Goodbye Plugins - 8 Ways To Reduce WordPress Plugin Reliance

[@dewolf.digital]

As always Paul , you nailed it. After 15 years of using wordpress i'd say 95% of all my issues arrise from plugin conflicts and their management. Adding Code snippets to my workflow has delivered a meaningful impact on my time (reducing maintenance), site performance (controlling where and when scripts are fired), seo (adding comprehensive specific schema markup to individual pages/taxonomies), and replace your child theme. A very powerful tool that folks shouldn't shy away from. Apreciate all your hard work and look forward to checking out a couple of your suggested alternatives. Cheers

[@StevenGoos]

What are the main techniques you use to only load the code snippets when they are needed?

[@ross9503]

Great content Paul 😍😍😍

[@frankstuerzebecher]

A really really useful video, one of the best WP vids I've seen so far. Mentioned tools and the approach of going as slim as possible with plugin installs are gold.

[@SamWereb]

Excellent video. Better than TinyPNG/JPEG, I find, is Photopea. You can convert your images to almost any format and, while doing so, compress it as much as you like. In addition, it provides all the functionality of Photoshop.

[@adrian.fernandes]

That maybe a good case if you have just a few images. What about a bunch of product images (

[@WPTuts]

Photopea is a great app that I’ve featured several times in previous videos. So many amazing free tools. We’re spoilt for choice for sure. 😁

[@clintt5266]

This is such an amazingly useful post, the least I can do is add a like and little engagement via comments... thanks Paul! You do top shelf work.

[@SuburbanPhilosophy]

I am using Darkable (is a free and opensource alternative for Adobe Lightroom ) to batch export at .webp or any format.

[@wgm247]

So much value in one video... if this video was a car... it would be a fully loaded Kia Sportage instead of a BMW ;)

[@ivandelevic]

Straight to the center. This is very useful to know! Thanks Paul!

[@iftekharrahman8100]

Thank you

[@sepfms]

Amazing! Especially the Custom post type generators are pure gold thank you 🙏🏻

[@yoarnaldo]

Fantastic! Excellent info as always Paul!

[@awakenthegreatnesswithin]

Great video, thank you.

[@WPTuts]

Glad you liked it!

[@awakenthegreatnesswithin]

@@WPTuts 😎

[@simongajdosik5105]

With Litespeed cache plugin you can remove all images & performance plugins.

[@craiggrella]

Love affinity - have had those programs since they were created. On the optimization - a local PC or online app isn't going to deliver image resizing on the fly right? I've been using WP Compress for that and it's been working really well. I've liked it better than EWWW or short pixel's plugin. For SEO AI - Ive used Squarely, Rank Math, and SurferSEO. They all work pretty well. For speed - cloudflare has been awesome. I really like WP Asset Cleaner plugin too though - it's able to clean up alot of stuff on a page by page basis when needed. As always. - good tut!

[@awakenthegreatnesswithin]

Thanks for sharing

[@pixelgap]

Thanks Paul.

[@MrBalloonatic]

some really great plugins in here - thanks for sharing them Paul

[@winwinis3483]

thank you I love Code Snippet Cloud

[@abrotherinchrist]

One of my biggest gripes is with how developers market plugins to do all these great things and when you buy their plugin it doesn't work the way you expected, or doesn't work with another crucial plugin you already set up (like WooCommerce). Even though some of them might offer support you really won't get anywhere with them in most cases. The only plugin I will give huge props to is Calculated Fields Form. They have solved many of my problems for a small support fee of $25 (writing custom JavaScript for me). It's not the most pretty plugin, but it gets a complicated job done with some CSS and JS. Right now I'm trying to tackle the problem of fighting the presentation layer in WordPress at every turn. I'm considering headless solutions and learning some more advanced coding like JS and CSS libraries and maybe Node and/or PHP. My needs are more ERP/MRP oriented right now and that really pushes the limits of WP.

[@senseicodes]

An alternative for squash is Squoosh, a pwa that works offline too

[@anderoa2849]

Also WooBend is a good option if you are running a WooCommerce store and want to reduce the number of plugins

[@WPTuts]

I’ll have to check it out. Thanks for the recommendation. 👌🏼

[@kerawelt2008]

Insanely useful ! (As usual...)

