There are good reasons to use the platform if you want to build a site of that scale. On the other hand, there are also good reasons not to.
To help you make a decision, in this post I want to ask the question of whether WordPress is really ready for the enterprise and the factors that speak for and against it.
Is WordPress Ready for Business?… A Pros and Cons List
Next, we'll look at what makes WordPress suitable and unsuitable for websites with enterprise-level needs.
Pro: Proven track record
As a first step, let’s take a look at what’s already happening. At this point, it’s probably common knowledge that WordPress leads the CMS (Content Management System) market and currently powers over 40% of the entire Internet .
However, this can easily be dismissed by saying that it's probably just a lot of hobby blogs and other small fish. After all, it's a free tool, so it's probably used by most people who can't afford to pay anything else.
However, reality paints a different picture.
According to BuiltWith , WordPress powers over 37% of the top 10,000 CMS-based websites. That’s 15% of the entire top echelon, outperforming all other systems that don’t fall into the “Other” category.
CMS usage distribution
CMS usage distribution
If you look at W3Techs , they even see WordPress' share among the top 1,000 websites at just over 50%, of which using a CMS, that is.
Either way, what should you take away from this? The fact that a significant portion of high-end websites already use WordPress. It seems they’ve answered the question “is WordPress ready for business?” with a yes.
Pro: WordPress Headless
“Headless” WordPress is looking to become a big thing and was one of the main topics at WordCamp Europe 2020.
In case you don't know, it's a way to decouple the CMS backend from the frontend. Doing so gives the possibility to create a custom UI, e.g. based on a JavaScript framework and connecting it to the backend via an API.
Wordpress Headless
WordPress Headless
As a result, you get the best of both worlds: superior content management along with a faster performing front-end.
Major blogs and websites e.g. Backlinko, TechCrunch and others have already made the switch to increase their site performance in an increasingly speed-focused environment ( see core web vitals ).
WordPress is equipped to accommodate this approach , thanks to the REST API. Not only that, the API can also populate almost anything else with content, including mobile apps. As a result, headless gambling data malaysia can turn WordPress from a simple website into an omnichannel publishing tool.
Ease of use in WordPress
Ease of use in WordPress
Pro: Ease of use and equipment capabilities
Ease of use is arguably the main reason for WordPress’ success. The fact that the platform makes it so easy for non-technical people to start and run a website is probably the reason why it is in the position it is in today.
What is true for single-author blogs and small business websites also applies to businesses with dozens or hundreds of stakeholders. They too can benefit from the accessible user interface from which they can control every aspect of their website.
Since WordPress 5.8, that also includes full site editing , and the ability to make website-wide changes via the WYSIWYG editor will only increase.
So more power to the same easy interface you can control it from, what's not to love?
Additionally, WordPress is very capable of adapting to the needs of teams. It comes with a variety of user roles with different capabilities out of the box.
Managing Roles in WordPress
Managing Roles in WordPress
There are also plugins like the User Role Editor that allow you to make more granular adjustments to who can do what on your website. Additionally, there are many add-ons to improve your editorial workflow and make teamwork even easier.
Pro: freedom and flexibility
WordPress is open source, which brings a lot of freedom. It's not just that the platform is free to use. Under its license, you can also do whatever you want with it. With the right technical skills, literally every part of the CMS can be customized for any need you have:
Create your own theme (or use a child theme of an existing one)
Customize the WordPress backend, including the editor
Take advantage of custom page templates to create any layout you need
Setting up your own WordPress blocks and reusable design patterns
Choose from over 58,000 plugins and over 8,600 themes to add functionality and design
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Whatever you need WordPress to do, there's probably a way to get it done.
The best part: you are allowed to make all those changes. This is in stark contrast to commercial products where you are dependent on the vendor’s roadmap and decisions for their product. In short, WordPress gives you a lot of flexibility for your business website.
Pro: Other benefits
I could go on listing more advantages. But the article is already getting long. So, here is a short list of other benefits that ensure WordPress is ready for businesses:
Cost-effective: Cost is always a concern in business. In that case, you go ahead with WordPress because it has the best price of all: zero. While there are always costs involved in running a website (hosting, domain, extensions, etc.), the core product won’t cost you anything.
Multisite capability: You can create multiple websites from one installation (e.g. for different languages or countries) and manage them from a central location. A perfect choice for multinational companies.
Multi-Language Options – There are many solutions to make WordPress multilingual, which is often key for enterprise-level websites.
Regular Updates – WordPress is constantly under development to keep up with trends, offer performance improvements, and security updates (which can be installed automatically). It’s also backwards compatible, so unlike other CMSs, you don’t have to rebuild your site from scratch when a new major version comes out.
Mobile-Friendly – Mobile-friendliness is an absolute necessity these days. All WordPress themes in the official directory are responsive out of the box and there are plenty of things you can do to make WordPress mobile-friendly. Consequently, this is definitely not an issue.
SEO Friendly – Similarly, WordPress performs well on search engines right out of the box. You can further improve it with WordPress SEO plugins, so lack of organic traffic is not something to fear.
In short, WordPress has a lot of things going for it that make it enterprise-ready. However, there are also a few things that speak against it.
With: scalability
The ability to scale has long been WordPress’s Achilles heel for being truly useful as an enterprise solution . Some performance issues are built in. One is the fact that it relies on a MySQL database, which can be a bottleneck if there are a lot of queries between the browser and the server. It also has a lot of legacy code for backwards compatibility which can be a problem.
Additionally, many of the free plugins and themes may not be suitable for enterprise customers. If you have millions of page views, you should think twice about trusting an extension that someone might maintain in their spare time.
It is true that there are solutions to both of the problems mentioned.
For one, there are plenty of high-quality caching solutions out there. And, if you opt for a reputable managed WordPress hosting provider, they are often already built in. Personally, I usually suggest SiteGround with my eyes closed.
Generally, with a specialized provider , many of the scaling issues are left by the wayside. Your site will be built on an architecture and environment specifically designed for high performance.
Plus, if you're at the enterprise level, chances are you already have a dedicated development team, agency, or department ready to build custom solutions for your needs. So, you no longer need to rely on what the WordPress plugin directory has to offer.
