A Little History
I built my first WordPress site in the early 2000s, right after the platform launched. For the next two decades, WordPress was the right answer for almost every small business site I built. It was flexible. The plugin and theme ecosystem was massive, and clients could learn to manage it themselves.
I don’t regret a minute of that. WordPress served our clients well.
Why the Calculus Changed
The web changed. The tools changed. And something new showed up. AI-assisted site builds on lean, modern stacks that just perform better for most small business sites than WordPress does.
Here’s the honest breakdown.
WordPress is database-driven. Every page load means a database query, server processing, and page assembly. For a site with dozens of concurrent users, fine. For a 5-page small business site? It’s carrying weight it doesn’t need.
WordPress has a maintenance tax. Core updates. Theme updates. Plugin updates. These are a permanent, ongoing cost of running a WordPress site, and they’re not optional. Ignore them and you’re exposed. We’ve been managing this for clients for years. It’s real overhead.
The plugin ecosystem is a security surface. Every plugin is a potential way in. The most common small business hacks exploit outdated plugins.
What We’re Moving To
A clean, modern static stack. HTML, CSS, and JS built with AI tools, deployed through Netlify. Forms run through Formspree. Clients who need to self-edit get Decap CMS, and the source code is versioned in GitHub.
No database. No plugin dependency. Way faster, and cheaper to host.
What Doesn’t Change
If you have WooCommerce, complex backend needs, or a site that genuinely requires WordPress, you’re staying on WordPress. This isn’t ideology. It’s pragmatism.
Everything else? We’re on a migration timeline through the rest of 2026.
Wondering what this means for your specific site? Let’s talk about your site →
See also: The Migration Process Explained and The Hidden Cost of Outdated Hosting.