How much time does it take for a developer to build a custom plugin in WordPress to add products and categories, tags etc to it?

I'd say it depends on the developer's experience ... and of course the project. Hard to say.

Too long. Better use Woocommerce instead.

If a user has to build a simple product catalog with few filters..

@Pyroclastic
Some client wants to build it without using any plugins for security.. m expected to build it in a day or 2.. Is it enough??

@PhpForever I would say 2 days should be enough. But, to be honest, security is not an argument. Wordpress itself has a huge attack potential - with or without plugins.

@tracktraps
Ok.. thank you!

30seconds

@PhpForever I wouldn't do that, it's too error prone.

Don't

@Pyroclastic
What is error prone?? Using WordPress??

@PhpForever Well, yes, but that's not what I meant, hehe.

Building it yourself is error prone, because there are too many things that are a pain in the arse with WordPress. Better convince them to use Woocommerce, it will significantly reduce the development time.

They are asking me to build cause they think it's more secure.. lolz..
They had used Woocommerce in the older site and it got hacked..
@Pyroclastic

@sylflo This is unfortunately the problem. Once something is popular and often used, it is a worthwhile attack target. That's why I use my own CMS whenever it is possible. Is it safer? Maybe, maybe not. So far, however, I had only attacks that were heading for Wordpress. (/wp-admin, ...)

Most of my customers do not really care about the CMS. Main thing the website works and looks good.

@PhpForever It probably didn't get hacked because of Woocommerce, but because tgey arebidiots and didn't secure WordPress properly. Clients. What a bunch of opinionated idiots.