Do you consistently keep all plugins up to date?

**PaulEchere** · 31 October 2022, 4:56 am

I suppose keeping plugins up to date is important to not lose access to your website, but given that you have to test and back up every time - it takes up a lot of my time to keep them all up to date.

Does everyone actually do this and is the risk of not doing it actually as high as they say it is?

**Strider1973** · 31 October 2022, 5:31 am

I don't update WP and plugins if not absolutely necessary.

As you said, it would be an immense amount of work to check every website and every feature of it for compatibility issues.

I know it's a small security risk, but then... you also have a security risk when you update (because that's the reason for some further updates).

So for me, not updating outweighs the risk of updating by a huge margin.

Every couple of years, I have to go trough the pain of updating everything (for example due to php minimum version of webhosting company), and then it's sometimes a huge pain when some theme or plugins don't work anymore.

**baldidiot** · 31 October 2022, 5:46 am

There are tools to help with this - a lot of hosting companies offer staging or safe update options where they'll take care of a lot of it (ie: creating automatic restore points and so on).

For security updates we run them immediately. I tend to run updates for everything else gets a couple of times a week depending on how busy things get.

And never last thing on a friday afternoon, I've learnt from that mistake!

**golfbettingsystem** · 31 October 2022, 11:38 am

It does take time and effort but yes I keep them updated.

Had to update the php version recently which was a whole different level of risk, so got a developer to do that to take the pain out of it.

**Oliver Cooper** · 31 October 2022, 5:22 pm

To be honest, sometimes I forget to update plugins. Till now I've been lucky and nothing happened, but I can't say for sure that it will be like this always

**citizen42** · 2 November 2022, 6:40 am

I always keep everything up to date, I have auto-updates enabled for the core, themes and plugins.

To be fair, it's easy for me as I don't have too many plugins on a typical WP website, but I can understand how tedious it can be if you do.

The security risk may not seem high, but if something happens it may result in data loss, corruption of the whole system where you have other websites, etc.
So however small the risk may seem, it's still there.

WP itself is perhaps the most backward-compatible software out there, and for the most part you can find an alternative plugin or theme that's more established and follows similar compatibility guidelines. Not always, but for most of the time. So if you do that and enable auto-updates for them, you'll be left with just a couple to manually check.

A good practice is to have a staging or even a local website where you can test your updates without having to worry about the consequences. Once everything is fine, you can do it on the actual website. Having and managing a staging website may seem a lot of work, but it eliminates a lot of work you'd have to do otherwise every once in a while, plus it lowers security risks, worth it for a long run. And as mentioned above by baldidiot, today hosting providers make it quite easy.

**Former Member 14** · 3 November 2022, 12:59 am

It's akin to having an oil change and new filter in your car. While you can keep driving past the recommended oil change time-frame, eventually, not changing it, will cause damage.

Personally, I don't run a lot of plugins. Only the barest essentials, which averages out at about five (5). If I need any other functionality, then I hard code it into my theme's functions file. However, if you can't code, then you stuck with a nightmare of upteen dozen plugins.

As others have said... These days there are ways to ensure your plugins/theme updates are stable.

**eenzoo** · 3 November 2022, 2:27 am

Not that much plugins activated usually. My hosting would inform me about security and compatibility problems. So I have auto-updates enabled for all plugins.

**dannyx** · 14 December 2022, 2:11 pm

I have automatic updates turned off, but it updates itself as soon as an update comes out.

You can read a lot of information about the number of plugins but most of it is wrong. It's not the quantity that counts, it's the quality. If they are premium plugins from reputable publishers and you have, say, 25 of them, it will probably be safer than 5 plugins of unknown origin that have not been updated for months/years.

**universal4** · 14 December 2022, 4:07 pm

Originally Posted by dannyx

I have automatic updates turned off, but it updates itself as soon as an update comes out.

If automatic updates is turned off and it updates itself (automatically) then you do not have automatic updates turned off correctly.

I actually remove write access to the root folder so core updates can not run without authorization just in case a new update breaks stuff.

I keep auto updates of plugins turned off for the same reason, but they do not require permission changes to folders, and monitor update warnings frequently.

25 plugins? far too many IMO, paid or otherwise. Overlapping functions almost guaranteed.

Rick
Universal4

**Michael Martinez** · 14 December 2022, 4:55 pm

I manage a couple hundred sites on multiple servers (they're not all mine). Haven't had a problem with auto-updating everything in years. But then, hardly a year goes by where I don't have to rebuild a few sites from backups, so I kind of stopped worrying about what might go wrong. Someone's going to screw up something somewhere.

**NoDepositCasinos** · 14 December 2022, 8:02 pm

I only update them when necessary, although I have some automatic updates. However, the time it takes to keep all plugins up to date will depend on how many you have and what alternatives your hosting provider offers.

I prefer to use few plugins (because many tend to overlap) and only the ones that add something to my website. It's better to have something simple working than something sophisticated that represents a security risk to your site or is constantly causing troubles.

