WordPress is a very useful tool. It makes it very easy for those who do not know how to code to build their websites fast. This ease of building and launching WordPress is made possible by the large selection of themes and plugins that are available. Both pre-built and custom WordPress themes serve a purpose, but many people choose to go with pre-built themes, mainly because of cost and time constraints. However, pre-built WordPress themes come with some drawbacks.

Security

WordPress is a prime target for hackers because it is the largest CMS in use today. Because of this, patches, updates and bug fixes are very important. The problem is that some developers stop supporting their themes and providing the necessary security patches and updates after a few months or even years of having the theme out in the public. This leads to businesses being faced with the real possibility of leaving websites up that have lots of security vulnerabilities stemming from themes that have not been updated in some time.

Poor Code Practices

There are innumerable great WordPress developers who build amazing themes. However, code quality is hard to standardise on the internet where anyone can build and release a WordPress theme. Clean code that follows the best coding practices is very important for the functionality and performance of a WordPress theme and the websites the theme is installed on.

While many WordPress themes might look great, the underlying code might not be the best and this affects security, performance and stability. Some of this is allowed to continue because most of the people who use these themes might not be able to spot bad code. Sometimes, developers need to create generic code for themes that will be used by hundreds or even thousands of businesses.

Bloat

A WordPress theme that is meant to be used by hundreds of different websites needs to include all the features, options and functionality that all its potential users are likely to need. This means that developers include all the code needed to enable this, leading to the inclusion of JavaScript libraries, CSS, PHP and even components that some of the theme’s users might not need.

While the variety of options, features and functionality can help a WordPress theme sell better, it also leads to bloat that affects load times and user experience, both of which can be detrimental to your website’s SEO.

Fewer Personalisation Options

To be able to make a website truly yours and to ensure it stands out, you should be able to customise the website so it functions exactly as you would like it to. Making a pre-built theme look and function exactly as you need it to can be difficult, especially for larger and more complicated WordPress themes. You might end up using whatever functionality or feature works just to have a usable website and launch faster, and this is the wrong approach.

Pre-built WordPress themes are a great option for businesses that want to save some time and money. However, they come with some serious drawbacks that businesses have to think about before using them. Because of these drawbacks, custom WordPress themes emerge as a great option for businesses that do not want to deal with these drawbacks and complexities.