In general, people know that I'm not the one to ask which plugins to use for their stack. However, given the fact that I'm a pagespeed and performance enthousiast, I'm sometimes asked which plugins people should be using.
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And it's often from Wordpress developers or agencies. But my answer will always be a bit disappointing. Here's why:
I'm actually not thinking from a plugin perspective. For the simple reason that improvements caused by plugins cannot be guaranteed as other plugins could introduce conflicts or new bottlenecks. And event content managers could mess things up.
Why plugins aren't helping
I might be generalizing here a bit, as every plugin has its place and time. Moreover, next to convenience there's a reason plugins are popular.
But let's look at things from another perspective: if plugins would be the holy grail, why do we still have slow websites? If plugins would help doing each other's, jobs, my job and niche wouldn't exist and we wouldn't be needing as many SEO specialist.
Apparently, plugins aren't helping out as much. Every niche has their nuances.
Improving fundaments and knowledge
Bus also: plugins do not contribute to fundamental improvement or (improving) in-house knowledge. Although I might be sharing links to documentations when doing audits or training session, I'm actually often staying away from specific plugin-advice.
I should be used for sharing code versus browser knowledge and characteristics instead. Or how to find bottlenecks using different toolings. With this, people can make their own choice to what extent they want to use plugins, and which plugins best suit their needs.
So, book me for an pagespeed audit or training session instead. You can read how the setup of my average pagespeed audit looks like in my blog as well.