**CasinosBroker** · 15 December 2022, 1:56 am

I always keep them updated because of security reasons.

**dannyx** · 17 December 2022, 11:58 am

Originally Posted by universal4

If automatic updates is turned off and it updates itself (automatically) then you do not have automatic updates turned off correctly.

I actually remove write access to the root folder so core updates can not run without authorization just in case a new update breaks stuff.

I keep auto updates of plugins turned off for the same reason, but they do not require permission changes to folders, and monitor update warnings frequently.

25 plugins? far too many IMO, paid or otherwise. Overlapping functions almost guaranteed.

Rick
Universal4

I misspelled. They do not update themselves. I update them manually as soon as an update comes out. The only thing I have enabled for automatic updating is WP.

25 too many? It seems to me that these are myths just like many on the internet. I've read about many sites that have over 50 plugins and they work great and fast. A lot depends on hosting and optimization. Of course, what is different is 50 plugins on a site that is handled by an experienced team of people and what is different is a gambling affiliate site that is handled by one person. Although I think a lot of plugins is not a bad thing and you can easily have a site speed of 99 on PC and phone and all other performance indicators at 90+ even having so many plugins, I tested it myself.
What seems to matter is the quality of the plugins. As for overlapping plugins, it's better to choose plugins in a way that features don't overlap if possible. I myself, although I don't mind a large number of plugins, try to stick to certain limits and not install plugins that are not needed. If I can with one plugin replace two then I do it. I don't have 25 plugins (that was an example) I have 15 of them, and I already doubt that I would install any. 15 was my max that I set for myself. It all depends on the number of features on the site.

**pota** · 19 December 2022, 7:54 am

Stay up to date.However, I've narrowed it down to just the plugins I need.

Also, unneeded plugins are disabled. Because it can cause problems.

**Tex Holdem Questions** · 20 December 2022, 6:04 am

Yes, try to keep them up to date as often as possible, however, I don't take the time to test after. Fortunately, I have auto-backups which help if there was an issue.

I try to keep the plugin number down but still have quite a few!

I was advised to never update the theme.

**dannyx** · 20 December 2022, 11:31 am

Originally Posted by Tex Holdem Questions

Yes, try to keep them up to date as often as possible, however, I don't take the time to test after. Fortunately, I have auto-backups which help if there was an issue.

I try to keep the plugin number down but still have quite a few!

I was advised to never update the theme.

It used to be that when I made a lot of changes to a theme, especially non-standard ones, the update could destroy it. It depends on the theme.
I currently use Hello Elementor. That is, a blank tab, you can update as much as you want and nothing happens.

**universal4** · 20 December 2022, 5:17 pm

Originally Posted by Tex Holdem Questions

I was advised to never update the theme.

In my opinion this was bad advice.

Now if your theme is not a custom one and based on a commercial (or even free version) of a public available theme if it is updated you should update the base (but... you need to take steps in advance).

You should be using a child theme, and any and ALL customizations to the theme, should be made to the child theme. A child theme just points at the parent theme for all the main structure and underlying code needed for the theme.

This should allow any updates to the theme, such as security fixes etc, to run without losing any customizing.

/side note: No you do not need a plugin to create a child theme, it is a 10 minute thing to do manually, if you are just getting a theme going, but if you have one you have been customizing and hacking up for years, that is a different animal and should be researched deeply before changing.

If you are using a commercial theme that does regular updates and fixes, and you do not customize it a lot beyond using the customizer that stores changes in the database you are likely just fine without a child theme. However on those cases the theme developer will likely recommend you do take the updates.

Rick
Universal4

**DaftDog** · 22 December 2022, 12:42 am

I update all 20 of my plugins, on my main site, manually. Any plugin that is no longer required gets deleted.

A good alternative to using a child theme is a plugin called Code Snippets.

**Tex Holdem Questions** · 22 December 2022, 4:37 am

Originally Posted by universal4

In my opinion this was bad advice.

Now if your theme is not a custom one and based on a commercial (or even free version) of a public available theme if it is updated you should update the base (but... you need to take steps in advance).

You should be using a child theme, and any and ALL customizations to the theme, should be made to the child theme. A child theme just points at the parent theme for all the main structure and underlying code needed for the theme.

This should allow any updates to the theme, such as security fixes etc, to run without losing any customizing.

/side note: No you do not need a plugin to create a child theme, it is a 10 minute thing to do manually, if you are just getting a theme going, but if you have one you have been customizing and hacking up for years, that is a different animal and should be researched deeply before changing.

If you are using a commercial theme that does regular updates and fixes, and you do not customize it a lot beyond using the customizer that stores changes in the database you are likely just fine without a child theme. However on those cases the theme developer will likely recommend you do take the updates.

Rick
Universal4

Thanks for the wise words Rick!

I think I clicked update all once including the theme and temporarily broke the site for a few minutes. I suspect it's because we've tweaked alot of things so updating the theme is likely to cause issues.

I'm not especially technical so will definitely flag the child theme thing to my web dev.

Thanks!

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