It is no secret that there is an endless supply of plugins that will make WordPress highly extensible, its one of the main reasons why WordPress is so popular amongst developers. They give endless potential to the most basic installation and with wisely chosen plugins will very easily transform WP into a very powerful application.
But, do we really need to use plugins for the most common and basic tasks, like installing Analytics or re-directing your feed to Feedbuner? Or, do we really need plugins for pagination, contact forms or even a content slider? Of course not. There are better and in some cases simpler solutions, as we will show you in this article.
There are many benefits to not using plugins: You will have more control over customization and functionality, you can make WordPress faster and uncluttered, and most importantly, you will be able to reduce potential security risks. On top of all these reasons, there really is no greater satisfaction than coding everything yourself.
In this article we have taken 20 of the most popular plugin uses and offer a plugin-replacing solution, via either a code hack, tutorial or a simple tip.