We often hear SMEs say things along the line of "I need a Wordpress site", or "can you build me a Wordpress". It seems that WordPress has become as much of a verb as Hoover, Google, Scotch Tape, and Band Aid, to name a few. We at Ahumka Digital have decided to take a different approach to building sites for our customers. We use Duda instead of WordPress (WP), and in this blog I'll explain why.

I want to start off by saying that I don't have anything against WP. It has opened the way for so many businesses and individuals (including me) to create their own websites, and for agencies to serve clients.

WP is about as close as a CMS can come to being a household name and it’s easy to understand why. Approximately 30% of sites on the web today are powered by WP, which started life as a blogging platform. WP is certainly powerful and flexible enough to build amazing websites, but it's often a case of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. You don’t necessarily need a complicated open source CMS with 50,000+ plugin options  to create a 5-10 page small business website that converts customers. Here are some of the reasons we prefer to use Duda to service our customers instead.

WordPress Security Issues

WordPress is such a common CMS that hackers regularly monitor both it and the thousands of plugins in the WP Plugin Directory for vulnerabilities. According to a Sucuri report, in 2018, WordPress suffered 90 percent of all CMS cyberattacks. Recent instances of insecure plugins include WP Live Chat Support and Convert Plus, which allowed hackers to gain admin privileges. In 2019, Tripwire reported an issue with WP Database Backup that allowed attackers to take over a person’s operating system.

WordPress’s known security issues make regular updates critical for all WP websites.  Since these updates aren’t entirely automatic, either your developers (if you have in-house developers) will be responsible for them or you will.

Using plugins can automate some security. For instance, WP plugins can create regular site backups, limit login attempts, require two-factor authentication, etc. However, while these plugins improve security, they all need to be regularly updated and maintained, which increases the time involved in maintaining a WP site.

Conversely, Duda includes many of these security measures in its site builder and web hosting automatically. Duda security features include:

• Automated vulnerability scans that detect web application vulnerabilities.
• Automatic backups of static files (images, CSS, JavaScript, PDFs, etc.) to a different geographic region and a real-time replica of the database in different data centers.
• Automated monitoring tools detect abnormalities and misuse ahead of a hack.
• All data communication networks with external access are protected by a central firewall. Networks are separated for functionality and usage.
• And more...

Infact improved security is one of the main reasons we prefer to use the Duda platform for our clients. Through it we are able to provide you a website with better SEO, better performance, a better user experience, and better security.

According to Wpbeginner.com, a business website on WordPress often has 20 to 30 plugins, with many using 50 or more. As previously mentioned, these plugins need to be updated regularly, and then the website needs to be tested after each update session. That means a lot of your and/or your developers’ time will be spent maintaining your WP site. This could amount to at least 30 minutes per week depending on how many plugins you have installed.

Instead of using third-party plugins, Duda uses widgets built into the platform. This pushes maintenance, security, and quality assurance onto Duda so we can focus on building you a great website instead.

The Cost to Maintain a Website on WordPress 

At first glance, the cost of building a website on WP can be very tempting. After all it's a free CMS right? But what does it cost to maintain an average WP site if you decide to go it alone and build one? Not including domain name and SSL certificate (which you get for free with our packages), monthly hosting for a WP site on a web hosting platform runs anywhere from US$14-US$25 a month (not including additional annual fees for premium plugins or themes).

But the real big cost associated with running a WP site is paying a developer (or factor in the opportunity cost of doing it yourself). WP websites typically require anywhere from 5-10 hours of maintenance work per month to keep the site in good working order and this can get quite pricey if there are additional issues beyond the standard. The alternative is not to do the maintenance and leave your site wide open to hackers. With Ahumka Digital, our fixed price support packages ensure that you always know how much your monthly maintenance and update costs will be.

So if you thought about engaging us to build your site but were put off because we don't use WP, now you know why we don't. If you want us to build you a great site, that is pixel perfect, robust, secure, and converts, click on the button below to visit our store and select one of our packages.The body content of your post goes here. To edit this text, click on it and delete this default text and start typing your own or paste your own from a different source.