Most plugin conflicts don't announce themselves until something breaks.
WordPress powers a significant portion of the internet, and for a long time it was the default answer for any small business that needed a website. That’s changing. More Fort McMurray businesses are moving away from WordPress, and the reasons come up consistently enough that they’re worth addressing directly.
The maintenance burden is the most common complaint. A WordPress site isn’t something you build and leave alone - it requires regular plugin updates, theme updates, security patches, and occasional troubleshooting when those updates conflict with each other. For a business owner whose expertise is in their actual trade, not website administration, this is time and attention pulled away from the work that generates revenue. It’s a recurring cost that often doesn’t show up in the original quote but becomes a real ongoing expense.
Security is the second issue. WordPress is the most targeted platform on the internet for exactly the reason it’s popular - scale. Outdated plugins and themes are the most common entry point for hacks, and a compromised website isn’t just an inconvenience, it can damage your search ranking, expose client data, and take your business offline while you sort out the damage. Smaller local businesses aren’t immune to this because automated attacks don’t discriminate by business size.
