The WORST Table Plugin for WordPress

  • refugeindhamma

    (@refugeindhamma)


    3 years, 3 months ago

    I seriously don’t understand the hype for this plugin. There are no functionalities at all and the horizontal scrolling breaks the table formatting which the author does not bother to fix and pushes users to buy the premium plans in order to get responsive tables. Everything else needs to be done using CSS like the most basic background coloring and border lines. What’s worse is that the CSS that is implemented in this plugin is unconventional. If you spend time learning to write CSS for this plugin, you are wasting your time because the naming convention cannot be transferred anywhere else. You still need to learn conventional CSS naming conventions in order to use your CSS codes elsewhere, including other Table plugins.

    For example to target the first column of your table, conventional CSS is written as:
    .yourtable td:first-child {Your styling}

    But for TablePress, you need to write CSS like this:
    .tablepress.yourtable .column-1 {Your styling}

    For non-programmers, It may look like it’s simplifying your CSS naming convention but it is very confusing when you want to use conventional CSS from forums like stackoverflow to do something that is not in the TablePress documentation, which is very sparse. The documentation is so sparse that you might as well read articles written by 3rd parties on Tablepress. At least they teach you most of the basic CSS functions for Tablepress.

    Responsiveness is the most important aspect in today’s software design. Yet, horizontal scrolling is broken. I’m fine with locking vertical stacking responsiveness behind premium plans but the basic horizontal scrolling is not working and I need to use custom HTML and CSS just to make it work. If I need to use so much CSS to style and add functions to my tables, I might as well just use custom HTML block to create the table and style it myself. Why the need for TablePress?

    Horizontal Scrolling is only one aspect that is lacking. There are so many other missing functionalities that it boggles my mind that reviewers and users review this plugin favorably.

    Let’s just compare TablePress and WP Table Builder FREE Version:
    TablePress Settings:
    1) Custom CSS
    2) Admin Menu Entry

    WP Table Builder Settings:
    1) Allowed User Roles
    2) Custom CSS
    3) Lazy Load Images
    4) Version Control (Install the version you want)
    5) Table Fixer (Your tables might get corrupted by your browser addons. If you have any table with unexpected behaviour (cell edit disabled, etc) use this tool.)

    List of Table Configurations that TablePress are MISSING but available on WP Table Builder built-in functions:
    1) Insert Buttons, List, Star Rating, Custom HTML, Shortcode
    2) Background Colors for Headers and Even/Odd Rows
    3) Table Management (Padding, Table Alignment, Table Container Max Width, Table Container Min Auto Width)
    4) Table Border (Border Width/Color, Inner Border Width/Color, Inner Header Border)
    5) Horizontal Scrolling that does not break the table formatting (TablePress horizontal scrolling breaks table formatting.)
    6) Table Tags
    7) Table Role
    8) Disable Table Styles

    List of Table Configurations that TablePress has but WP Table Builder is missing:
    1) Search/Filtering
    2) Pagination
    3) Custom JS

    Just look at the differences in functionalities between the 2 plugins in the FREE version! Furthermore, WP Table Builder is much cheaper with $49/year plan to include vertical stacking responsiveness, search, pagination and more. Whereas TablePress requires $79/year just to have those functions given for free for WP Table Builder. Not to mention that WP Table Builder has a lifetime plan.

    In fact, not only WP Table Builder has better functionalities than TablePress. Even Ninja Table is much better. It gives as many functions as WP Table Builder for free so making it another plugin that trumps TablePress soundly. The premium plan is also very competitively priced at $55/year, which is again much cheaper than TablePress.

    I am not affiliated with WP Table Builder nor Ninja Table. I’m just confounded by the lack of functionalities of TablePress that has so many users and got such good reviews online. Maybe there are web developers who do not need the functionalities of WP Table Builder and Ninja Table but in that case, why do they even need to install TablePress. They can just use custom HTML block and CSS style the tables themselves and can also easily get responsiveness of the tables the way they want it. The purpose of plugins is to make it easy for us non-programmers to set up a decent looking website and also to make life easier for web developers who want to save time from coding everything from scratch. So, I really fail to see how this plugin is getting all the glowing reviews.

    Maybe this plugin was developed much earlier than the others so it had a head-start in getting users. But obviously in 2023, it has lagged behind competitors and by putting functionalities that other plugins are giving for free behind premium plans at a much higher price, it really does not deserve the amount of praise and mentions.

