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PeerSpot user
Disabled House Elf at Maine Music News
Real User
Easy to use with many different interfaces to chose from
Pros and Cons
  • "We use WordPress on two different websites and it solves all of our website issues."
  • "I would recommend dumping the Gutenberg interface, as that is horrible."

What is our primary use case?

We use WordPress for both of our websites, www.mainemusicnews.com and www.jolesphotography.com.

WordPress has allowed us to maintain our own website at a reasonable cost, giving us the ability to reach people worldwide with our concert photography.

How has it helped my organization?

WordPress is hands down easy and intuitive to use. I have built many sites using WordPress and have always enjoyed the project. We use WordPress on two different websites and it solves all of our website issues. It also allows me to have multiple photographers geo-separated and still give them access to upload their own material.

What is most valuable?

The ability to upload photos and share them with people all around the world has really made my dream of photographing rockstars a reality. Prior to having WordPress, I had no ability to share my work and no credibility within the music industry. WordPress has opened many doors for me.

What needs improvement?

I would recommend dumping the Gutenberg interface and going back to the classic editor.  I understand the need for using BLOCKS to develop a page.  However, I would recommend taking a long hard look at Elementor and Elementor Pro as when it comes to developing a website, I have found using Elementor to be much more intuitive than using the Gutenberg interface.

Buyer's Guide
WordPress
October 2024
Learn what your peers think about WordPress. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2024.
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For how long have I used the solution?

More than ten years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability is always a concern. Take your time performing updates when new x.00 releases come out.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I find it has met my needs rather nicely.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We used Squarespace previously, but it had issues with SEO, specifically with Google indexing tags.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

There is no real setup cost if you do it yourself.

What other advice do I have?

Since it was released, I have been using the classic editor and it works and provides all of the necessary elements. However, I would recommend taking a look at Elementor and seeing how they are implementing the use of blocks in their page builder.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Ulf Dellbrügge - PeerSpot reviewer
Web Developer at Qanuk GMBH
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
The solution is free and has plugins but needs to adapt to new technologies
Pros and Cons
  • "I like the tool's plugins."
  • "WordPress needs to adapt to new technologies. It also needs to improve scalability. We don't have optimized content and plugins in the tech stack."

What is most valuable?

I like the tool's plugins. 

What needs improvement?

WordPress needs to adapt to new technologies. It also needs to improve scalability. We don't have optimized content and plugins in the tech stack. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for two years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate WordPress' stability an eight out of ten. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I rate the tool's scalability a three out of ten. 

How are customer service and support?

You can get free support from WordPress. 

How was the initial setup?

WordPress is easy to install and takes an hour to deploy. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

WordPress is a free solution. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate the product a seven out of ten. You can use the product if you do not have plans to grow soon. 

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
WordPress
October 2024
Learn what your peers think about WordPress. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.
PeerSpot user
Info Sec Consultant at Size 41 Digital
Real User
Top 5
WordPress - not just for blogs anymore.

What is most valuable?

WordPress started in 2003 and for a long time it was viewed as a blogging platform but in the last 4 years it has come on quite a transformational journey. With it's wealth of low cost and well support plugins, it can provide customer solutions to even large scale membership based websites. 

WordPress is  easy to install and is a really nice CMS . The ability to amend the PHP to add extra functionality of to tweak things is also a great bonus. The use of PHP also helps if you need to buy help in from a coder - PHP is common so there is a massive pool of devs. 

It also doesn't need a massive server to run. That's great for smaller businesses who don't want the hassle of large cloud contracts. 

How has it helped my organization?

I volunteer with various charities and WordPress is a very popular choice of CMS to allow them to have great functionality and a solid web presence. WordPress has allowed small organisations to control their web presence cheaply (or in most cases, for free). I think opening up the www to businesses, charities and organisations like this is a great thing. 

What needs improvement?

Good point: It has hundreds of thousands of plugins.

Bad point: It has hundreds of thousand of plugins. 

You pick a plugin, it seems well supported, you spend time installing it and setting it up. With the next WordPress back-end update, the owner of the plugin may not update their code so you are left with something that, at best, works but could be exploitable. So, it's a cloud - but the silver lining is the choice of plugins :D 

One of the most major down points: everyone and their dog tries to hack it. If you use WordPress without security plugins then things won't go well for you. Thankfully, as above, there are lots to pick from: TOR blockers, IP blockers, whitelists, blacklists... all free. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

This depends where you have it hosted.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I've used Joomla and Drupal which isn't so usable for the average Joe. 

