Plugin Mentality

We’d never attempt to build a WordPress site without Advanced Custom Fields.

Straight out the box we’re relying on a third party plugin.

In Craft CMS, Advanced Custom Fields type functionality comes built into the core courtesy of the Matrix.

It’s more than likely that you’ll use plugins on a Craft CMS build — but I believe there’s a different mentality to plugin use in the WordPress development world.

Rather than taking a step back and asking what tool is right for the project — WordPress developers ask: “What plugins can I use to make WordPress behave like I need it to?”.

When a client asks for new functionality on a WordPress site — the immediate response is often: “is there a plugin for that?”.

“Is there a plugin for that?” Every WordPress developer ever

We’re guilty of this too.

There’s nothing wrong with plugins — in fact they’re a good thing! They’ll save you development time and effort, as well as making you part of the open source community on the internet.



But the problem is when you have to rely on using plugins to make a CMS behave how you need it to.

For even simple CMS functionality in WordPress you can soon end up swimming in a deep murky sea of plugins.

WordPress was developed as a blogging platform — not a CMS.

But if you throw enough of the 54000 available plugins at it - you can cover up its lack of functionality, bloated and outdated code base — and it'll masquerade as everything and anything it was never really intended to be.