    My final advice for non-programmer users:
    STAY AWAY from this plugin! Other table plugins have much more functionalities like the ones I mentioned above and they make your life much easier without having to fiddle with unconventional CSS implemented by this plugin.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • Plugin Author Tobias Bäthge

    (@tobiasbg)

    3 years, 3 months ago

    Hi @refugeindhamma,

    thanks a lot for taking the time to leave such a detailed review! I really appreciate your feedback and will be happy to explain a few things!

    You mention that the Horizontal Scrolling is not working for you, but “breaks the table formatting”. What exactly does that mean? What is broken in the formatting? Of course, I’ll be very happy to take an in-depth look at this on your site, if you want!

    You are correct in that CSS code is currently needed to make changes to the table styling. In my opinion, this allows for the most flexibility to achieve desired results, and if you search the forums, you’ll see that I’m always trying my best to assist with finding necessary CSS code, now and in the past!

    You also mention CSS naming conventions: Here, TablePress does indeed use things like .column-3 over :nth-child(3) to target e.g. the third column of a table). The reason for that is browser support a couple years ago, where the latter was not yet supported in many popular browsers. This has indeed changed, and in fact, nothing is preventing users from using these newer CSS features in TablePress tables! Your example for “conventional CSS” (.yourtable td:first-child {Your styling}) works totally fine in TablePress as well!

    Thanks a lot for the feature comparison of the plugins! Indeed, TablePress does not offer very many general options or settings. The reason is that I’m a fan of the WordPress philosophy of “Decisions. Not options!”. These only make it more difficult for inexperienced users to use a piece of software. I’m rather trying to offer a good default set of settings that works for everybody. And where (experienced) users want to make changes, there’s almost guaranteed to be a way to achieve that e.g. with a small plugin filter hook.
    For me, some of the options that you mention don’t even belong into a table plugin (like “Lazy Load Images”, which should be a global WordPress setting/feature (which it is), or “Version Control”, which essentially also mirrors WordPress functionality). TablePress also has a “Table Fixer”, but it’s separate because it (fortunately!) isn’t needed that often.
    You continue with describing styling options, for which WP Table Builder has a user interface, which definitely is a cool idea (I’m actually also looking into offering something like that in TablePress as well)! For some other things, I’m not sure that these are needed in a table plugin, but again: cool, that they offer this, if their users want it!

    So, yes, I totally agree: Other table plugins might have more features. But maybe it’s exactly that simplicity that TablePress offers that makes users happy. Many don’t need or want a bloated plugin. TablePress strives to offer one thing and wants to do that job as good as possible: tables. And maybe that’s what people appreciate more than many features that they rarely use. Or maybe it’s the fact that they can always approach me with questions and support requests.

    And a few words about the pricing as well: Sure, the price ranges are different (TablePress also has a “Lifetime” license, as well as multi-site license options, by the way!). That’s just normal as features and implementation details are different. Ultimately, it gives users the choice and the freedom to use what fits their use case or budget. which is a win-win situation for users, I would say.

    Again, I really appreciate your honest feedback! I would however like to ask you to allows users their own judgment. Just because TablePress is not the right fit for your project, it doesn’t mean that it can’t be the right choice for others.

    Best wishes,
    Tobias

    Thread Starter refugeindhamma

    (@refugeindhamma)

    3 years, 3 months ago

    Hi Tobias,

    When I turn on horizontal scrolling, the header is not aligned with the body. I searched for a solution on the forum and all the answers are incompatibility. So I gave up, deleted the plugin and used custom HTML & CSS to do it. That is until I discovered WP Table Builder and Ninja Tables. I have spent quite some time going 1 big round and end up using Table plugins again but I learnt quite a bit about CSS along the way.

    Conventional CSS working in Tablepress could have been written in the documentation to spare users spending time trying to look for Tablepress naming conventions. I spent so much time trying to figure out how to target columns and rows because none of the documentation nor 3rd party videos and websites mention this.

    “I’m rather trying to offer a good default set of settings that works for everybody.”

    I’m sorry but obviously your default set of settings is not the same standard as normal users. Your way of making users having to use CSS for every single table style and not even providing the most basic ones is one of the major problems of open source/indie programmers. You all expect everyone using your products to be well-versed in programming languages but the reality is that a lot of normal users who are not programmers also want to use open source/indie software due to various reasons. However, before using your products, due to sparse documentation, steep learning curve and amount of time required to learn new stuff, many give up halfway or don’t even bother. This is why many people are still drawn to the big techs’ products despite all the privacy issues because they are user-friendly. They do not expect users to jump through hoops just to use their products. Instead, they make it so easy to use that usability is not the reason to avoid it.

