How Many Plugins is Too Many?

by znightmare

Posted: 10 years ago 21 replies

WEB DESIGN

Personally I was getting a bit worried that the amount of plugins that I have on my blog is too high. Right now I have 40 installed.

I'm just wondering how many other people have and if they know at what point you might start to see performance issues..

WordPress by the way.

#plugins

wrcato2 10 years ago

That depends. I have a total of 17 plugins. I used to have 26 and uninstalled the ones I didn't use much or at all. You actually have the most plugins I have ever heard of though.

I like to check out blogs that do well and see how many plugins they use. 9 out of 10 times the blogs that do really good usually have only 5 to 12 plugins. The theme does most of the heavy lifting.

If you want to know how to speed up your blog check out this post I wrote a few weeks ago on my blog

Get ready to spend some time on these tricks.

Hope this helps
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- savidge4 10 years ago
  
  40? I run with 7 and 3 of those are WooCommerce related!
  
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  amcg 10 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by savidge4
  
  40? I run with 7 and 3 of those are WooCommerce related!
  
  Similarly, I run with about 10 at any one-time; usually SEO, SMTP etc i.e the basics. I think the danger with frameworks (and any software for that matter) is bloat.
  
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successmonster234 10 years ago

It depends what the plugins are doing, some plugins are quite detailed/complex and are very useful, some are overkill and the same functionality can be achieved with a line of code in your functions file. We run lots of WP sites (some rather big woocommerce sites) and never get close to 40 plugins!!!
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copilu0 10 years ago

Everything below 10 I think is ok but it also depends what plugins do you have installed. Sometimes only 1 plugin can seem a little too much if your site speed is not well optimized.
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RobinInTexas 10 years ago

Try this https://wordpress.org/plugins/p3-profiler/ and you will get an idea how your plugins are affecting your site
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- ergu61 10 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by RobinInTexas
  
  Try this https://wordpress.org/plugins/p3-profiler/ and you will get an idea how your plugins are affecting your site
  
  thanks my frend
  
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- wrcato2 10 years ago
  
  Try this https://wordpress.org/plugins/p3-profiler/ and you will get an idea how your plugins are affecting your site
  
  A plugin for plugins... Wow! I will try this. Maybe it will help me get rid of some more plugins too.
  
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kenzo22 10 years ago

If all works well and your site doesn't get slow, you shouldn't worry about number of plugins installed. But do you need them all really?
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- znightmare 10 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by kenzo22
  
  If all works well and your site doesn't get slow, you shouldn't worry about number of plugins installed. But do you need them all really?
  
  Alot of the plugins should just be made into one giant plugin lol
  
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bradstern 10 years ago

40 does seem too many. You must have a really complex site.

However, if it does not affect loading time and user experience, I would not worry too much about it.
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Wademcm 10 years ago

I don't really think of a number of plugins.

All I do is track my site loading speed (I usually just use the one over at quicksprout.com but there are a few options) and if the site loads a little slowly I cut back on them.

So I'll do a speed test one day, I usually try to get in under 2 seconds but if I update the site design, plugins, or whatever I then do another speed test and just keep track of it that way.

I recently checked an old site of mine which was loading in 20 seconds lol, I managed to get it down to 2 second by removing a lot of plugins (but also getting rid of all the social media box codes and a heap of stuff loading offsite - I wrote a post about it here - How I Managed to Speed up WordPress – from 20 to 2 Seconds Load Time ).

So if it's site speed you're worried about, you could try other ways of speeding up your load time, and give you more 'breathing room' to install more plugins and get the functionality you want

Just my thoughts!

Cheers
Wade
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TonyG23 10 years ago

That's a lot of plugin I run about 10-15 on each site. What your page speed looking like?
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arjch 10 years ago

Personally you should minimal plugins in wordpress, but if you require typical plugin then its a requirement other than why use too may. I have 4 plugins
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wrcato2 10 years ago

QWadecmcm, Nice looking blog you got there. Very Clean. I bet it's really mean.
Just liked on FB and... I am in. thanks
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JohnRyserson Banned 10 years ago

It's too many when they start effecting your load times.

People will leave a site that takes too long to load.
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Beats4Legends 10 years ago

Keep it down as much as possible. Plugins can basically screw with the code of other parts of Wordpress. And it can cause serious damage and even make your site crash in some instances, especially with free plugins they are a mess a lot of the time.

I would go only with high quality plugins that are paid, and come with lifetime updates.

Kyle
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webdeveloperindia 10 years ago

Do we really need a plugin to remove a plugin wow
I personally try to keep as less plugin as possible and always use WP super catche and CDN to improve site performance.
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whland 10 years ago

I only have 5 plugins on my blog and I think that's too many. lol

But if the plugins work for you and the site doesn't slow down because of it than I think you're fine.

Chad
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robertrace321 10 years ago

i use only 8 plugins on my blog .
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w13 10 years ago

Try to get rid some of plugins that was not really needed for your website. I think too many plugin make the site load slower than should do.
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