WordPress plugins are one of the most important tools of WordPress. By installing plugins to a WordPress website, developers or designer can add new functionality to the website beyond the static content displayed on any page of the WordPress website.
There are various types of WordPress plugins such as- contact form, spam blocker or event booking manager are amazing tools for extending the functionality of a WordPress powered website.
Plugins are like apps that can be “plug in” to WordPress” website for adding new functionality. There are more than 30,000 plugins available at WordPress repository and all of them are free to download. It does not matter what type of functionality you want to add to your website, you can use a third-party plugin or develop new WordPress custom plugins to accomplish your goal.
Why Build Custom WordPress Plugins?
With over 30,000 free and other plugins available at a different price, why would anyone be interested in creating a custom plugin? Certainly, there should be ways to handle existing plug-ins for whatever purpose the developer needs, right? There are several reasons to create a custom plugin instead of downloading it for free or at a price. Some of the reasons are listed and explained below:
Custom WordPress plugins function the way you wants them to
Custom plugins will be developed maintaining your requirement. So, it will function the way you wants it to be, no more & no less. Updating or customizing custom plugins is easier because you or your developers already know how the code works.
Customer Support
A free or paid plugin sometimes may not function properly or cause other technical problems. As a result, you may need to contact the plugins developer or support team to fix your problems. Sometimes plugin developers have full-time jobs and aren’t looking to spend hours of work to help you turn things around. Sometimes they also provide support, but will also charge you to fix problems or for any customization work.
Security
This is very simple if someone else developed your plugin, chances are very good that they know how it works better than you. There seems to be nothing on the web that is truly secure, but you can be on the safe side by minimizing the security issue. If a plugin is running on thousands and thousands of website, there is a possibility that someone may find a security vulnerability and they do you might end up in trouble. However, If you develop your own plugins internally for a few websites, people will probably not be looking to crack them out.
Why Not Build Custom WordPress Plugins?
With the great advantages of the built-in plugin, why would you risk downloading a program that someone else wrote when it didn’t even work for your purposes? Well, 470, 000, 000 people can’t be wrong, and they definitely aren’t. A good free plug-in can provide users with instant functionality and easy customization via the settings menu, and there are often set up guides and FAQ pages to help with troubleshooting.
However, building a custom plugin requires a huge amount of money and time. So if you are a small company or individual who doesn’t have lot of money to invest to develop a custom plugin, I will suggest to download or buy an existing plugin that has good reviews and popularity.
Wrapping Up
It doesn’t really matter what type of plugin you want to use – custom WordPress plugins or existing!! You must always focus on your requirement if you find an existing plugin that can full fill your requirement I will suggest you download and use it.
However, if the existing plugin does not match your requirement, I will suggest you build a custom plugin if you have enough investment money.