    Glad that you acknowledged the benefits of having a graphical interface for styling tables. GUI makes styling tables much faster and easier than entering CSS code. There is also the advantage of instant WYSIWYG when styling tables using GUIs instead of constantly having to reload the webpage to check the outcome of the CSS code.

    And with regards to “bloat”, I’m sorry to burst your bubble but Ninja Tables has a much smaller file size than your plugin. I checked on my server that Tablepress is 12M while Ninja Tables is only 7.6M. WP Table Builder is the biggest at 26M. However, considering the fact that when using Tablepress, I still need to enter a lot of CSS just to make it presentable and responsive, I don’t see how Tablepress is any less “bloated” than WP Table Builder. If Ninja Tables can offer more functionalities than Tablepress at a smaller size, I don’t see what other reasons you can give for not implementing those features.

    Honestly, I also like plugins to be lean for faster page load speeds but there has to be a balance between being lean and usability. Offering a checkbox for “Alternating Row Colors” without offering an option to change between even/odd nor a color palette to choose colors is not being lean. It comes to me as laziness and/or stubbornness of the author not willing to implement Quality of Life features for users. I do not know how much “bloat” these 2 additional features will add to the plugin but I can definitely tell you that it will save time for me. And I”m also sure users are willing to give up a few MB of space for these QoL features. The reason is simply that we non-programmers want our website up as fast as possible and easy to maintain. We do not want to spend time struggling with CSS just to make sure the header is aligned with the body. That is the job for web and plugin developers. I’m sure even many web developers do not want to spend hours debugging CSS when they can use that time for more productive stuff.

    And lastly, with regards to pricing, I agree that different plugins offer different features. But is Tablepress offering 60% more/different features than WP Table Builder to warrant the 61% increase in price? Also, is Tablepress offering 40% more/different features than Ninja Tables to warrant a 43% increase in price? That is definitely not the case from my comparison. They are offering many similar features as Tablepress at lower prices. I do not see any standout features about Tablepress that commands such a high price.

    I appreciate your response to my review and this shows that you really care about your product.

    All the best for your plugin.

    Plugin Author Tobias Bäthge

    (@tobiasbg)

    3 years, 3 months ago

    Hi @refugeindhamma,

    thanks a lot for sharing more insights here, that’s highly appreciated! And again: Sorry for all the frustration that this might have caused!

    Yes, the misaligned header row for the Horizontal Scrolling is a weird problem that affects a subset of sites. Now, by coincidence, I might have found a solution for this, which will be shipping with TablePress 2.1 in the next few weeks.

    As for the CSS: Have you seen the TablePress FAQ at https://tablepress.org/faq/ That contains several examples which show how to target rows and columns with CSS code. But yes, not all possibilities are shown there, so some abstraction is needed by the user. (And I don’t really think it makes sense for me to repeat general CSS code that can be found in every CSS tutorial that’s out there.)

    However, it’s normally not necessary to use CSS for “every single table” (well, unless these are fundamentally different, of course). Normally, getting the initial desired styling (that will be applied to all tables) right is all that’s needed.

    You are probably right about that “open source/indie programmer” thing though: I have also likely considered the target audience of TablePress to have certain technical skills, because of which it sometimes happened that descriptions or features became too “technical”. I am however improving on that, I believe, and have started to make TablePress easier to use. In TablePress 2.0, the “TablePress block” is one example of that, which for example makes using error-prone Shortcodes obsolete (these still work and are still supported of course).

    You are probably also right about that “sparse documentation, steep learning curve and amount of time required to learn new stuff” thing — however, at the same time, you expect the product to be very cheap and feature rich. How is that supposed to work? Getting a top-notch products (with all aspects, like features, documentation, and support) for free or cheap is just not going to work — in particular if you don’t want to use a “big tech” product (where your data is the “price on top of the (monetary) price”.

    As for “bloat”: I wasn’t really looking at file size here 🙂 That just depends on so many factors like coding style, image compression, etc. With “bloat” I mean features that are not used by most users but are still loaded or available. This can (often not too much, sure) degrade file execution and memory usage, but more likely it’s going to result in a user interface that is difficult to use, because every feature is a visual distraction for another feature.

