[nukst]

Thank you peckrob, this was very insightful.

Let me be a SOB for a second and ask for your opinion. I'm interested in freelancing with WordPress, mostly small company websites, would you still recommend it for someone who's just getting in the market?

TIA

[peckrob]

Not a bad question at all.

It's all about what the client needs. The advice I give on this subject these days is that Wordpress is fine to use for a blog or a very basic, low traffic read-only company websites. Think like a small restaurant or something. The two things to be aware of:

1. Somebody has to support it, whether that be you or someone who comes after you. While Wordpress doesn't have as many security issues in and of itself as it used to, it still does have some occasionally and will still need to be patched up to more recent versions. Security vulnerabilities in Wordpress are almost immediately exploited, so the sooner you patch, the better.

2. The minute you start trying to push Wordpress beyond the bounds of being a basic CMS or blogging platform (like adding online ordering, inventory management, etc.) you are better off finding other, better suited options.

[exodust]

> (like adding online ordering, inventory management, etc.) you are better off finding other, better suited options.

What better suited options? And why are they better for someone's small business or intention to sell a few products?

To be fair, the "online ordering" part is handled by services such as Paypal and Stripe. Wordpress is not doing the heavy lifting. Inventory is just a bunch of products sitting in the database. I'm not sure it's fair to describe this as "pushing beyond the bounds of a blogging platform". At the end of the day, you get a new item in the Wordpress admin "products". Click that, add products, enter prices.

Is it ideal? No. But what platform is that is affordable and predictable?

[peckrob]

What I usually recommend at that point is that users do one of two things:

1. Switch to a hosted solution like Shopify for actual order processing, inventory, etc and keep Wordpress around for the read-only business type pages or blogs. Let each component do what it is best at.

2. Switch entirely to a hosted platform like Wix or Squarespace, which let you do both.

I have yet to encounter a Wordpress eCommerce plugin that wasn't, at some level, a disaster. Every one I have seen is janky and the code quality is usually quite poor.

There is also the security implications of doing this. Especially for small businesses, if you can't or don't want to pay someone to constantly patch Wordpress up against the most recent security issues [0] (again, in fairness, this is largely plugins and themes these days), you're taking a very real risk at having your installation hacked and possibly data exposed depending on the severity. I've seen Wordpress installs hacked within hours of a zero-day being dropped. Every plugin you bring in increases your attack surface, and the more complex the plugin, the larger the attack surface.

People really need to just let Wordpress be Wordpress. Wordpress was designed to be a blogging platform and basic CMS. Just because you can extend it beyond that doesn't mean it's a good idea. You can use a screwdriver as a hammer if you try hard enough, but that doesn't make it actually a hammer or the right tool to use.

[0] https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvekey.cgi?keyword=wordpress

[exodust]

That's rather alarmist and exaggerated. "Every plugin is a disaster". No it isn't.

Shopify isn't immune to vulnerabilities: https://infosecwriteups.com/how-i-gained-access-to-revenue-a...

I wouldn't recommend Shopify. Clunky, slow, overpriced. And business inventory shouldn't be outsourced and hosted on third party platforms.

Self-managed solutions offer more options to scale and add features, customization and generally taking control over the way your business is presented online. This matters, and customers notice the confidence of a business owning its online presence.

Doesn't need to be Wordpress, but even if it is, the option to use something like Snipcart is there if WooCommerce isn't wanted. No need to switch everything over to hosted solutions like Shopify.

> "You can use a screwdriver as a hammer if you try hard enough, but that doesn't make it actually a hammer or the right tool to use."

Not sure why you thought it necessary to expand "right tool, right job" into that longer version, but you're implying Shopify is the hammer. Why? Because it has "shop" in the name? They stack a bunch of technologies together just like everyone else. And with that comes attack surfaces and issues just like anyone else.

[jonnycomputer]

I've found that the WooCommerce plugin does most of what I needed of it without too much hassle, for a low-volume business.

[nukst]

Once again, thank you! This aligns very well with what a few friends pointed out about this matter.