one of the biggest reasons websites become broken or open to vulnerabilities. It’s important to keep your plugins up to date and minimize the possibilities of configuration issues by running a lean plugin stack where functionalities do not overlap.