    And thanks for that “Alternating Row Colors” example: How often does one normally modify the odd/even colors here? I believe that most users just set this once and then don’t need to modify it again. Is a user interface for that really needed on every single “Edit” screen of a table here? Do people really set different odd/even colors for different tables? What if they then want to change those to something else for all tables? They would have to go to every table and make the change… With “Custom CSS”, everything is in one place, it’s easy to change defaults, and they will directly be applied to all tables.

    As for the pricing comparison: I’m not sure that it’s fair to only base the price on a number of features. When purchasing a plugin, you are not just buying features: You are also getting the assurance that top-notch support is just an email away. You are getting assurance that someone (me) will care about your problem and will aim to get you a timely and accurate response (I believe that the TablePress support forums show that.). In the end, this brings me back to what I wrote about: You feel that the price is high, but at the same time expect many features, above standard documentation, and support. How is that going to work?

    And yes, you are right, I really care about TablePress 🙂 That’s in fact the reason why I chose to quit my old job and started working on TablePress full time a couple of weeks ago! I’m well aware that there are things in TablePress that can be vastly improved, and that move will allow me to tackle those in the future. But I also believe that it already does its job pretty well.

    Best wishes,
    Tobias

    Thread Starter refugeindhamma

    (@refugeindhamma)

    3 years, 3 months ago

    Hi Tobias,

    Yes I have read the FAQ. And you have misunderstood my comment on documenting the CSS code. What I meant was that you should put in the documentation or somewhere to inform users that conventional CSS can be used. In fact, now that Tablepress is able to take in conventional CSS code, why not just remove documentation on your version of CSS to avoid normal users’ confusion? You can continue to keep your version of CSS in the plugin but let new users know that they can use conventional CSS in Tablepress so as not to let them have the impression that they need to learn something new just to use your plugin. It’s easy for developers because they are used to codes but for us normal users, it is very confusing and frustrating. I needed to look for solutions on the web, then find Tablepress tutorials on youtube and other websites just to convert conventional CSS to Tablepress CSS, all because I did not know that I can simply input conventional CSS and it will work as well.

    As for not needing CSS for every table, I know that but I’m not confident in my beginner CSS skills. I’m afraid that once I set a global style and I want to change minor details for every table, I will mess up the rest of the tables. If that happens, it will take up even more of my time to remedy the situation so I’d rather copy/paste/write CSS codes for every table and adjust them individually. This is why for non-developers, GUI is preferred. The chances of us messing up the code is much lesser, like wrong spelling or missing a colon/squirly bracket, etc, and for us to debug our own code is a huge undertaking. The error may be staring at us in the face but we are unable to pick it up as squirly brackets can get too many and too confusing. This is why I prefer WP Table Builder. They provide basic styling in the GUI and also provide a way for us to input custom CSS in case we need even more styling options that the GUI cannot provide.

    Yes, I agree that using a Gutenberg block for Tablepress is a much needed feature so that I don’t have to keep a tab open just for Tablepress to copy the shortcode and I have seen quite a few “errors” in your forum about inputting the wrong shortcode. This is a Quality of Life feature that should be implemented.

    As for “bloat”, all the Table plugins that I have used do not have much delay in loading the tables. The tables that I’m using are not data-heavy so I can’t really stress-test them but at least for my use case, they load reasonably well. I also do plugin management so those pages/posts that do not have tables will not load the plugin. Therefore, I’m not really bothered how “bloated” the plugins are compared to user-friendliness, i.e. a good GUI, as i don’t see the extreme case of any Table plugin taking a few seconds to load a table.

    You really should not be assuming users’ needs and use cases. You may not have or be able to think of use cases for certain features but that does not mean ALL users do not need it. Maybe you do not receive many requests for features, especially basic ones, because users who need those features that are missing in Tablepress will simply move on and use other plugins. I would also have done that but in the spur of the moment, decided to write this review and now have lengthy discussions with you.

    Again, you are mistaken. I’m not expecting a free plugin to have all the features/support available. In fact, I’m going to purchase the lifetime license for Kadence Theme/Block because I love their product. It’s going to cost me upwards of $700 but I think it’s worth it. Having tried other themes and blocks, the price of Kadence is very competitive and their feature-set is also a notch above the rest. They also have very good support, even for the free version. Kadence checks all the boxes for a quality plugin for me.

