Plugins, how many is too many? That depends.
Last Update: September 03, 2020

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:

  1. GDPR Cookie Consent
  2. Hummingbird Pro
  3. Smush Pro
  4. AWeber for WordPress
  5. All-in-One SEO Pack
  6. Classic Editor
  7. GP Premium
  8. Insert Headers and Footers
  9. Pretty Links Developer Edition
  10. Social Media and Share Icons (Ultimate Social Media)
  11. USM Premiumn
  12. 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!

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Recent messages
enriquetrips Premium
Hey, Tony,

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.
Reply
TonyHamilton Premium
@enriquetrips
You're welcome Enrique & thank you my friend.

Tony
Reply
LatinNomad Premium
Hi Tony. I regard you as one of the "Masters" here, so to see this blog about plug ins is really reassuring. My site speed seems ok too. But I suffer from the same Red 0% rating for plug ins! Its reassuring to see your blog.

Have a great weekend.

Trevor
Reply
TonyHamilton Premium
@LatinNomad
Hi Trevor, thank you for the wonderful compliment my friend.

Have a great weekend as well,

Tony
Reply
FrankB-1 Premium
Hi Tony,

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
Reply
TonyHamilton Premium
@FrankB-1
Hi Frank,

WP Product Review Lite, does that plugin work while reviewing Make Money Online products/services etc...?

Thank you for sharing your experience Frank,

Tony
Reply
FrankB-1 Premium
@TonyHamilton
Hi Tony,

It should work. It gives you some data fields to fill in on your post inside AIO. It takes the data at creates some graphics at the bottom of the post. I'll PM you the link to one of my articles and you can see what it does.
Reply
EdwinBernard Premium
Hi Tony,

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
Reply
FrankB-1 Premium
@EdwinBernard
Hi Edwin,

Smush Pro, which Tony uses, might be a better choice than Kraken at this point. Kraken does not seem to updating their plugin.

Frank
Reply
TonyHamilton Premium
@EdwinBernard
Edwin,

having the Green Reading in site health is irrelevant in the Real World my friend.

Site Health is only a WA thing and is to guide members in building and maintaining websites in a way to more effectively rank with the Search Engines.

Having Site Speed scores high and load times between 2-4 seconds is much more crucial than the amount of plugins.

In my humble opinion, Smush is much better than Kraken.

Even the free Smush plugin instead of kraken helped my site speed scores, then when I upgraded to Pro, my speed got even better.

Thank you for sharing Edwin,

Tony
Reply
TonyHamilton Premium
@FrankB-1
Yes Frank, Smush is better in my opinion and the Pro version is way better!
Reply
EdwinBernard Premium
@TonyHamilton
Hi Tony,

Thanks for your advice about Smush. I didn't know it gave better results than Kraken. l installed Smush and deactivated Kraken.

I get a slight improvement as follows:

Before Smush:
Page Speed Score: 90%
YSlow: 84%
Fully Loaded Time: 4.6s

After smush:
Page Speed Score: 91%
YSlow: 86%
Fully Loaded Time: 4.2s

How much more of an improvement can i expect with the Pro version?

Thanks.

Edwin
Reply
TonyHamilton Premium
@EdwinBernard
Edwin, have you optimized all of your images with Smush?

You can expect fully load time to be even faster ~ The Pro version works even better along with Hummingbird Pro.

Try utilizing Humminbird & see the results Edwin & then a little later decide upon Pro for both my friend.

Tony
Reply
FKelso Premium
Well, just counted my plugins and am not pleased. I have nine. I just had to add two -- one for AWeber, and another because I built a landing page on AWeber so could collect emails, and apparently their landing page does not get along with some WordPress plugins. I had to add one so could bypass WordPress and go straight to AWeber. It works, though. Hope I won't have to add any more!
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