WordPress is the CMS of choice everywhere right now. No, scratch that! WordPress is the favorite site builder online today.
Why?
With over 70 million websites running on WordPress and almost half of the top 100 blogs using it, there’s no doubt about its popularity.
WordPress currently owns 55% market share for all CMS and it’s often the only option recommended by a large majority of bloggers online.
In fact, if you’re new to online technology you’ll almost be convinced that WordPress is the only option for creating blogs and websites.
The good news is it isn’t!
WordPress is great and has its own VERY BIG market share; it has created solutions and businesses for people online. If you want custom WordPress themes, specialized WordPress Hosting or you want to hirea designer to help you customize your blog, there are countless options.
This article isn’t written to attack WordPress but to make you realize that, while WordPress is great, you don’t necessarily have to use it. There are advantages and disadvantages to using WordPress, but you’re only often reading about the advantages.
It’s important to take note of these disadvantages and consider using an alternative, especially if you’re asmall business that needs a website.
Here are 5 valid reasons you might not want to use WordPress.
1. It Can be Very Vulnerable
The number one disadvantage to using WordPress that most WordPress users aren’t aware of is how vulnerable WordPress can be.
WordPress is open source and relies on a community of developers to come up with the resources you’ll need to customize it; this includes themes and plugins.
Every theme or plugin you use on your WordPress site is written by a different person; since there’s no particular organization/body that monitors WordPress themes or plugins, this mean there could be a bug in the plugin you use on your site.
In case you don’t know this, with WordPress, a single plugin can allow access to your admin dashboard; unless you’re actively taking measures to secure your WordPress blog, then you can’t be totally assured.
Also, WordPress runs on PHP and stores important details in your MYSQL database which leaves a potential for SQL injection attacks. Being vulnerable to brute force attacks is also one major disadvantage of using WordPress, unless you install a plugin to counter this.
2. It Can be Very Expensive
No, don’t get me wrong. WordPress is “free”. It’s free to download and install WordPress but having just WordPress is not going to work, unless you don’t want your website to stand out from a large part of the 70+ million websites using WordPress.
You see WordPress everywhere and when you start seeing the same version of a site using WordPress, it becomes less memorable; that’s why WordPress is expensive.
To ensure your WordPress blog is properly designed and always active, you’ll have to spend several thousands of dollars.
Also, with the numerous WordPress updates and changes being rolled out regularly it’s only a matter of time before you start having issues with your “outdated” design and you’ll often have to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to ensure your WordPress website is active again.
The only way out of this is to be a WordPress designer yourself.
3. You Have to Constantly Update Your Website
This is designed to be a good thing but when you consider the frequency of WordPress updates and the compatibility issues that come with it (updating plugins etc.) then it’s not necessarily a good thing.
With every update, you risk issues with your website template – which often costs thousands of dollars – and some of your plugins.
Maintenance in WordPress is a whole issue on its own; you can’t use WordPress without constantly updating it and you have to be ready to make changes to your template or plugins when you update.
If you have the budget, a designer or programmer or the resources to manage these updates, WordPress is great. Otherwise, you might want to stick to using other solutions.
4. WordPress Uses a Lot of Resources
For WordPress to be very effective, you’ll often have to install a lot of plugins.
A basic WordPress installation is useless and requires a theme and at least a few plugins to work effectively. On the surface, this isn’t much of a problem but the more WordPress plugins you install the slower your website becomes.
What if you can’t do without these plugins and what if you don’t have the budget or resources for coding these features into your WordPress template? You go for an increasingly slowing website.
In terms of server resources, WordPress also uses a lot more resources than a plain HTML website or a PHP template site so, unless you find a quality WordPress hosting solution, you risk being suspended by your host if you get a lot of visitors and use WordPress on a shared hosting.
5. You Can Easily Run into SEO Issues
It’s important to pay special attention to this unless you already have SEO access.
WordPress is purported to be very SEO friendly but the reality is that almost every open source CMS is. WordPress can easily get you into SEO problems if you don’t have SEO knowledge; a major culprit is the tagging and category system used by WordPress.
Unless you decide to make your tags and categories “noindex”, every single tag you create and every single category you add your content to will have a duplicate form of that content. As a result, some people have 10 versions of the same content and wonder why they’re experiencing the same issue.
If you have advanced SEO knowledge, this won’t be an issue but not everybody possesses this kind of knowledge. Most of the people reading this article probably didn’t know this until today.
WordPress Alternatives
While this article contains some valid points, it won’t be complete without listing some quality WordPress alternatives.
Since almost every other CMS has the same issues as WordPress, I will be listing HTML site builders in the alternative sections. Don’t be deceived though, you’ll get quality looking websites with these tools that are built online in a breeze.
1. Easy WebContent
One of the best WordPress alternatives available online today, this is tool that provides an HTML site builder and an HTML website editor to help people create better looking websites.
Easy WebContent costs a monthly fee and helps you host your website, your content and everything else. You will also be provided with a WYSIWYG editor and can customize your site to look however you want even if you’re not a designer. There’s also a blog feature if you want a blog as an addon to your website.
2. Wix
Similar to Easy WebContent mentioned above, Wix also has a set of features that allow you to build professional websites that doesn’t rely on WordPress.
The two tools listed above will help you create good looking, WYSIWYG websites without having to rely on WordPress or experience the hassles that come with it.
3. Tumblr
Tumblr lets you effortlessly share anything. Post text, photos, quotes, links, music, and videos from your browser, phone, desktop, email or wherever you happen to be. You can customize everything, from colors to your theme’s HTML. Tumblr is 100% free, however you can purchase high quality themes if you wish.
4. Squarespace
Squarespace starts you with beautiful templates right out of the box — each handcrafted by our award-winning design team to make your content stand out. Whether you need simple pages, sophisticated galleries, or a professional blog – it all comes standard with your Squarespace website. If you sign up now, you will get a 14 day free trial.
5. Virb
Share Your Own WordPress Alternatives?
I know there are other WordPress alternatives but the two listed above are the ones I’ve experienced. What other site builder can you recommend as a WordPress alternative? Is there a WordPress disadvantage I failed to mention in this article?
Cavalars 
John Perili
/ 24 gennaio 2013I actually tried 4 out of 5 of these before. For me Easy WebContent.com works best for me. Others are either too complicated or not enough flexibility.