I built on WordPress for years. I know the ecosystem well — custom themes, the Gutenberg editor, ACF, WP Rocket, Yoast. I know why it became the dominant platform. And I know exactly why I stopped using it.
This isn’t a WordPress takedown. It’s an honest explanation of why I think there are better options for most of the clients I work with — and why switching changed how I build websites.
What WordPress is good at
WordPress powers around 43% of the web. That’s not an accident.
It’s flexible, it has a huge plugin ecosystem, and the learning curve for content editors is relatively low. If you have a specific requirement — a custom membership site, a complex learning management system, a highly customized e-commerce flow — there’s probably a WordPress plugin for it.
For large organizations with internal developers, WordPress is a reasonable choice. The talent pool is large, the documentation is extensive, and the flexibility is real.
Where it falls short for modern web projects
Speed
WordPress generates pages dynamically on every request. Even with caching plugins, you’re fighting against the architecture. Astro generates static HTML at build time — there’s no PHP to execute, no database to query, no plugins to load.
In practice: Astro sites consistently score 95–100 on PageSpeed. Well-optimized WordPress sites with WP Rocket and a good hosting setup might hit 75–85. That gap matters for both user experience and SEO rankings.
Security
WordPress is the most attacked CMS on the internet — because it’s the most common one. The plugin ecosystem is the biggest vulnerability: outdated plugins, abandoned plugins, plugins with known exploits. Every plugin is a potential attack surface.
I’ve seen clients come to me after their WordPress site was compromised — sometimes months after the fact, quietly redirecting visitors to spam pages. With Astro or Webflow, there’s no CMS admin panel to exploit and no plugin vulnerabilities to patch.
Maintenance overhead
A WordPress site requires ongoing attention: core updates, plugin updates, security scans, backup verification. Either you do it yourself, or you pay someone. That’s a real recurring cost that most people don’t account for when choosing WordPress.
Webflow sites are maintained by Webflow. Astro sites are static files — nothing to update, nothing to patch.
The plugin trap
Need a contact form? There’s a plugin. Need SEO? Plugin. Need caching? Plugin. Need cookie consent? Plugin. Before long, you have 20+ active plugins, each adding bloat, each with its own update cycle, each potentially conflicting with another.
I’ve inherited WordPress sites where half the active plugins were abandoned by their developers, running on PHP versions that were years out of date. Rebuilding those sites was more work than building something new.
What I use instead
Astro — for most client sites
Astro is a static site generator that produces near-zero JavaScript by default. Pages load instantly because they’re just HTML. It integrates with any data source — headless CMS, Markdown files, JSON, external APIs.
For portfolio sites, service business websites, landing pages, and content-heavy SEO projects, Astro is my first choice. The PageSpeed scores are consistently excellent without any optimization effort. And because it’s just files, hosting is simple and cheap.
The tradeoff: clients can’t edit content directly in the browser without a headless CMS like Sanity. If a client needs to write blog posts or update team pages, I add Sanity to the stack. The combination is powerful.
Webflow — when clients need visual editing
Webflow gives clients a visual editor that feels similar to what they might know from WordPress page builders — except it’s much faster and doesn’t rely on a plugin ecosystem.
For clients who regularly publish content, add landing pages for campaigns, or want to manage their own site without calling a developer, Webflow is the right choice. The CMS is solid, the editor is intuitive after a short introduction, and the hosting is fast.
The tradeoff: Webflow is a hosted platform with a monthly fee. You’re not self-hosting your site. For most clients, that’s an acceptable constraint.
”But my developer knows WordPress”
This comes up sometimes. And it’s a legitimate concern — you shouldn’t switch platforms just because your new developer prefers something else.
But consider: the developer pool for Astro and Webflow is growing fast. The frameworks are well-documented. And the end result — a faster, more secure, easier-to-maintain website — is worth a bit of platform learning.
If you’re starting a new project, the question isn’t “what does my current developer know?” It’s “what platform produces the best outcome for this project?” More often than not, that’s no longer WordPress.
When I would still recommend WordPress
Honestly? Mostly when you’re locked in. If you have an existing WordPress site with years of content and a complex plugin setup, rebuilding from scratch may not be the right move. Migrating is expensive and disruptive.
Or if you have a specific requirement that genuinely only exists in the WordPress ecosystem — a very custom LMS, a complex membership setup — then WordPress might be the pragmatic choice.
But for new projects? I haven’t built a new WordPress site in over two years. And none of my clients have asked me to go back.
Want to talk about what platform fits your project? Get in touch — I’m happy to give you an honest recommendation. Or read more about how I build professional websites.
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