How was the initial setup?

It's a simple click through process that takes 5 mins. There are loads of guides on line to help you through it if you are unsure. 

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user326337 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user326337Customer Success Manager at PeerSpot
Consultant

Hi Aimee,

This is great feedback for Wordpress users.
Can you specify what it is about Wordpress that is more usable "for the average Joe" compared to Joomla and Drupal?

Thanks

Abid Ullah - PeerSpot reviewer
Wordpress Developer at We Are Digital Solution
Real User
Provides a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface while also allowing for coding customization
Pros and Cons
  • "The best feature of WordPress is its user-friendliness and its strong SEO capabilities."
  • "I would like to see the addition of social media integration features in WordPress."

What is our primary use case?

I use WordPress for creating a variety of websites, such as e-commerce, portfolios, business sites, marketing with APIs, and blogs. It is a versatile platform and it suits many purposes.

What is most valuable?

The best feature of WordPress is its user-friendliness and its strong SEO capabilities. It is versatile because it provides a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface while also allowing for coding customization.

What needs improvement?

So far, we have not had any issues with the solution. Everything works perfectly. I would like to see the addition of social media integration features in WordPress.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using WordPress for five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable solution. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability of the solution is good. Approximately 60 people at my company use WordPress.

How are customer service and support?

WordPress's technical support is good.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

WordPress is very affordable.

What other advice do I have?

Overall, I would rate WordPress a ten out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Mobile application developer at Boarding Pass (Newsbp.co)
Real User
The most valuable feature is that it is easy to install and manage

What is our primary use case?

In my company, we are using WordPress for the development of our website since it is much easier to upload content and does not require expert programmers.

How has it helped my organization?

WordPress has greatly improved project delivery times as we also develop web pages for third parties. WordPress has shown us reliability, easy handling and has many themes that adapt to all kinds of situations.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is that it is easy to install and manage, there is also a lot of documentation and a large community of users that allow us to resolve any inconvenience that may arise during the development of the website.

What needs improvement?

WordPress is a tool that should not be missing in any systems department, which every web developer should dominate today. I would like them to increase security since they have been targeted by hackers and spammers.

For how long have I used the solution?

More than five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is very stable. Most hostings are optimized to work with WordPress, so there should be no problem with its use.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

For me, it has been excellent since it has been constantly updated, and the number of plugins makes it very flexible.

How are customer service and technical support?

It is simply excellent.

How was the initial setup?

The installation could not have been simpler. On my Plesk server everything comes preconfigured, I just chose the WordPress install button and that's it.

What about the implementation team?

In-house.

What was our ROI?

It is a free CMS, so there is no initial investment with the use of this platform, except domain and hosting costs. The benefits with the use of WordPress are very large, especially when it is oriented to the sale of products and services.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Saman Tohidian - PeerSpot reviewer
Retired at TechVertu
Real User
Top 5
User-friendly product with good scalability
Pros and Cons
  • "The product provides capabilities to build modern websites and can be used for various aspects of services."
  • "The backend development process needs improvement."

What is our primary use case?

We use WordPress for building small e-commerce websites.

How has it helped my organization?

The product provides capabilities to build modern websites and can be used for various aspects of services. We can create panels for the HR team as well. ,

What is most valuable?

The product is user-friendly. Anyone can easily create a website using it.

What needs improvement?

The backend development process needs improvement.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using WordPress for ten years. At present, we are using the latest version.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The product is stable. It gets updated automatically.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have more than ten WordPress users. The product is scalable.

How was the initial setup?

It is easy to set up a WordPress website. It costs around $10 for a sharing host. It takes ten minutes to half an hour.

What about the implementation team?

We take the help of an infrastructure engineer if we have to deploy the product on VPS. In the case of shared hosting, we can deploy it ourselves.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It is an open-source platform. It doesn't need any license.

What other advice do I have?

I rate WordPress an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user685404 - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President , Sr. Data Analyst at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Vendor
The online store, dynamic shipping cost tables, and invoicing are a few of the valuable features.

What is most valuable?

Once a site is developed using WordPress, it is quite easy to maintain. There is a nice administrative interface that leverages the same data as referenced by the website, but it is crafted with a focus on ease.

How has it helped my organization?

The online store, dynamic shipping cost tables, item bundling, shipping tickets, and invoicing are a few of the features that we utilized via the WooCommerce plugins.

