It is so easy to install Plugins on a WordPress that most of us installs a lot of plugins which we are not going to use. We de-activate these plugins and forget them. As time passes we have a number of inactive plugins in our admin panel. Sometimes I find that there are more number of inactive plugins than active plugins in websites created by novice users.
Do these inactive plugins really impact the loading speed and Slows down your Website ?
A lot is written about it and some say that inactive plugins doesn’t impact the loading speed of your website and some say that it does. I would say that it depends upon the environment you are working in. As a usual process, WordPress loads all required and active plugin’s codes when a visitors opens a particular page on the website. It is true that if you deactivate a plugin, its scripts or code will not be loaded whenever a page is requested from your website and thus it should not make any impact on your website’s speed. But there are multiple other factors which impacts the performance of your website. Lets try to rationalise it with facts :
- If you have limited resources on your hosting server, inactive plugins will occupy the precious space and may create scarcity of resources for active ones. Thus impacting the speed and performance of your website and slowing it down.
- If you have unlimited server resources, then inactive plugins will not slow your website down directly but it may happen indirectly. You usually forget to update these inactive plugins for obvious reasons. Most of the hosting service provider regularly scans their servers for potentially dangerous files like virus / malware and vulnerable outdated files. It may detect your inactive plugin files as dangerous / vulnerable and may block your outbound port. It will hamper the performance of your website as it may leave a lot of scripts on your website non-functional.
- Also these inactive WordPress plugins leaves your website vulnerable and may lead to hacking or spamming attempts and compromising your WordPress website security.
Conclusion –
Yes, in 99% situations Inactive plugins will impact the speed of your WordPress website and slow it down. You must delete these inactive plugins. Here you can learn How to Delete / Remove a Plugin completely from your WordPress website ? Also avoid installing plugins for testing and trying, check our well tested and tried list of must have WordPress plugins for your Website.
