Get to Know the Difference Between WordPress Theme Vs Plugin Development

The popularity of WordPress has grown to an optimum extent. It is evident from its market share of 44.26% among all other CMS and the first choice of platform to develop a website. Easy to use functionalities, advanced features, seamless WordPress theme customization, numerous plugins, etc., are some of the reasons WordPress has widespread acceptance. Still, there comes instances in front of WordPress developers to choose between developing the WordPress plugin or adding a code in the existing theme of the website. All this is done to add custom functionality to the website. Some developers have the opinion that adding a code in functions.php is a simple thing to do. Whereas, few of the developers prefer creating a new theme for the purpose of adding a new set of functionalities. So, whatever be the medium, there is a difference between the two. Over here, we will be looking at the difference between writing custom code in the theme and WordPress plugin development to see which way is beneficial for developers. Let’s start first with writing custom code. Custom Code in functions.php File To functionality to the WordPress website, sometimes developers prefer to add code in theme’s functions.php. It is always a simple thing to do as compared with developing a plugin from the scratch. Some developers even use custom code to add in the functionality of WordPress themes to act as a plugin. Despite that, it is not a plugin and does the actual function of creating a creative font, design, and layout of your website. Key Benefits * Add code to WordPress theme for making changes in featured image function, excerpts length, Widgetized areas, and more. * Once you enter the code inside functions.php, the admin changes the WordPress files automatically. However, this feature is not feasible with WordPress Plugin development because once you created it, then have to overwrite the same for making specific changes. * Flexibility to add, change, and delete any snippets in the file. * Easily check the code and understand the same. * Easy to find snippets in the theme. * Time-saving for WordPress developers. * Add multiple files for different theme functionalities. * Easy to work on CSS. Top Challenges Although, there are advantages of adding code to WordPress theme for making specific additions to the website. Despite that, there are few challenges that developers have to face during the process. * The functionality is limited to the current theme itself. If you change the theme, then you have to add the codes right from the scratch. * After updating the theme, all changes will overwrite it. * Hard to understand code functionality. * Difficult to enable or disable the functionality from admin. WordPress Plugin Development A plugin is a great support offered by WordPress CMS to add any sort of customized functionality to the website. Developers can even develop plugins as per the requirement of business to a specific choice of functionality to it. Key Benefits * Install and develop any plugin on any type of WordPress website. * No such performance issues, if the same code applies to functions.php. * Easy to update, disable, and install. * Easy to identify plugin from the plugin’s description. * Flexibility to add custom style and scripts in the plugin. * Any change or update in the plugin will not affect the existing functionality of the website. * Develop the plugin using the OOPS concepts that will secure the same. * Simple to deactivate the plugin for tracking and debugging. Top Challenges * WordPress plugin development is a time-consuming process that requires more effort. * A plugin can conflict with another available plugin with having the same functionalities. * All plugins are not compatible with all WordPress Themes. Final Analysis From the above comparison, it is clearly evident that both plugin development and adding code to WordPress Theme have their advantages and disadvantages. It all depends on the custom requirements of your enterprise to go for any such method and create interactive functionalities for the website. In case, when you need to add specific functionalities to the website using different codes, then hire WordPress theme developer from WordPressIndia. Find a team of skilled and certified WordPress developers having years of expertise and proficiency.