Like any other popular solution, WordPress has during the last few years gained a lot of fame, but in the process it has also generated quite a few myths about itself. Despite serving as the primary platform for a variety of blogs and websites and having been widely praised on its versatility and adaptability, WordPress still faces several misguided opinions circulating on the Internet. Here are 7 completely undeserved myths that somehow got popular and today reign the public imagination of WordPress.
1. WordPress works just for blogs
This is a classic. No matter how many major websites we see powered by WP, it’s still commonly known as a blogging platform. This is actually a major marketing fail on the part of WordPress, who until recently themselves didn’t acknowledge the fact that WP can be used to create both blogs and websites. If you want to build a stunning website, there’s nothing standing in your way – WordPress is extendable to such a degree that it allows for almost everything.
2. WP plugins slow down websites
WordPress Works for Everything
The celebrated WordPress plugins that help to extend the platform way beyond its basic installation core were also victims to undeserved criticism. The truth is that some plugins will slow your website down, but others won’t do a thing – some of them might even improve its load time. In other words, not all plugins will ruin the load time of a website.
3. WordPress works only for small companies
This misconception is closely related to the one stating that WordPress is just a blogging platform and so cannot be used by large corporations for bigger web projects. The truth is, today WP is so much more than that – it’s extendable, scalable, fast to develop and easy to handle. If you don’t believe it, have a look at this impressive list of VIP clients who rely on the functionalities of WP every day. (http://vip.wordpress.com/clients/)
4. WordPress won’t work for e-commerce
This myth is partially understandable – WordPress wasn’t initially made to handle e-commerce. But it has grown considerably since its creation and today offers lots of plugins, themes and frameworks that render it an accessible and reliable e-commerce solution.
5. WordPress isn’t flexible
There is a major misconception abut WP circulating around the web and it says that if you want to do something out of the box, WP won’t collaborate. This is simply untrue – WP is flexible and allows for much more than you’d suspect. Once you convert your database content into HTML markup, you’re literally free to do anything you want.
6. WordPress isn’t secure
Before I debunk this myth, let’s make one thing clear – no system is perfectly secure. People believe WordPress to be less secure because it’s so popular and consequently more likely to be attacked than a less widespread CMSs. The truth is that websites get hacked because of various reasons, but more often then not, those reasons are not the faults of the system – inefficient passwords, lack of proper security measures and not updating the system.
7. Large enterprises cannot use WordPress, because it’s open source
Big companies often believe that you get what you pay for – if a system is free, it surely cannot be good enough or provide extensive support. They should, however, regard this issue from a different perspective – all that money spent on a license can be instead allocated in hiring WP professionals to build and support the system.
I believe that what makes WP such a fantastic solution is precisely the fact that it’s open source – there’s a big community constantly working to improve it. Together with its plugins and frameworks, WordPress is nothing short of the most powerful system on the web.
Monique Rivers is an Australian tech blogger who also loves good food and fashion. She works at ninefold.com. Ninefold is a powerful Ruby on Rails platform, that allows you to deploy Rails apps quickly and easily.