Without having the ability to easily install these plugins, we would have been forced to create them manually. The plugin that was probably the most helpful was the QuickBooks API. This plugin provided a direct connect to our cloud-based QuickBooks solution, eliminating much of the data entry required for bookkeeping.

What needs improvement?

There are limits to some of the features provided within the backend interface, but it is quite powerful for the low cost.

We would not have been able to function without the plugins available through WooCommerce.

Most of the plugins that we installed provided about 85-90% of what was needed. There is limited customization available for these plugins.

Running updates occasionally broke down our website. In these situations, we had to pull backups or contact our website developer for guidance.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have maintained updates to a WordPress website for approximately two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Running updates occasionally broke down our website. In these situations, we had to pull backups or contact our website developer for guidance.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Our WordPress application was more than able to handle our updates.

How are customer service and technical support?

Online support is about all that we needed for the main application. There was never a need for technical support, as such.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We didn't use another solution previously.

How was the initial setup?

Our website developer installed all of the needed pieces for the application. They did not report any difficulties.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

WordPress is very reasonably priced. I would, however, encourage all prospective customers who are interested in having an online store to utilize a reputable web host.

We used the same company that developed our website as our web host. The site performed well at go-live, but began to deteriorate as new features were added. The end result was that our local web host was unable to handle our enhancements.

We eventually migrated our application to Go Daddy to resolve our web hosting woes.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate other options, as our web developer only built sites using WordPress.

What other advice do I have?

You can rest assured that WordPress will likely provide a scalable back end to your website. The only advice that I would emphasize is to spend some time and money on a quality web hosting service.

WooCommerce is a well-known ecommerce plugin provider for the WordPress platform.

We used multiple out-of-the-box plugins from this company to enhance our website.

We leveraged the standard WooCommerce marketplace, Authorize.net portal (allow for credit card payments), QuickBooks plugin (integrate with our cloud based QuickBooks system), shipping ticket and invoicing printing plugins, and dynamic table rate shipping plugin.

There were minor limits to the dynamic table rate shipping plugin so we had to get creative on pricing for bundled products shipping.

The QuickBooks integration was not exactly seamless and required some manual modifications. However, the QB plugin saved a great deal of manual double-entry.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Channel and Marketing Manager at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees
Real User
Lots of flexibility for integrations and ability to create simpler as well as more complex sites

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case is for marketing our product and make sure we are always able to be found by the right people - converting visitors to leads. Because Wordpress has so many plugins and the ability to integrate different analytics, SEO, and even social apps, we can track all the data we need to make real decisions about page, messaging, blog, content performance. 

How has it helped my organization?

It allows us to manage our website internally, so we don't need to hire a costly web management service to do it for us. It also integrates with a ton of other services (analytics, forms, email lists, CRMs, etc.) that are key to getting the right information and sending it to the right places.

What is most valuable?

Ease of use and the variety of plugins. Because it is such a well-known and popular product, there are a ton of development companies and users creating plugins and solutions for it, which makes it adaptable and easy for people who have fewer technical skills.

With Gutenberg, Wordpress is poised to become even more accessible to the average website manager, so minimal knowledge of css or html is necessary. However, Gutenberg is still very buggy, so be sure to use another builder in the meantime (e.g. Beaver Builder).

What needs improvement?

Because it's such a popular platform, it can have vulnerabilities that you want to be up to date on. Be sure to upgrade to the latest stable version, and make sure you have some security (e.g. iThemes) running on your site.

For how long have I used the solution?

Three to five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We did not encounter any stability issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have not yet encountered any scalability issues.

How are customer service and technical support?

We don't pay for WordPress technical support. But there are a lot of forums and ways to troubleshoot information for it.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We did not have a previous solution.

How was the initial setup?

The setup was straightforward. You can actually install WordPress directly through your hosting services.

What about the implementation team?

We implemented with the assistance of a qualified web designer who set up the initial site, theme, content, and plugins. From there, we took on the design and maintenance ourselves, with occasional help from a web development agency who assists with projects like migrating our site to SSL etc.

What was our ROI?

Leads are our bread and butter, and if you are a SaaS company, then you know how valuable your website is. 

Even with a brick and mortar company that I work with, the website provides a third of all leads looking for their services.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The WordPress platform is free! But because there are so many paid add-ons, just be sure that what you're getting has been vetted by other WordPress users. if you are looking at a solid and well-documented theme and visual builder, you are probably looking at ~$500.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate other solutions. We knew we wanted this one.

What other advice do I have?

If you are not technically skilled, get someone to set it up for you to make it easy to create and update the pages yourself going forward.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
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