[@justindouglas3659]

You can use irfanview to compress images too

[@BalramNair]

Bulkresizephotos does a good job at optimising images, and entirely for free. You can even batch add watermarks and etc.

[@darouss1]

Thanks for the video

[@imagist.]

Caesium Image Compressor is a great one for Windows

[@nikswebdesigns5759]

For optimization ,there is a offline software small Caesium.Tiny Jpeg doset support more than 5 mb.

[@ethanbonnamour]

Your tuts are so great thank squash crash sometimes. On the other side adobe xd does a great job too !😊

[@WPTuts]

I haven't had any issues using Squash so far. Maybe I'm lucky or haven't used it enough. :)

[@Twisties34]

awesome video, thank you

[@mpozainno]

Hard to appreciate how important this video is until you have a website with thousands of users and pluggins are weighing it down.😏😒

[@susanwheeler-hall]

Hey Paul, how can I click more than one like here? Your tips are so helpful.

[@bilimlink]

Vary informative!

[@mohamedAmin-wf1ge]

Why there is no SUPER like button on YT for such content!? This one is very helpful, thanks man.

[@wptalkswitharif]

Thanks a lot

[@independentguitarcoaching6606]

Hi Paul, what a great video! Thanks a lot! I have another question: Can you recommend a simple but solid WordPress plugin that runs well in combination with Elementor?

[@WPTuts]

To do what?

[@dave28lax]

18:31 - "n-g-i-n-x" - it's Engine X (n-gin-x...geddit?). Other than that this was very useful.

[@clafflin493]

You can reduce plugin reliance by using only breakdance builder. It’s the best!

[@WPTuts]

Yawn!

[@DanZL1]

Couldn't find a Code Snippet to open links in new tab. :(

[@soccernatic]

I still have not found a plugin or a way to resize, crop (with guide lines), optimize images when users are allowed to upload images to their custom post themselves. Do you know any tool that when a user clicks a button to upload their images, they are presented with options to crop, optimize, resize the images BEFORE they get upload to the website? Or maybe even a plugin that will do all that automatically based on the setting the admin sets prior? Also if you know any tool that would create an "approval system" for uploading images, where it would alert admin that user wants to change their images, but the post would not be hidden/private while admin checks if the images are OK to be approved? Those approved images would replace the previous ones, and the ones that were denied would not show up? Maybe send a message to the user saying that those images are inappropriate for the post. Hopefully I'm clear :)

[@alineduchesne6422]

I'm using Blocksy Pro. Would I need an seo plugin or does Blocksy do the job?

[@ivanbarta2821]

usefull 👍

[@grahambbird]

Great piece. I don't see the link to the code snippet plugin you mentioned....

[@WPTuts]

Here you go: jo.my/ndfbsx Main description has also been updated. :)

[@grahambbird]

@@WPTuts Thanks! I'd love to see a video that talks to how to maintain snippets and update them, for example if I need to add a field to a custom PT how does one do that after initial creation? Cheers

[@leobalicas]

In Affinity V2 you can export as webp image now

[@WPTuts]

You can indeed and a lot more. Loving version 2. :)

[@alanjacobs7302]

Excellent content but soooo many ads interrupting. I fear KZbin is killing itself.

[@WPTuts]

Sadly, KZbin has ramped up ads to an insane level. I ended up getting Premium to avoid the bloody things! Ironic really. 🤦‍♂️

[@alanjacobs7302]

@@WPTuts I’m afraid I’ve gone the other way. Already halved the channels I follow and more to go soon. £16/month is way too expensive - I could buy 3 new plugins for that lol

[@digwillhachi]

its crazy right !!

[@skillresearch7742]

Great

[@Stupidcatshow]

Maybe I am off base here but other than plug-in conflicts isn’t the performance issues brought by plugins due to the code practices used in developing these plugins? So wouldn’t using a code generator or code snippet have the same potential for performance problems? I mean do we trust the code from the snippets or the generators more than the code in the plugins? Perhaps I am missing something.

