What is a WordPress Multisite Network?

What is a WordPress Multisite Network?

Multisite is an add-on feature of WordPress, by which one can create multiple sites with the same user credentials & one-time WordPress installation. You don’t even have to download and install plugins and themes for every site that you create. Since the database is shared so one can run the entire network with same plugins and themes.

Well you can have different WP sites on a standalone environment but managing them might be bit troublesome. WordPress multisite feature allows you to create multiple sites and their management very easy. Although the database is shared, there is an option for separate media & files uploading and database tables for each site.

Are you the one who should be using the multisite network? WordPress Multisite network is generally used by business firms having large or small web network of different departments and branches. Since all your website will be sharing the same domain name, making it easier to identify the firm or the company a particular site belongs to.

There are many advantages of using multisite, like you do not need to install WordPress and its dependent plugins or themes every single time. Everything works in one time installation, but you can have different plugins for different sites. You don’t need to create different user credentials for different site, your entire network is accessible through the same username and password.

You can also assign a number of sites to different administrators, which will help you to share workload of maintaining the whole network. While assigning the websites to your colleagues you can restrict their access by configuring their permissions over the network.

As multisite are created by adding sub directories and sub folders to your domain, you can very well use them for creating websites which can be used for question & answer or FAQs, customer support and much more.

WordPress Multisite

Every coin has two faces, with so much advantages, there are some drawbacks of multisite. When you are dealing with large network, managing a huge traffic is problematic. Since the entire network is created by a single domain and shares the same database. There is a great possibility that system failure or if your site is down by any reason, will affect the entire network. And this is also true that if your site hacked or infected, then every site within your network will be infected. Which is a huge drawback, you cannot risk the security of the entire network.

Conclusion:

The multisite lets you create and manage a network of your own, without investing much. It is a one-time installation of your WP, Plugins and themes yet you can install as many plugins and themes you want. Multisite lets you to share resources and database and also it gives you the liberty to create separate database for individual websites. You also have the right to create and delete users who are accessing the websites and restrict them to use the database.