    As for Tablepress, this is a different scenario. Your free features are not comparable with those offered by other Table plugins, from a non-developer’s POV, which I have already discussed previously. Take another example, my first Table plugin: wpDataTables. They offer full responsive tables, i.e. horizontal scrolling + vertical stacking, in their free version. I migrated from the plugin because they do not allow exporting of normal tables. Only data tables can be exported which to me is very strange. Hence, you can see why I have such high expectations for Tablepress as it has so many more users and so many more glowing reviews than wpDataTables but to my disappointment, it is lacking a lot of basic GUI features that other plugins are offering. Honestly, initially, I did not mind the lack of GUI for CSS as I reckoned I could learn CSS along the way. But the proprietary CSS naming convention, horizontal scrolling bug and your forum replies that acknowledges this bug but made no effort to fix it (At least in the forum replies I did not see any message asking for access to the website to investigate the bug) and instead told users to buy your premium package for responsive tables all rubs me the wrong way.

    I appreciate and like good support. And like I said above, I do not expect full features/support for free or dirt-cheap prices. I have not tried the other Table plugins’ support so I can’t comment on them. However, whether Tablepress support warrants a 40% – 60% price increase is up to users’ discretion. i can only express my own opinion that I find it too expensive. Don’t forget that we do not only subscribe to 1 plugin. There are multiple plugins that we require the paid features too.

    Lastly, I just want to say that I really appreciate you spending time to respond to my review. I know that it is difficult for you to accept/understand the challenges faced by non-developers because Tablepress has so many users compared to the other Table Plugins. However, I would encourage you to try to step out of a developer mindset and give more considerations for UX. A developer wants everything to be leanest, cleanest and fastest but a user wants good UX such as user-friendliness and convenience, of course within an acceptable responsiveness and speed threshold. The responsiveness and speed improvements from using Tablepress compared to other Table plugins may be perceptible to developers but may not be so for end users. A non-developer just wants to get the website up and running without too much hassle and that includes as little coding as possible. This is also why there are so many no-code SaaS in the market nowadays. Leanest, cleanest and fastest need to be balanced with UX or else everything will just be in CLi without the need for GUI.

    All the best.

    Plugin Author Tobias Bäthge

    (@tobiasbg)

    3 years, 2 months ago

    Hi @refugeindhamma,

    sorry for the long delay in replying.

    I don’t want to needlessly drag this discussion, but would to add a few remarks.

    Thanks for the clarification on the docs about the CSS code. Removing the docs on the CSS classes that TablePress uses could be confusing to existing users, so that I’d like to avoid that. Also, “conventional CSS” as you call it is something that works everywhere, so I’m not sure that mentioning that in the context of TablePress is really needed. We are in fact only talking about very few CSS classes here, namely .column-N (where N is a column number) for targetting columns, .row-N likewise for rows, and maybe .odd and .even for the alternating rows. All of these were pretty much introduced over 13 years ago, when “conventional CSS” (meaning :nth-child(N), :nth-child(odd), etc.) was not yet working across all browsers. One could also argue that

    .tablepress .odd td {
 ...
}

    is easier to use and understand than the “conventional”

    .tablepress tr:nth-child(odd) td {
 ...
}

    All that is not “proprietary CSS”…

    And if you even looked at so many ressources, tutorials, videos, … why did you never consider contacting me or writing here in the forums?

    And as for:

    I’m afraid that once I set a global style and I want to change minor details for every table, I will mess up the rest of the tables.

    That’s actually where CSS shines. Due to the use of different CSS classes (explained at https://tablepress.org/faq/documentation-css-selectors-styling/), it’s very easy to have a common styling (CSS that uses the .tablepress class) vs. styling for individual tables (CSS that uses the .tablepress-id-123 (where 123 is an example table ID).)

    Good to hear that the new Gutenberg block that was introduced in TablePress 2.0 is helpful! As mentioned, a user interface that will replace the need for CSS for a general global table style is on my list as well.

    And thanks for bringing up the comparison to wpDataTables: You mention that they don’t offer export of normal tables. Does this make it a bad plugin? If not, why is TablePress a bad (or, in your opinion, even the “WORST”) plugin when it doesn’t offer a feature that you are looking for?

    To summarize: Again, I’m really sorry that your experience with TablePress did not meet your expectations! If this is worth a harsh rating like you gave it is of course up to you. From my side, I would like to assure you that I’m listening to user feedback and that I’m working hard on improving TablePress even more. Making it easier to use for non-developers is in fact a big priority for me. I hope that you can find a table plugin that suits your needs and offers the desired features. I would like to invite you to check on TablePress once in a while, to see if it maybe can be an alternative in the future.

    Best wishes,
    Tobias

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