[@WPTuts]

You really have no idea what the plugin is doing behind the scenes either. At least with the code generator you can see exactly what code is generated and validate it yourself. Alternatively, in many cases you could learn the basics of the code structure, make a template and just edit the required code to get everything working. The code used for CPT's or Meta Fields is relatively straightforward and easy to validate and replicate.

[@grafickyservis8875]

Code Snippets Beta is not working😐

[@kevinschmidt2210]

I took the plunge with Breakdance and eliminated all Gutenberg plugins as well as themes.

[@kevinschmidt2210]

I wish you would have provided backup options to Siteground.

[@WPTuts]

Not sure what you mean?

[@kevinschmidt2210]

@@WPTuts I mean other backup plugins besides Siteground. I am looking for one that does both automatic backups and staging.

[@WPTuts]

@@kevinschmidt2210 my choice would be WPVivid Backup Pro - bought the LTD a couple of years back and use it on all my sites.

[@kevinschmidt2210]

@@WPTuts Thanks!

[@LowellBrillante]

Have you ever tried using linode and docker for your wordpress server?

[@WPTuts]

I have not, no. :)

[@LowellBrillante]

@@WPTuts Definitely a learning curve but containers are super cool and would be how one person could build something like wpengine (minus customer support). With kubernetes you can automate the creation of wordpress instances on a server, for example if a user adds a new site. That new site is a mysql, phpadmin and wordpress wrapped up with just its dependencies. You can run it locally too. They're basically virtual machines that don't divide the kernel. That means your computer is actually a bunch of computers that can also have computers and each one can run windows, mac, linux, kodi, raspian, home assistant, plex, etc. That's huge because people can easily run home servers on single boards like the raspberry pi to handle their sensitive data and control their environment (their house). Home assistant is an open source app for interacting with IOT devices. It will be the next big thing when the pi chip shortage ends. There's a whole industry sprouting in between docker and users. I bet your subscribers would love a video on something like home assistant or node red to get hyped about how powerful it is. Also running your own server on linode or digital ocean is far cheaper and faster, especially if you have multiple sites/traffic but again there is a learning curve but it's nothing that youtube can't teach. Anyway something to think about... Love your videos Paul. Big fan.

[@francis8110]

𝓅𝓇𝑜𝓂𝑜𝓈𝓂 💔

[@GuntherGlesti]

Sounds to me like plugins are in place of knowledge and or education because there days monkeys can make a website.....! Makes me furious!

[@MagicTouchAudio]

Nice up selling most of these are useless info.

[@WPTuts]

Nice and useless negative comment that adds nothing to the conversation! 😒

[@BoomlandJenkins]

Foto Sizer (free version) is my go-to Windows bulk image resizing, compressor, and format changer. Such a great tool.

[@rgbcom]

Really great video! I use Photoshop, Updraft, anyone of the leading cache plugins, yoast. I will definitely try killing some of them.

[@cosmicfxx]

Ads are painful! Waaay tooo many!! Unsubscribe

[@Crucall]

I am creating a membership site. I will let members create post types and edit them from the front end. If a user creates a post type, I want them to be able to charge for that post type and collect a fee. The money will go to them and I will get the fee. Is this possible to do without installing a plugin?

[@marcoprofwebsitenl6484]

Thank you for this tutorial. WP stores a lot of unnecessary data that you don't use. For example, when you uninstall a plugin. But also photos are stored twice when you don't need them. I made tutorials about this.

[@HossamKhalaf-sr1oo]

Squoosh works on the web also, thanks for the video

[@comleonmoto]

Thank you Paul! Actually, a lot of people (myself included) use plugins because they are not 100% comfortable with coding (or where to insert code snippets or how to twik them). So plugin may be a natural and straigthforward solution for them.

