The 40% statistic, and what it doesn't tell you
WordPress powers roughly 40% of the web, and that number gets quoted as if popularity were proof. It's proof of something narrower: WordPress is free, familiar, and every agency knows how to install it. Whether it's right for your business is a different question — and the honest answer depends on what you need your site to do.
We build custom sites, so we have a horse in this race. We'll argue our side, but we'll also tell you exactly when WordPress is the better call — because it sometimes is.
What WordPress genuinely does well
Credit where due:
- Content at scale — if you publish constantly with multiple authors, editorial workflows, and categories, WordPress's editor and roles are genuinely good
- Ecosystem — there's a plugin for nearly everything, which matters when you need niche functionality fast
- Portability — thousands of developers can work on it; you're never held hostage by one vendor
- Cost of entry — free software, cheap themes, fast setup
If your website is fundamentally a publication — a content business with daily posts — WordPress deserves its place on your shortlist.
Where WordPress quietly costs you
The trouble starts because WordPress is a general-purpose system asked to do a specific job. A typical small-business WordPress site runs a theme, a page builder, and 15–30 plugins — each one adding code, load time, and attack surface.
The consequences show up in three places:
- Speed — every plugin and page-builder layer slows the site; and speed is a confirmed Google ranking factor
- Security — most hacked sites are compromised through outdated plugins and themes; keeping them patched is a real, permanent chore
- Maintenance — updates break layouts, plugins conflict, and the fixing falls on you or an invoice
What custom actually means (and doesn't)
A custom site is code written for your business: only the features you need, nothing else running. No plugin treadmill, no theme bloat, no admin login for bots to brute-force. Done well, it's dramatically faster and effectively maintenance-free at the platform level.
What custom doesn't automatically mean is expensive or slow to build. A focused small-business site — services, locations, contact, content — is a well-understood problem. It also doesn't mean you can't edit your content; any competent builder gives you a way to update text and images without touching code.
The comparison that actually matters
- You publish daily with a team → WordPress, honestly
- You need a niche plugin that would cost months to build → WordPress, at least for now
- Your site is how customers find and choose you → custom wins on speed, security, and SEO fundamentals
- You never want to think about updates, patches, or hacks → custom, decisively
- Budget is the constraint and time isn't → a DIY builder beats a cheap WordPress install
Questions to ask whoever you hire
Whichever way you lean, these five questions expose the real long-term picture:
- How fast will the site load on a phone — and will you commit to that in writing?
- Who applies security updates, and what does that cost per year?
- What happens when a plugin update breaks the layout?
- Can I update content myself without breaking anything?
- If we part ways, what exactly do I own?
Good builders on either platform answer these without flinching. Evasive answers are the real red flag — more than any technology choice.
What switching actually involves
If you're on WordPress now and considering a move, the migration is more routine than it sounds. The content — text, images, pages — exports and rebuilds cleanly. The part that requires care is SEO continuity: every existing URL needs to map to its new home with a 301 redirect, titles and descriptions carry over, and the launch happens without an indexing gap.
Done properly, rankings transfer rather than reset — we've written more about that on our website redesign page. Done carelessly, you can lose years of accumulated search equity in a weekend. Whoever migrates you, make 'how will you preserve my URLs and rankings?' the first question.
What about Squarespace, Wix, and the other builders?
The same trade-offs apply with different weights. Builders are easier to run than WordPress — no plugin patching, hosting included — but you trade away speed ceilings, template sameness, and control, and the monthly fees never end. For a simple brochure site with modest search ambitions, they're honestly fine.
The moment search visibility becomes a growth channel — competitive local keywords, city pages, content strategy — both builders and stock WordPress hit their ceilings for the same reason: you're optimizing inside someone else's constraints. Custom exists for when the ceiling costs more than the build.