People ask me to help them find the right WordPress plugin all the time.
Unfortunately, they're often looking for three things:
- A perfect plugin that does everything they want
- Often a free or very inexpensive plugin
- A fast way to duplicate another site that may have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars
What's often crazy about these requests is that the folks asking are doing it without realizing exactly how much another site may have cost, in terms of time, effort, and energy.
So they don't think twice about looking for a perfect plugin to duplicate the site.
But you won't find it.
There is no perfect plugin that does everything you want, for $35. There is no perfect plugin that matches some other well known site. And there is no substitute for hard work.
Need the right WordPress plugin? Or is that the wrong question?
My general take is that most of the time the question is the wrong one. Instead of asking “What's the right WordPress plugin for me?” you should be asking a different question.
Here's my take.