My Honest Take on WordPress
Let me be upfront. I don't build WordPress websites. That's a deliberate choice based on years of experience and a genuine belief that there are better options available today for almost every use case. But I also want to be fair, because WordPress isn't all bad and for some people it works perfectly well.
If you're already comfortable with WordPress, know it inside out and feel confident managing it yourself, then there's no pressing reason to move away from it. It has a massive ecosystem, a huge community and decades of documentation behind it. For someone who knows what they're doing, it can be a perfectly reasonable tool.
But for most clients I work with, and for most modern web projects, I think it causes more problems than it solves.
My History With WordPress
I should say that I didn't always feel this way. When I first started out in my professional career I built and worked on WordPress websites regularly. It was the go-to CMS at the time and for good reason. Fifteen years ago WordPress was the beast of CMS systems. Nothing else came close in terms of ecosystem, flexibility and community support. I used it with clients and it did the job.
But over time the frustrations started to pile up. The constant cycle of updating plugins, updating themes and updating the WordPress framework itself became a significant drain on time and energy. I found myself spending more time on maintenance than on actually scoping new ideas and building new features, which is what clients actually want and what I genuinely enjoy doing. Nobody hires a developer to spend their time running updates.
As the years went on and the web evolved, WordPress started to feel like it was standing still while everything around it moved forward. Today it feels backwards to me. Bloated, overcomplicated and held together by too many moving parts. The good news is that the alternatives available now are vastly better than anything that existed fifteen years ago. As I mention on my about page, simplicity is the best policy. Lean and clean always wins.
The Problems I Have With WordPress
Security
WordPress powers around 40% of all websites on the internet. That makes it by far the biggest target for hackers and malicious attacks. The core platform itself is reasonably well maintained, but the real vulnerability lies in plugins. Most WordPress sites rely on dozens of third party plugins to function, and each one is a potential entry point if it's outdated, poorly maintained or abandoned by its developer.
Security on WordPress has become increasingly lax over the years and that's a serious concern. For a simple blog or informational website the risk might feel manageable, but for any website handling e-commerce transactions or customer data it's a different matter entirely. When someone hands over their personal details or payment information on your website, security has to be the absolute number one priority. There is no compromise on this.
Keeping on top of WordPress security means constant updates, monitoring and vigilance. For a client who just wants a website that works, that's a hidden ongoing burden they often don't anticipate when they sign up for a WordPress build.
Complexity for clients
WordPress was originally built as a blogging platform. Over the years it has been stretched into something far more complex through plugins and customisations, and that complexity shows in the admin dashboard. For a non technical client, logging in and trying to make a simple change can be a genuinely overwhelming experience, especially when different plugins all add their own separate interfaces in inconsistent ways.
I've seen clients avoid making updates to their own website because they don't feel confident using the backend. That defeats the entire point of having a CMS.
Performance
Out of the box, WordPress sites tend to be bloated. Between theme files, plugin scripts and database queries, getting a WordPress site to perform well takes real effort and ongoing attention. Modern web performance standards are high and a slow website not only frustrates users but actively damages your Google rankings. It's not impossible to make WordPress fast but it requires work that a leaner custom build simply doesn't.
Modern frameworks like Nuxt and React have a significant advantage here. They are built with performance in mind from the ground up and integrate naturally with cloud platforms like Vercel and Netlify. These platforms understand how to get the absolute best out of frameworks like Nuxt and React, handling things like edge caching, automatic image optimisation and global content delivery without you having to configure it all yourself. The result is a faster, more reliable website that performs consistently for users wherever they are.
SEO is another area where modern frameworks pull ahead. You have complete control over how your pages are structured, what metadata they carry, how they load and how Google reads them. Today's websites are judged on speed, reliability and security and modern frameworks give you the tools to excel in all three areas in a way that WordPress simply can't match out of the box.
Plugin dependency
Relying on third party plugins for core functionality creates a fragile setup. Plugins conflict with each other, stop being maintained, introduce breaking changes after updates or start charging for features that were previously free. The more plugins a WordPress site relies on, the more unpredictable it becomes over time.
So What Do I Recommend Instead?
The honest answer is that it depends entirely on what your business actually needs. There's no single right answer and anyone who tells you otherwise isn't giving you the full picture.
For portfolio and services websites
If you need a clean, professional website to showcase your work or services, I'd always recommend a custom build using a modern framework. My preference is Nuxt 4 or React, paired with a headless CMS like Strapi, Payload or Craft CMS.
Strapi is a brilliant option for non technical clients because it can be built and configured specifically around their needs. Rather than handing someone a bloated WordPress dashboard full of options they'll never use, Strapi gives them a clean, focused interface for managing exactly the content their site needs and nothing else. It's intuitive, flexible and doesn't carry any of the WordPress baggage.
My own website is built with React and uses MDX for blog posts, which works perfectly for me as a developer. But for a client who isn't technical, a custom Strapi setup is far more appropriate and gives them genuine confidence managing their own content.
For e-commerce
This is where I'd steer anyone away from WordPress and WooCommerce without hesitation. WooCommerce can work but it adds yet another layer of plugin complexity on top of an already complex platform.
I've worked with OpenCart and Magento in the past and while both have their place, Shopify is the clear winner for most e-commerce projects today. It handles payments, stock management, checkout and security out of the box, it's well maintained and it gives clients a genuinely usable admin experience. Crucially, Shopify takes security extremely seriously. It is regularly maintained, security patches are applied quickly and as a merchant you are not responsible for managing that yourself. When you're handling customer data and payment information, that peace of mind is invaluable. For businesses that want more control over the frontend, the Shopify Storefront API opens up the possibility of a fully custom design while still using Shopify as the commerce backend.
For anything more complex
If a project has specific or complex requirements that go beyond a standard website or shop, a fully custom build is almost always the right answer. That means building exactly what the business needs, nothing more and nothing less, with a tech stack chosen for the project rather than defaulted to out of habit.
A Summary
The right tool depends on the job. Here's how I think about it:
- Portfolio or services website — custom build with Nuxt, React or Astro and a headless CMS like Strapi, Payload or Craft CMS
- E-commerce — Shopify, every time
- Complex or bespoke requirements — fully custom build tailored to the business
- WordPress — if you already know it well and are comfortable managing it yourself, it can still work. But I wouldn't recommend starting a new project on it today when better options exist.
The web has moved on a lot since WordPress dominated the landscape. Modern frameworks are faster, more secure and more enjoyable to build with. Headless CMS platforms give clients a better editing experience. And e-commerce platforms like Shopify have made WooCommerce feel like a step backwards.