Making good plugin choices

I’ve often said that a WooCommerce site built with more than 25 plugins was built wrong. That’s somewhat of a shock tactic in getting folks to take responsibility for their plugin decisions. It’s also quite true, though perhaps not with such an explicit number given that plugins vary in size and impact.

Each plugin consumes resources and slows down a site, particularly on weaker hosting. Plugins can also clog-up the database by caching a bunch of data or storing oversized settings inside the wp_options table, even if the plugin is later removed. I’ve seen plugins leave whole custom DB tables behind. Worst are the autoload=yes settings that chew up RAM with every page request.

It’s very important to test plugins first on a clone (dev, staging) environment and never on production.

Plugin decisions tell me a lot about how the site was put together.

When I see very standard framework-type plugins being used I feel better about the quality of the site’s structure. To use a construction analogy — the bones are good. For example, WooCommerce, Advanced Custom Fields, Gravity Forms, Elementor, Gutenberg, Contact Form 7, JetPack, and of course the official WooCommerce extensions.

When I see outdated community plugins or more especially third party Pro plugins that try to do a bunch of nonstandard stuff I know the quality is dubious. That’s when I hear about plugin updates severely breaking the site in the past, those twice-shy trepidations from those having been once-bitten (if not more).

Worse yet, plugins that bundle their own licensing models. I’m talking about you WP Bakery, Advanced Custom Fields Pro, Elementor Pro, Divi, Slider Revolution, and so many more. If you see a folder inside of a plugin called Freemius then run! In these cases you’re activating functionality for the plugin to update itself based on a license you have, and it won’t even function on a clone environment where you need to be doing your development and testing. Plus this is an indication the plugin is not GPL compliant or compatible with WordPress licensing.

I’ve got some more interesting research data for you! I counted the WordPress and WooCommerce hooks (actions and filters) utilized by popular plugins. The average is 195 each. That means that with each and every plugin you have there’s 195 overrides that YOU – the webmaster – are responsible for understanding and maintaining.

Try running 50 plugins and being responsible for 50 websites. That’s nearly half a million customizations minus the overlap of plugins used between those sites. Interested in plugin reduction yet?

Plugin Name	Actions	Filters	Total
ACF Pro	193	140	333
AMP	177	138	315
Akismet	34	14	48
Beaver Builder	220	124	344
Caldera Forms	138	100	238
Classic Editor	13	12	25
Code Snippets	26	10	36
Cookie Law Info	27	6	33
Contact Form 7	68	56	124
Custom Fonts	16	11	27
CPT UI	40	22	62
Divi Builder	387	299	686
Elementor	191	84	275
Elementor Pro	195	105	300
Envato Market	38	19	57
FacetWP	40	41	81
Flexible Shipping	122	48	170
Google Analytics Dash	43	11	54
Gravity Forms	152	96	248
Gutenberg v7	55	20	75
JetPack	1226	635	1861
MailChimp for Woo	108	30	138
MailChimp for WP	100	34	134
Nav Menu Roles	9	9	18
Optin Monster	70	18	88
Post Duplicator	10	3	13
Redirection	22	19	41
Redux Framework	82	18	100
Responsive Menu	13	1	14
SendGrid	25	19	44
Simple Social Icons	6	2	8
Slider Revolution	51	22	73
Social Pug	90	67	157
Sucuri Scanner	51	1	52
UpDraft Plus	103	56	159
User Switching	14	7	21
Virtual Composer	195	210	405
Widget Visibility	6	3	9
Woo Admin	94	59	153
Woo Amazon Pay	56	17	73
Woo Authorize.Net	126	43	169
Woo Braintree	117	54	171
Woo Cost of Goods Sold	80	43	123
Woo Dynamic Pricing	39	33	72
Woo Facebook	57	5	62
Woo Memberships	338	225	563
Woo Mix and Match	84	86	170
Woo Order Export	13	8	21
Woo PayPal Checkout	50	11	61
Woo Points/Rewards	77	27	104
Woo Print Invoices…	53	30	83
Woo Product Bundles	139	192	331
Woo Product Vendors	137	92	229
Woo Services	58	30	88
Woo Shortcodes	54	33	87
Woo Smart Coupons	219	139	358
Woo Smart Coupons	219	139	358
Woo Stripe	85	40	125
Woo Subscriptions	503	304	807
Woo Variation Swatches	23	7	30
WooCommerce	623	264	887
WordFence	131	45	176
WP Crontrol	6	3	9
WP Forms Lite	198	67	265
WP Optimize	64	7	71
Yoast SEO	279	111	390
AVERAGES	125	70	195