Should You Upgrade Your WordPress Plugin Or Not?

WordPress is an opensource CMS (Content Management System) that often use for blogging. And WordPress are famous with it’s extended features with plugins and themes. You can install and configure your plugin with minimal programming skill or even without it. And you can change your themes with in one click. I have been using WordPress for my blog for two years now. I have developed 1 theme and use some plugins. As the WordPress development and plugin development are different, sometimes plugins crash with the WordPress core. As the result, most of the time is WordPress blank screen of death.

Plugins development are made by the WordPress community, and it’s fast growing. But some of them are dead and no longer support by the plugin author. So when the WordPress core updated, the plugins won’t work (in some cases). So my question is, should you upgrade your WordPress plugins or not? Or should you update your WordPress core? Well i don’t have an exact answer for that. It is depend, if you know what you are doing and you have your backup plan then you are ready to go. Remember, shit happens.

In my personal opinion, i don’t really like update the WordPress plugins so much. But in some cases like if it has a glitch or security fixes or better performance i will sure update it. And i always have backup plan before upgrade. So if you want to upgrade your WordPress core or WordPress plugins please check some points below:

1. Test it first on your local installation or test environment.
I have my clone website on my computer. I run it on Xampp. Before i do WordPress core update or plugins update on live site, i do it on my local first, if nothing wrong or broken, then update i will update my live site.

2. Always backup before update.
Please remember shit happens! So be ready for it. Always have backup before you play anything with your site. I create some scripts to do backup, just use the search function. Before i start configure or update, i always backup the current one first, then i feel ready to go.

3. Read the update logs.
See if it is worthy to upgrade/update or not. Before you update, usually the author provide the update logs, read it carefully and think do you need the fixes or not. But if it is security fixes, then i will update it as soon as possible.

4. If it is not broken, don’t fix it!
I always remember that. I made my own playground to test and play, but it is not on my live site. I prefer stability rather than cutting edge feature. If the plugin not broken yet then i won’t fix it unless it is necessary.

Think carefully, read more and have backup before you do upgrade your WordPress core and your WordPress plugins. And the other thing, see what people comment about the new updates. Visit the plugins website or WordPress blog to get know more about the updates.

So should you upgrade your WordPress or not?

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