[@WPTuts]

I’m not criticising the use of plugins. Simply providing an alternative after people have complained about the use of plugins in previous tutorials. Options are great. If a plug-in is your preference, go with that. If you’re comfortable using code snippets, etc., that’s a great alternative too. 😁

[@comleonmoto]

@@WPTuts That's not what I meant, Paul. It was just a remark on why people do rely so much on plugins. A reliance you are encouraging, by the way, with your nice tuts (OK, it's a joke!).😂

[@WPTuts]

@@comleonmoto I think we may have crossed wires. I was agreeing with you and saying there’s nothing inherently wrong with choosing a plug-in over a potentially more complex alternative. 😁

[@ricardodesirat2590]

If we use custom code, i.e. to create a CPT, do we have to maintain/update it as WP evolves?

[@WPTuts]

You shouldn't unless WP changes the core structure of how CPT's work. Once registered, you shouldn't need to worry about making future changes manually.

[@redwetsolutions3360]

Thank you for the great video.

[@AnilAgrawal]

Awesome stuff as usual. Thanks, Paul.

[@worldnature2100]

Hi Paul, I think it's one of the most important topics for Wordpress implementers. Reducing the amount of Plugins is very important! I would love it if you could share for example JetEngine and the free options you mentioned like: WP Generator and others. Can we do the same as JetEngine? Thank you for these valuable video tutorials.

[@WPTuts]

I would hazzard a guess you could use some of the custom meta field with JetEngine, but not sure what you would gain by doing that. You'd still have to install JetEngine so you may as well benefit from the integrations it offers with its own meta fields, CPTs and taxonomies.

[@bakeraus]

Great list! A love these video menu etc very slick. Is there any application to manage subscriptions? When I have Adobe, Siteground, Elementor, etc... I know I can setup Notion or a spread sheet but thought there might be a much better option out there.

[@martinkaspar5095]

Thank you for sharing yourvery useful videos with us. ! Keep up your awesome project 🐱🤠☺👍 This video is very informative and easy to follow the video contents. It gave me many new ideas. Explained very well.

[@Atulwebdesigner]

Nice video Paul. Got some useful information. Thanks for sharing.

[@author-rdh]

Thanks, Paul. And here is another hint. Concerning webp -- which was intrinsically optimized for the web by Google in 2010 -- WordPress automatically 'crunches' every image, no matter the format, down to 82% or so. Crunching is what happens the very second the image upload hits 100%. This also explains the delay after the upload completes. Can you say, "Crunch time?" I researched this esoteric phenomenon. To stop the 'WordPress crunch', you have to use a plugin, or get into the CSS base code to block it. Yikes! We switched to all webp across our site, then matched the hex color codes of the PNG background colors to the background colors of the containers they are in. The last step was to convert the PNG to a webp, and there are free utilities for that, too. This eliminates the need for PNGs, because it becomes a perfect match anytime you're dependent on an ostensibly transparent background for a 3D effect. I call this 'background-matching'. It works surprisingly well, IMHO. Lastly, when we get hit by the 'WordPress crunch, it creates 'secondary compression'. And we all know that the more times you compress an image, the worse it gets.

[@iSohaibKhan]

I was thinking the same thing

[@WPTuts]

A very good point... wouldn't it be nice in WordPress gave us the option to set the compression rate or remove it completely?

[@DanaCottreau]

Great video, thanks! Just curious why you would use a Snippets plugin instead of putting the code snippets in a child-theme functions.php file?

[@WPTuts]

Good question! It adds an extra level of protection from messing up your site. But, you can go with whichever method you prefer - the takeaway is more about not editing your 'master' functions.php file and potentially losing those changes after each update.

[@skarafahmed9183]

You nailed it Paul. Thanks

[@jason-m]

One of the best (because I know you like tinkering) tools I've seen lately for generating code snippets is WPCodey (you might need a WPCodeBox account to use it). You can pretty much type in english what you want (within reason) and it generates the code snippet. Genius

[@WPTuts]

Yeah, it looks super interesting. I still need to grab a license and test it out.

[@emailjough]

Why upload your images to wordpress at all? Upload them directly to a CDN like Cloudinary and then hotlink to them from your site. Cloudinary automatically serves the best format size and quality for the device that is requesting them

[@WPTuts]

I would imagine a lot of users using WordPress may not have the technical know how or confidence to delve into that method.