We got some great responses through social media for our “Why WordPress?” post this summer. It’s only right that we play “devil’s advocate” a little and acknowledge that while we do love WordPress, we know it’s not a perfect fit for everyone.
Here are a few business situations where WordPress might not be the best solution for your website needs:
- Tight Security
Any number of open-source content management systems present a vulnerability to hackers and online security problems, especially “off the shelf” solutions – not just WordPress. Financial organizationsand companies exchanging high levels of valuable personal information should consider an alternative to WordPress simply to include a higher level of security that most mainstream platforms are unable to provide.
WordPress often uses a number of plugins to create a customized look, feel and functionality, and not all plugin developers keep those up to date with new hacker technology. Also, website owners don’t always update plugins or themes for fear of incompatibility, so they leave themselves open to vulnerabilities. WordPress provides great flexibility, but is not a good option if you’re not saying apprised of updates.
- Complex eCommerce
WordPress is fantastic for setting up a small online e-commerce shop, but if your company relies solely on online sales and exceeds $1M in sales, then we’d suggest other e-commerce options. Companies looking for a system with capabilities to manage inventory integration, multiple currencies, multiple payments or complex transactions such as Amazon or Ebay would be best suited to look for other alternatives such as Bigcommerce, ZenCart, etc. or a platform that’s completely custom. We are a reseller of BigCommerce, and we’d be happy to set up a demo site for you to play around with to see how robust the administration functionality is! - Intranet Needs
In many large corporations, it’s imperative that employees be able to interact with one another and share information on a domain that’s meant solely for internal use. While WordPress can be formatted to accommodate similar uses, we recommend a custom platform for more complex uses. Also there are some off-the-shelf intranet providers that have lower up-front fees. - Media Heavy Sites and +1,000 Pages
For companies looking to host videos or large media files from a multitude of users, WordPress might not be the best option. Video sharing is best handled with a custom platform built specifically for the task. For example, you wouldn’t expect YouTube to choose WordPress for the vast number of files and users on the website. Similarly, websites with a sizeable number of pages (+1,000) have the potential to experience performance issues if the hosting is not properly configured.
At Yellow Duck, if your website needs cannot be fulfilled in house, we partner with the best of local and regional web programmers to bring our clients custom websites that fit specific needs.
Need a simple brochure site with basic capabilities? Great! We’re happy to help!
Need a highly customized, shopping cart system that requires user accounts and product management capabilities? We’re here for that too!
Sources:
http://vabulous.com/myths-debunked-on-why-large-companies-use-custom-designed-wordpress-sites/
