Is WordPress Scalable?

Author: Kaitlyn Partington Category: Web Design Date: January 24, 2020

One of the most common questions asked when developing a WordPress website is, “How Scalable is WordPress?” It’s a valid question. In fact, scalability is one of the more important factors to consider when developing a website for your business. You want to make sure your web development platform can support a website that grows as your business grows.

What does it mean to be scalable?

Before we delve into the specifics around WordPress scalability and what the platform can and can’t handle, let’s take a moment to define what we mean by “scalability.” Specifically, we’re talking about your site’s ability to expand and handle additional workloads with ease. In essence, it’s all about your system performance in relation to the rise in resources used. If your site can’t scale up or out to handle additional workloads, such as traffic and content (more on that later), it will eventually reach peak saturation, at which point the system will begin to malfunction. This will affect user experience and business operations—and could even reflect poorly on your brand.

Back to the question at hand: Is WordPress scalable? In short, yes.

Two of the biggest considerations to think about when it comes to WordPress scalability are the platform’s ability to handle traffic and support a large-scale site.

Can WordPress handle heavy traffic?

As your business grows and your marketing strategies become more successful, you’ll begin to see an uptick in traffic to your website, which is crucial to increasing leads and converting potential customers to actual customers. When you use WordPress for high-traffic sites, you can support this worthy goal as you grow your business.

Beware, however, that while WordPress can handle millions of users, it’s on you to properly maintain the site; the more users on the site, the more efficient it needs to be. Do this by running monthly maintenance to check for updates to your plugins. Also regularly test your site speed to confirm it’s operating at optimum efficiency. With that, you’ll be able to assess the user experience—how well potential, current and new clients can access the information they need, when they need it.

The type of hosting account you have will determine how many users WordPress can handle on your site. It’s all about data storage capacity. While there are hosting accounts suitable for all sites—from one user to one million—you’ll need a large website hosting package for your high-traffic site.

Is WordPress good for large websites?

The short answer: yes. The scalable WordPress architecture means your site can handle massive amounts of content. In fact, the same hosting package that supports your high-traffic site can also support a content-heavy site. Additionally, with millions of plugins that suit a range of development, functionality and organizational needs, WordPress makes it easy for users to organize, create and maintain cohesive content in volume that’s consistent with your brand message.

WordPress is a great tool for businesses of all sizes—from solopreneurs to growing start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. It is an open-source platform, which makes it one of the most compatible website development platforms on the market today. But every WordPress site differs in the amount of content and user traffic generated on a daily basis.

WordPress scalability is a key selling feature of the platform, as it gives businesses the freedom to expand. But in order to keep your business growing and your website operating at ideal efficiency, the number one rule is maintenance. Just like a car, the more you drive it, the more maintenance you need to perform to keep it running like new. The same goes for your website. Get your site on a maintenance plan to keep it running at top speed and functioning properly for all users.