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If you're a business owner or an aspiring web developer, one of the critical steps in your career is to build a website of your own. Thankfully, you can take many options to make this task easy. One of them is to use a content management system (CMS) like WordPress.
If you're already eyeing WordPress and need to know what to expect, you may want to continue reading this article to learn about its pros and cons when using it as the primary CMS to build your website.
1. Pro: WordPress is easy to install
If you're 100 per cent new to website development, web hosting, or blogging, it's recommended that you build your website with WordPress. With this CMS, you can publish a website within minutes, ready to post and accept content. You won't even need the help of a lengthy 'how to start your WordPress blog' guide and other similar resources to achieve it successfully.
WordPress, by default, is easy to install. Most web hosting providers nowadays are equipped with online software that can let you install the CMS without worrying about anything.
On the other hand, if you're completely new to anything website-related, you can simply go to WordPress' website and let them handle everything on their end. You only need to register an account and get a domain from them.
2. Con: WordPress may deplete your incentive to learn how to develop a website
A CMS does almost everything for you. You can have a high-performing and popular website without knowing anything about HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and other related development languages with WordPress and most CMS.
However, it can encapsulate you in a bubble wherein you won't learn anything new about web development if you don't consciously and intentionally try to know anything about creating websites.
3. Pro: WordPress doesn't require you to be a web developer
If you want to change anything on your site, whether it's how it looks or functions, you can just do so in a matter of clicks. WordPress has an excellent repository of themes and plugins, which are mostly free.
For the uninitiated, themes allow you to change your WordPress site's appearance.
Meanwhile, plugins can give your website added functionality. For example, some popular plugins can let you build an e-commerce section that sells Harley-Davidsons in your blog. You can also turn your blog into an auction site or, basically, anything.
4. Con: WordPress makes it easy for you to ruin your website
Because WordPress won't stop you from installing themes and plugins anytime you want, it's easy for you to make your site unmanageable in the future.
Note that some themes and plugins don't work well together. So, if you accidentally installed the ones that aren't compatible, you may brick your site.
5. Pro: WordPress is a good training ground for developers
While it's said in the previous section that WordPress could hinder you from learning how to develop and manage websites that aren't powered by WordPress, it can teach you a lot as long as you try to get under its hood.
WordPress isn't a proprietary CMS; you can access its inner workings anytime. And doing so will benefit you greatly if you're trying to learn about PHP, a server-side scripting language.
Meanwhile, you can also tinker with themes and plugins as you go. Accessing the themes' codes can let you explore and learn more about HTML and JavaScript.
6. Con: WordPress may lull you into a false sense of security
While WordPress is great and all, it can make you think everything's set out of the box the moment you install it. Unfortunately, being one of the most used CMSs in the world, it's also the most vulnerable and exploitable.
Most hackers can easily make their way into WordPress websites that aren't configured to be secure.
Because of that, once you install WordPress, don't leave everything as is. Take the time to learn more about it, mainly how to make it more secure against malicious individuals and their attacks.
7. Pro: WordPress has a supportive community
Thankfully, you'll never be alone with your WordPress site. If you did something that broke your site, don't fret.
You can always ask for help in the WordPress community, composed of many experts you can rely on, particularly on the most basic things. And you also have the WordPress documentation, which is greatly helpful if you're just starting out.
8. Con: WordPress doesn't have a support team for free users
The community is, indeed, helpful, but you can't expect to get help all the time. And you can't expect people from WordPress will help you out. After all, WordPress doesn't owe anyone a dedicated support team unless they've registered as a paying customer of their hosting services.
Conclusion
WordPress is ideal for new developers and website owners.
It's easy to use, doesn't require in-depth web knowledge, and has a supportive community. And the best thing about it is that it's mostly free. You don't need to spend money to try it out and see if it'll work.
