One of the many unique advantages that Wordpress has over other content management systems is the vast pluign community it has. It continues to grow nearly every single year and it has gotten to the point where there seems to be a plugin for just about everything you can imagine! Plugins are such an advatage obviously because you can add so many various types of functionality to your blog/site with relative ease. But should we depend on 3rd party plugins as much as some of us do? And also, can too many plugins on one Wordpress blog be a bad thing?

Should We Depend on 3rd Party Plugins As Much As We Do?

The answer is of course no. A classic example of why is when a plugin comes out, and then stops being supported by it’s original developer for some reason. The right Open Source thing to do would be to pick it back up yourself and “re-support” it and contribute code wherever you can. But this doesn’t always happen! And if you are a end-user, not a programmer, you could end up finding yourself in a tough situation because your plugin no longer works with the most current version of Wordpress. There are many plugins that you will feel that you just need, but have some moderation on the plugins that you depend on so that if a plugin goes “unsupported” you won’t be left in a bind.

Can Too Many Plugins On One Wordpress Blog Be A Bad Thing?

Yes. Consider the answer to the previous question as one of the reasons why. And the other reason being the number of MySQL queries that are required the more and more you add new plugins. I have worked with many peoples Wordpress blogs that are just way too “heavy” and slow to load because of poor plugin management. Deactivate and get rid of the plugins you are not uisng or are going to use! Clean up your Wordpress CMS of any wasteful and uneeded materials. That goes for your code as well!

Use Code Over Plugins Whenever Possible!

Obviously if you are a PHP guru you are going to have no problem writing all your own code inside your theme. But many of you are savvy enough to find code hacks or snippets that can get the job done without using a plugin. Let me give you an example. Instead of installing a Link Directory plugin of some kind, learn how to use the wp_blogroll functions with PHP in your theme to build your own Link Directory using Wordpress code itself. Many times theres no need to depend on a 3rd Party Plugin for something the Wordpress Code can cover on it’s own. Make sense?

A perfect site for beginners is a blog called WPHacks.com which daily displays code on achieving certain functionality through code rather than through plugins. And once you are a little more familiar with Wordpress, get yourself introuced to the Wordpress Codex. There’s almost nothing you can’t do with all the code documented there.