Are you thinking about doing a blog from scratch, or switching to WordPress.org? Read these considerations before making the decision.

Storytime. 

After building two blogs with Wordpress.org, I finally decided to quit it and use another alternative.

Being a DIY enthusiast, learning how to build a website from scratch using self-hosted WordPress.org, was super fun for me. At least at the beginning…

At that time, I had already used Wix and Wordpress.com to build a business website and a blog, and I felt ready to go all things self-hosting.

I didn’t know any coding, but I learned that it wasn’t a big problem, because the magic of WordPress is that it offers you a great catalogue of already-made plugins… right?

I felt motivated to feel the so-called freedom that you can get by going self-hosted, and the more professional look that this could convey in my future projects. I knew that Wordpress.org is super powerful, so it could work amazingly in case I wanted to sell products online or add other functionalities. 

With time I realized going self-hosted wasn’t for me at that moment in my life and for the nature of my projects. So today I gathered all the reasons why I quit WordPress.org, in case someone find them useful.

I want to clarify that it doesn’t mean WordPress.org is bad. On the contrary, I realized WordPress.org was way too powerful for my projects. 

So, why did I quit it?

1. It takes time to learn how it works.

In the beginning, everything seemed doable in a couple of clicks. But, soon in my journey, I found myself stuck in my web browser, spending way too much time looking for all sorts of new terms. 

Some examples are CMS, API, addon, tagline, CDN, WHOIS, GDPR, Webp, Permalink, Hosting, cache, SSL, pingbacks, trackbacks, WP CLI, SSH... And the list goes on.

If you already know what the mentioned terms are, you’ll find using self-hosted WordPress a breeze, but if you don’t, guess what: you’ll probably be searching across the Internet every single term. If your time is limited, take this seriously.

2. Biased educational information

Although it seems very attainable to learn about Wordpress.org just by searching every term on your favourite web browser, the reality is that nowadays most experts explaining how to use WordPress.org stuff way too much their content with all sorts of affiliate links and keywords, to the point that it gets really annoying.

A blog post like this would easily turn into: “But don’t worry, the first step you need to do is to purchase a hosting provider plan. This is my recommendation. Just click here, or here, or here, and then your website will be set up in just about minutes!, don’t forget to buy my course on how to install WordPress in the hosting provider”. Or things like that. 

Although these niche blogs are really useful to learn, it has to be said that most of them mainly teach you how to install plugins and platforms with whom they have affiliate marketing business.

Please don’t get me wrong, it’s good that people do business by giving good advice. But the advertisements on many of these sites were so aggressive that I ended up questioning whether I was getting the right tools or just falling into a rabbit hole of plugin consumerism.

An alternative could have been taking a course on the subject. I didn’t, but I have the impression that there is a lot of biased information too.

3. It’s as affordable as entering a mall. 

According to many blogging experts, one of the main attractiveness of building a self-hosted WordPress site is that you can do it in a more affordable way, compared to other website-building entry monthly plans such as Wordpress.com, Wix, or Squarespace. 

Some of them even affirm you can do everything for free. After all, downloading the software is free, and there are so many free plugins, right?

Well, I find that information very misleading. I was naive and fell into this trap, thinking maybe I just was going to spend more time setting things up or something like that.

Not quite.

I realized that to do anything interesting and beautiful looking, you have to spend quite a lot of money on plugins, or a very powerful theme. 

Generally speaking, free plugins have a very old-looking style, are very limited, or are a free trial for further paid services, which they urge you to buy in monthly payment schemes. 

Sellers KNOW to the core all the disadvantages of using free plugins, so they are there for you with the perfect (and very pricy) solution for each problem. 

That being said, if I compared it with regular life, I would say entering the world of WordPress (.org) plugins felt like entering a great fair of supermarkets with thousands of products and very pushy salespersons trying to stand out from the competition.

4. Not quite for indecisive people.

Indecisive person here! This was not for me because of this reason. The WordPress plugin catalogue goes infinite, becoming super overwhelming for someone like me. 

So many options and “freedom” lead me to paralysis. 

Every single little thing I wanted to add to my site meant a comparison among thousands of plugins. 

Then it started a frustrating cycle that went like this: 

Getting tired by looking for the right plugin - Then looking for a recommendation on the web/YouTube instead - Falling into an affiliate marketing-related content - Wondering if it was a genuine review - Getting distracted with more content -  “Realizing” I was doing something absolutely wrong, and getting scared for not having the new ultrasonic Security-whatsoever plugin that would make my site much more secure/interesting/professional/beautiful - Wondering why I wanted to build a site. Taking a rest...

Not writing. 

5. Confusing repeated functions/ incompatibility among plugins.

I found many functionalities you can add to your website confusingly appearing throughout hosting providers, theme creators, and plugins. 

For example, to have a professional email you can buy a plugin, but also your hosting provider could offer you one by paying a little bit more. Then you realize the theme you installed also can do the job, by upgrading to a higher rent. More decisions to think about.

At some point, I also realized some plugins don't work well together, or that the upgrade of one of them becomes incompatible with another one. 

Other themes only work if you have preinstalled another plugin, such as Gutenberg or Elementor.

(By the way, choosing the right theme is really important. It’s like choosing a house plan: you can’t just change it anytime you want). 

I’m very proud to say I achieved a website that worked very well, it was very fast, it was secure, it looked beautiful and professional, and it had a good harmony among the plugins installed. The downside? I could rarely publish posts!

In a nutshell, it becomes difficult and time-consuming to create a path of compatibility across all of the plugins, theme, editor, hosting provider, and add-ons.

(Now that I write this, I realize how unnecessary it was to have a professional email to just start out, lol. Marketing at its best).

6. An account for every plugin 

Something I didn’t really like about using a self-hosted website is that many Wordpress.org plugins work as complete companies or platforms that require that you create an account with them. 

This means: to give your email address and other personal data. 

I found it particularly annoying to have my email inbox filled with so many marketing campaigns I didn’t sign up for, urging me to upgrade my plans for every single plugin I added to my website. I even created a special email account to sign up for plugins.

I also had some privacy concerns, about how much personal data some of these companies handled. So, I spent some time researching their privacy policies… instead of writing.

7. Not quite for hobbyist writers

Although I had a great time learning something new, there was a point when I had to be honest with myself: My true self wanted to spend more time writing, not discerning among marketing campaigns. 

So, my advice to new bloggers is: 

If you just want to have a blog to write, honestly, there are many options where one can express out there such as Medium, Substack and Wordpress.com, to name a few. 

According to what I learned, you probably won’t rank well in SEO on these platforms, but who am I to tell you that? 

When could Wordpress.org be a good idea?

• You are building an enterprise (not as a solopreneur) and are planning to hire people to do all the roles involved in a business niche blog.
• You have already mastered another platform and the functionalities are no longer enough for your project.
• You want to build a blog about How to build blogs with Wordpress.org and want to earn through affiliate marketing. 
• You have a genius coding background and plugins are a joke for you. 
• You have time and want to learn all things WordPress.org.
• (Am I forgetting a good reason? please comment below!)

Wondering what I chose instead? Well, during 2024, I used WordPress.com. Since 2025, Ghost.org.

Remembering my overwhelmed past self, I will not stuff this blog post with ANY sort of affiliate link. So rest assured, this opinion is 100% transparent.

Have you used Wordpress.org too? How was it? I’ll be happy to read.

Featured photo credits: Peter Olexa.

This article was originally published at dypinto.blog on 20 September 2024.

Last update: March 26th, 2025.