Plugins, how many is too many? That depends.

What have you heard about Plugins for your website?
How many is too many?
How many do you utilize?
I use 12 plugins but I'm thinking about adding 1 more because my favorite # is 13
So, since I have 12 plugins, my website stats for plugins say that I'm at 0%
My 12 plugins as shown above are:
- GDPR Cookie Consent
- Hummingbird Pro
- Smush Pro
- AWeber for WordPress
- All-in-One SEO Pack
- Classic Editor
- GP Premium
- Insert Headers and Footers
- Pretty Links Developer Edition
- Social Media and Share Icons (Ultimate Social Media)
- USM Premiumn
- WPMU DEV Dashboard
What in your opinion should I add as my 13th plugin?
My publishing frequency is only at 70% also so maybe I'll start adding more content ....... maybe.
All other stats for my site health as shown above are at 100% although I must admit that I haven't kept up with replying to comments near enough & that's an area that I do indeed need to work on.
With all of those plugins and having a 0% ratings, my site speed must be terrible!
Is that what you're thinking?
I use the Pro Version of GeneratePress as my Theme.
Below is my latest performance report according to GTmetrix
I know that 94% and 91% aren't an A+ but it's not too shabby in my opinion, what are your thoughts?
How many plugins do you have on your website?
What theme are you using?
Have you ever checked your site speed score with GT Metrix?
How many plugins are too many plugins?
What plugins do you use?
Yes, it does indeed depend!
First of all, I must say I can't believe WA gives you a 70% on publishing frequency. I always see your posts up for comments lol
Now, regarding plugins, we're in the same boat. I just checked and I also have 12. I avoid them as much as possible, but at times they're unavoidable. I'm no coding expert, so there are times I have to resort to plugins.
These are the plugins I have installed:
1. All in One SEO
2. Classic Editor
3. Contact Form 7
4. Elementor
5. GDPR Cookie Consent
6. Google XML Sitemaps
7. Insert Headers and Footers
8. Kraken Image Optimizer
9. MailPoet 3
10. PHP Compatibility Checker
11. Shortcodes Ultimate
12. Social Media and Share Icons
I also use GeneratePress as my theme, although I use the free version.
Your GTmetrix stats are impressive! I wish I saw those numbers.
It's definitely impossible to stay under 5 plugins lol.
Thanks for sharing. Let us know if you install more plugins.
Have a great weekend.
Trevor
Nice plugin lineup! I have about the same number.
I would probably add a product review plugin as number 13. I use WP Product review Lite and I like it. BTW, how are you backing up your site?
P.S. GT Metrix typically gives me much faster speed numbers on their PageSpeed score than the Google PageSpeed Insights MOBILE score. I'm always in the mid to high nineties for both scores on GT Metrix but I think we should all use the Google PageSpeed Insight numbers because that's what they use to rank our posts. Mobile (and fairly soon wearable) technology is the future.
Frank
Site Health in Wealthy Affiliate bases its Plugin Stat solely on the number of Plugins you have activated. If it is more than 5 your score starts to degrade. It doesn't take into account other factors such as the kind of Plugin that is activated. Some affect site speed more than others. But you do not need me to tell you all of this,
I have 13 plugins but I only activate 5 at a time in order to get the 100% Green reading in Site Heath. Does this make any real difference? I don't think so as your results attest.
I took the GTmetrix test and my results are worse than yours.
Page Speed Score: 90%
YSlow: 84%
Fully Loaded Time: 4.6s
These are better than the average but not as good as I had hoped. Especially the 4.6s load speed. Can you shed light on what I can do to improve my results?
My recommendation for the 13th Plugin would be the Kraken Image Optimizer.
Cheers.
Edwin