Is WordPress secure and easy to use?

Ask David! question: I’m thinking of using WordPress for blogging, but worried because my friends’ WordPress websites keep getting hacked or broken all the time – I’m questioning if it’s actually secure, easy to use?

To keep a basic WordPress site secure, you need to use a strong admin password and keep the core software updated to the newest version. However, two major structural factors make securing a WordPress site a continuous challenge:

The Open-Source Reality: Because WordPress is open source, its underlying code is publicly accessible and can be extensively analyzed by security researchers and attackers alike. Today, AI-assisted code analysis and automated scanning can make it faster to identify potential vulnerabilities, develop proof-of-concepts, and automate attacks against vulnerable sites.
Heavy Dependency on Third-Party Code: WordPress websites commonly rely on third-party plugins and themes for additional functionality and customization. As a result, a significant part of your site’s security, stability, and ongoing maintenance can depend on the quality, security, and continued support of those third-party components.

To keep a basic WordPress site secure, you need to use a strong admin password and keep the core software updated to the newest version. However, because of the open-source nature of WordPress, a huge part of your site’s security, stability, and ongoing maintenance depends on third-party plugins and themes.

Ease of Use

Regarding how easy WordPress is to use:

For blogging: It is straightforward and easy to manage.
For website creation: It can be much more complex. If you don’t know how to code, you have to search for and install pre-made themes, as there is no built-in styles manager to build your own custom design from scratch.
For advanced features: You must search for, select, test, and integrate individual third-party plugins.

The Problem With Ongoing Maintenance & Updates, Security Issues

What many website owners don’t realize upfront is how much work goes into keeping a WordPress site running. Because WordPress relies on an ecosystem of separate third-party developers, keeping everything functioning smoothly becomes a constant chore – and every update carries a real risk of breaking your site.

The Core vs. Plugin Incompatibility Cycle: When WordPress updates its core software, plugin developers must update their code to match. If a plugin author delays an update or stops maintaining their plugin altogether, that incompatibility can trigger severe errors on your site.
Fatal Errors & Whitescreen Crashes: A single bad plugin update can throw fatal PHP errors (like the infamous Class 'C_NextGen_Settings' Not Found error), instantly crashing your site and locking you out of your admin dashboard. As detailed in our guide on how WordPress updates broke a site design and how UltimateWB solved it, update conflicts regularly destroy custom site layouts and break critical features.
Forced Updates That Crash Sites: While background security updates are designed to patch vulnerabilities automatically, an update can sometimes cause unexpected problems when it encounters incompatible code, limited server resources, or another issue during the update process. In our breakdown of the wp2shell core exploit and why forced updates break websites, we analyze how background updates can exhaust PHP memory, time out mid-process, and leave sites stuck in maintenance mode.
Supply Chain Attacks & Abandoned Code: Because WordPress is open source, hackers regularly audit plugin code for security flaws. In our article on why relying on WordPress plugins can backfire, we discuss how over 59% of plugins haven’t been updated in over two years, leaving sites open to backdoor injections, the WordPress backdoor scandal, and high-profile supply chain exploits that hit 1.6 million WordPress sites.

Best of Both Worlds: Using WordPress inside UltimateWB

If you’re thinking you might want to use WordPress for blogging, but want to avoid the security hazards and plugin headaches, UltimateWB gives you the best of both worlds with its Integrated WordPress Blog option.

With this integration, you get the familiar WordPress publishing setup for your blog content, but without needing risky third-party plugins:

Built-in SEO Tools: Meta tags, canonical URLs, and structured data controls are handled natively, so you don’t need heavy SEO plugins running in the background.
Automatic Image Optimization: Images uploaded to your blog can be automatically compressed and optimized into modern WebP format on the fly, speeding up page loads without requiring third-party optimization tools or paid external API keys.
No Extra Plugins Needed: You get a clean, secure blogging engine seamlessly connected to your primary UltimateWB website infrastructure.

Related:

How UltimateWB Differs

UltimateWB is built to eliminate plugin clutter, heavy maintenance, and update anxiety altogether:

Built-in Styles Manager: Design, customize, and reformat your entire site visually without coding or depending on risky third-party themes.
Native Built-in Features: UltimateWB includes a full suite of native applications – like e-commerce, membership management, photo galleries, forms, and ad managers.
Zero Plugin Conflicts: Because all features are built directly into the core platform, you never have to worry about third-party updates breaking your site layout or causing fatal software conflicts.
Low-Maintenance Security: Core updates and security patches are released directly by the platform, ensuring everything works together seamlessly without surprise crashes.

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Looking for a website builder that is secure and easy to use? Learn more about UltimateWB! We also offer web design packages if you would like your website designed and built for you.

Got a techy/website question? Whether it’s about UltimateWB or another website builder, web hosting, or other aspects of websites, just send in your question in the “Ask David!” form. We will email you when the answer is posted on the UltimateWB “Ask David!” section.

Meet David from the UltimateWB Team

David is a full-stack web developer with over 20 years of experience in programming, design, and server administration (WHM/cPanel), specializing in building high-performance, secure web solutions that prioritize user autonomy. Have a technical hurdle? Ask David!