Creating and managing a professional WordPress website without plugins is a real challenge today. Some extensions have established themselves as essential tools, meeting the ever-growing demands in terms of design, security, and performance. They also save time during development and content integration. Among the many options available, a few have become true benchmarks in our workflow. Here’s a selection of our favorites.
ADVANCED CUSTOM FIELDS (ACF): CUSTOM CONTENT MANAGEMENT
Why ACF?
Content flexibility is a major concern. With Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) and its compatibility with Gutenberg blocks, we can structure a website into modular, reusable sections across all pages, making content integration much easier. The blocks also allow more creative freedom, since not every page has to follow the same template.
Strengths:
- Advanced customization, both in the interface and in the code
- Clear, intuitive interface
- Can handle almost any type of content management
GRAVITY FORMS: CUSTOM FORMS MADE SIMPLE
Why Gravity Forms?
A website without forms is increasingly rare. Gravity Forms makes it possible to manage all types of forms with ease—and most importantly, tailored to specific needs. All that’s left is to style them so they integrate perfectly with the site’s design. Special mention goes to Gravity Wiz and GravityKit (yes, plugins for a plugin) that further expand the functionality of forms.
Strengths:
- Create rich and complex forms without coding
- Multiple integrations (MailChimp, Zapier, PayPal, Stripe, etc.)
- Advanced entry management, filtering, and data export
- We love this plugin so much that it even has a dedicated article on our blog
WPML: THE MULTILINGUAL PLUGIN PAR EXCELLENCE
Why WPML?
WPML is our go-to solution for managing multilingual websites. The plugin provides a complete environment that makes it easy to translate and manage content in multiple languages. It’s also compatible with our other core plugins like ACF and Gravity Forms, making it a true “one stop shop” for all our multilingual needs.
Strengths:
- Simple, effective translation interface
- Compatibility with our other tools
- Multilingual SEO optimization for better search visibility
WOOCOMMERCE: THE E-COMMERCE ESSENTIAL
Why WooCommerce?
If you want to transform your WordPress site into an online store, WooCommerce is the go-to solution. This plugin offers unmatched flexibility for managing products, orders, and payments. Like most plugins on this list, it comes with a vast ecosystem of niche add-ons that enable more advanced features like subscriptions or inventory management. It’s also highly flexible at the code level, making it adaptable to more specific project requirements.
WooCommerce has established itself as a leader in the e-commerce industry and offers a compelling alternative to giants like Shopify. The base plugin is free and allows for complete customization of the user journey—from homepage to checkout confirmation—something not every platform offers.
Strengths:
- Total customization of the online store
- Compatibility with numerous payment gateways
- Advanced management of orders, deliveries, and subscriptions
THE WPMU SUITE: OPTIMIZE, SECURE, AND BOOST SEO
Why the WPMU Suite?
In addition to being our preferred hosting provider, WPMU offers a suite of plugins dedicated to technical optimization, security, and SEO, which work seamlessly with the tools integrated into the WPMU dashboard. Among the most popular are Smush, Hummingbird, and SmartCrawl.
- Smush: Automatically compresses images without quality loss, reducing load times.
- Hummingbird: Optimizes overall performance (caching, CSS/JS minification) for a faster site with better search engine ranking.
- SmartCrawl: Simplifies SEO (sitemaps, meta tags, indexing) to improve your site’s visibility.
Strengths:
- Clear interface and easy setup
- Improved loading times and enhanced security
- Centralized management of technical, SEO, and performance aspects
The WordPress ecosystem is renowned for its plugins, but some have truly stood out as pillars in the way we work. By integrating them into your environment, you lay the foundation for a flexible, high-performing, secure, well-optimized, and accessible website—all without unnecessary complexity, thanks to their ease of use.
