TL;DR: Not on the front end in the way most people think. WordPress only loads active plugins during a request, so a deactivated plugin’s PHP code is not executed. What can slow your site are the leftovers: autoloaded options, orphaned cron jobs, and cluttered databases that some plugins leave behind. Clean those up and remove…Read More
TL;DR: You don’t need a plugin to send WordPress email over SMTP. Define SMTP creds in wp-config.php and hook phpmailer_init in your theme (or a small “must-use” mu-plugin) to configure PHPMailer. Test with wp_mail() or WP-CLI. Why do this? Assumptions: You’re comfortable editing theme files / mu-plugins and have SMTP credentials from a provider. Tested…Read More