What Do You Update First – WordPress Or Plugins?

Time To Update Your WordPress

Working on your website can be fun and exciting. When it comes to updating the platform and plugins, that fun can immediately turn into a nightmare. While professionals in web design and development deal with website updates all the time, new users may not and it can be nerve-racking.

We have seen many websites transition through updates flawlessly while some updates can seriously break your website if you are not careful. One of the biggest questions we see is – Do you update the WordPress core or the plugins first?

The good news is WordPress has one of the easiest updating systems available — and is the most used platform of choice. The core coding is designed to be backward compatible in most senses and can make transitioning to your update easy.

Update Core First

When you have some updates to do, always update the core first, then update your plugins and themes right after.

After an update, you should always check that the site is working as expected. If there are any issues, you can contact the support staff of the plugin or theme you are using. Contacting support when your core is not yet updated is fruitless because good developers always test on the latest version of WordPress, and will mostly ask you to get your site up to the latest version as well to help in troubleshooting.

So there you have it, an answer to a question that gets asked often around here.