Search for “best WooCommerce plugins” and you get lists of thirty. A real shop needs few, and every extra plugin is one more thing to update, one more door for security holes and more weight on every page. What follows is a list by function, not by brand, so you can see what you lack and leave the rest.
The functions a shop has to cover
How to choose a plugin without regretting it
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Check the date of the last update on the plugin page. A plugin that has not been updated for a long time is a risk, however well it does what you want.
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Check which WordPress and WooCommerce versions it was tested with. The page says so. Outside those, it is a gamble.
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Read the bad reviews. The good ones all look alike; the bad ones say what the plugin does wrong.
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Measure before and after. If the shop got slower, the plugin is the first suspect. See how to measure speed.
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A “free” plugin downloaded from a strange site is one of the commonest ways a shop gets infected. Install only from the official WordPress directory or the author's own site, and delete the ones you do not use: deactivated is not enough, it has to be removed.
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Fewer functions to cover, not more plugins. Before installing, check whether the theme or WooCommerce already does it. And remember that we neither sell nor install third-party plugins: what a plugin does is for its author to answer. See where, which ones and how many.
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Did the shop slow down or throw an error after you installed a plugin? Tell us which one and the time, and we will see what the server logged.
Open a support ticket
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In our plans
Some of the functions in the table are already covered by the plan, so you can leave the plugin out:
- Backups. Every shared plan has an automatic daily backup, with restores at no cost. A backup plugin is only worth it for a copy kept outside the server. To see which restore points exist, open JetBackup (or Backups) in cPanel.
- Shop e-mail. E-mail accounts are unlimited, so create a mailbox on your domain (for example shop@) just for the SMTP plugin. Order e-mails count against the hourly limit: 100 on Pro, 200 on Plus, 300 on Ultra.
- Weight. After adding a plugin, look at Resource Usage in cPanel to see whether CPU or memory went up.
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