Performance issues, security vulnerabilities and problems resulting from updates top the list of challenges facing businesses using WordPress.
The stats come from a survey conducted by Pagely, a managed WordPress hosting platform.
The 2018 Edition of “The Biggest WordPress Headaches” survey looks at some very specific issues affecting how the WordPress platform operates.
WordPress currently powers more than 30 percent of the top 10 million sites on the internet, and 30 percent of all sites. And as more people and organizations use it, they are pointing out issues they have with the platform.
For small businesses, the top three pain points the survey highlights are critically important to ensure a website is up and running at all times.
In the survey, Pagely asked specialty dev agencies, bloggers, enterprise tech leads and CEOs to share some of the headaches they face when managing and hosting their WordPress sites.
The Biggest WordPress Problems
Specifically, 52 percent of respondents said performance issues were the biggest headaches when operating a WordPress site. Meanwhile, 41 percent believe security is the greatest challenge and 35 percent worry about the impact updates may have on their sites.
The three issues are related to keeping a site in top form. If there are problems with the performance, security and updates, there is a good chance your site won’t be performing at optimal levels.
Headaches of Hosting
A WordPress site can be hosted by a provider or self-hosted. For respondents who chose a provider to host their sites, 30 percent said cost was the greatest issue. By comparison, 25 percent said support was the greatest issue, 19 percent complained about security issues and 18 percent found uptime the biggest challenge.
Among respondents who chose self-hosting 50 percent said security monitoring was the biggest challenge, with 47 percent saying updating and improving their site was the biggest issue. Another 39 percent claimed not having 24/7 service as the biggest problem, and 29 percent said staff productivity issues were most difficult to handle.
You can take a look at the infographic for the rest of the data from the survey.
Images: Pagely
I’ve been using WordPress for about 8 years and while I’ve experienced a few problems along the way, they stemmed more from my learning process (like managing plug-ins) than any problem with the platform. I regularly tweak the look and content on my site and so far haven’t any problems with the updates.
The one issue I do have is the hosting company, but I don’t consider that to be the fault of WordPress. The first company I used was unreliable all around and when my blog traffic grew faster than anticipated (yea!) that created even more problems. So I switched to a company that is supposed to be THE definitive host for WordPress sites and there is no question that the performance is solid. However, it is expensive and the customer service is horrible and that has caused me more stress than anything else to do with managing my blog.
Michael Guta
Hi Marquita,
WordPress is an outstanding platform, and there is a reason one-third of sites use it for their digital presence. It has a great third-party marketplace and an even greater community. If you get the right hosting you really can’t go wrong with WordPress.
Security can be an issue as well as downtime. You’ll never know how much downtime can impact your site until it happens to you.