How Many WordPress Plugins Do You Use? Really.
By Lorelle VanFossen, posted Jan 20 2010 at 7:33 pm | 2 Comments ยป
In October, Digging Into WordPress held a poll asking the WordPress Community how many WordPress Plugins and recently announced the results.
The majority of those who responded said they used less than 10 WordPress Plugins. About 2% said they used more than 50.
According to Matt Mullenweg, statistics on the WordPress Plugin Directory report an average of 4.9 WordPress Plugins per WordPress blog. He also talks about a blogger with over 400 Plugins, agreeing that this is a bit much, but it shows the power of WordPress Plugins and the ability of WordPress to handle them all.
WordPress uses the stats accumulated by the WordPress Plugin Directory to evaluate the customization features users want and need, incorporating some of these needs into future versions under development when possible.
WordPress is also working on improving documentation and tracking of WordPress Plugins as mentioned in the WordCast report on WordPress 3.0 development, and WordPress 2.9 has made it easier to update WordPress Plugins individualy or all at once, bringing better Plugin management to the WordPress user.
i have 49 active & 18 inactive ready to use — I love installing new stuff – if its backend it wont slow my site down will it ?
Define “slow down” on your site. If the WordPress Plugins are on your Administration Panels, your users will not experience them, only you. I recommend you use Google Gears to speed up everything with the WordPress Administration Panels. Check out the Tools options. As for the 49 active, do they slow down your site for users? Do you need all of them? Can any of them be replaced with code instead?