WordPress: To Multisite or not?

This image is from the WordPress article Installing Multiple WordPress Instances:

I started with a Multisite configuration, but after a couple of days had increasing doubts about using it. I have since moved to Multiple Databases. Scripting the installation of WordPress in a FreeNAS jail made it easy to work with this configuration, but first, the why. There were four issues that influenced my decision to switch:

1. Increased Risk
2. Reduced Site Administrator Capabilities
3. Plugin Differences
4. User Access

Increased Risk

It fairly apparent when you look at the image above that if there is a failure of the database in Multisite and Single Database configurations that all sites would go off the air. The tight coupling of sites through the use of a single database makes these configurations less than ideal. The loose coupling of the Multiple Database configuration means that if one site goes down, other sites won’t be affected.

Reduced Site Administrator Capabilities

The capabilities of the site administrator role are also reduced in a WordPress Network. Site admins cannot install new themes or plugins and cannot edit the profiles of users on their site. Only the Network Admin (aka Super Admin) has the ability to perform these tasks in a WordPress network.

Extract from the WordPress article Multisite Network Administration

So what are the implications of this? Well, for one thing, you cannot create a site for a family member and give them the autonomy to install their own themes and plugins. That’s not a desirable dependency for either party.

Plugin Differences

Plugins now have additional flexibility, depending upon their implementation across the network. All plugins are installed on the network dashboard’s plugin page, and can be activated either per-site or for the entire network.

Extract from the WordPress article Plugins

There are several types of plugins under Multisite: site-specific, network and must-use plugins. These differences make the use of plugins confusing in a Multisite configuration. These differences are not apparent in a Multiple Database configuration. In addition, some plugins either don’t work or incur additional costs in a multisite configuration. UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup Plugin is one such example of a plugin that incurs additional, recurrent costs.

User Access

By design, all users who are added to your network will have subscriber access to all sites on your network. To allocate a different default role for users on individual sites, you must use a plugin.

Extract from the WordPress article User Access & Capabilities

Audiences tend to be different for each site. For instance, the audience for my daughter’s blog is going to be different to the audience to my blog. The audience to udance.com.au (a dance services e-commerce site soon to be migrated away from Weebly a hosting provider to WordPress self-hosted) is vastly different to the audience for blog.udance.com.au (a technology blog). All registered users having access to all sites is generally undesirable. In addition, registration gets complicated, confusing and messy in a multisite configuration. What I found was user registration for blog.udance.com.au, which uses one theme, was based on the theme for udance.com.au. The change in look-and-feel is undesirable.

For all the reasons above, I switched to a Multiple Database configuration. I’ve been much happier since making that decision.