Jetpack can be a huge space hog, but after going a few months without it, I find that many of its features are too vital to get rid of. Here’s why I uninstalled Jetpack and then immediately regretted it.

Edit: Ha! So…here’s the thing. I unstalled Jetpack again, after buying a new theme that does everything Jetpack was doing. I have zero regrets. If you’re using free themes, you may want to keep it longer. But if you have a theme that does what’s mentioned in this post, ditch Jetpack. It’s not worth the performance errors I kept getting.

There are some blogging tips that simply don’t work for everyone. Those of you who have been around for a while know that sometimes I give advice that you just know isn’t the best for you. Blogging is a different beast for different bloggers, depending on niche, age of the blog, etc.

You’d think the one thing we could all agree on, though, is this: slow blogs suck.

There is a lot I’m willing to put up with in the name of blogging, but waiting 10 minutes to leave a comment is not one of them.

I’d be hard-pressed to find someone who disagreed.

A few months ago, I read in one of my Facebook blogging groups that Jetpack is terrible for WordPress bloggers, because it’s a bloated plugin that can slow down your site.

At the time, I was having some page speed issues and thought, “Maybe uninstalling Jetpack will fix that.”

It didn’t. In fact, it actually made my job as a blogger harder. 

Why I Uninstalled Jetpack and Then Immediately Regretted It

Jetpack is bloated.

By that, I mean it takes up a lot of space for a plugin with very few truly necessary features. And Jetpack is constantly adding new features. I only use 3 of them. Even if you turn the different features off, they’re still sitting there in the background, taking up space.

So one day, I had it with my slow page speed…so I uninstalled Jetpack. Huge mistake.

The single biggest reason I would recommend keeping Jetpack? While many of the features are useless to me, those 3 that I actually use are vital.

I lost important features by uninstalling.

Some of Jetpack’s features are extremely useful. I didn’t realize how much I relied on them until I couldn’t use them anymore. Once those features were gone, I found myself desperately hunting for replacements. The big 3?

1. Publicize

That’s the one that automatically shares your new content on social media.

I found a plugin called NextScripts to replace Publicize, but it was an enormous pain to set up and it didn’t even work half the time. Google+ never worked. Which is a large–and growing–portion of my audience. 

2. WP Stats

Even though Google Analytics is more accurate, I like the ease of Jetpack’s WP stats. Not so much for the number, but because it’s easier to see where the traffic is coming from and where it’s going. I never found a decent replacement.

3. Top Posts & Pages Widget

I didn’t realize that was a Jetpack feature until it was gone. I found a replacement called Top 10, but it had a lot of problems.

I had to edit the plugin’s code so it would let me feature the posts as an image grid without text (the way you see them now). And then every time the plugin updated, I had to redo it (after the first time, I saved a copy of the edited code so I could just copy and paste). 

I had it uninstalled for about 2-3 months and I hated every moment of it. Jetpack is a pain, but living without it is worse. So I reinstalled it and then immediately sent my husband a message saying, “I WILL NEVER ABANDON JETPACK AGAIN.”

Lesson learned: just because a certain blogging tip worked for someone else, that does NOT mean it will work for you. 

Are you going without Jetpack? Why or why not? Let me know in the comments!