WordPress Is Great, Until It Isn’t
Let me be clear. WordPress isn’t broken. For e-commerce, big editorial sites, anything with complex backend needs, it’s still the right tool. But for most small business websites? A five-page brochure site with a contact form and a blog? That’s using a dump truck to pick up groceries.
It works. It’s just a lot.
What “A Lot” Looks Like in Practice
The average WordPress site runs somewhere between 20 and 60 plugins. Every plugin adds weight and one more thing that needs updating. Miss an update and you’re vulnerable. Update without testing and you might break something.
Then there’s the database. Every page load is a round trip. Pull the data, assemble the page, serve it. On a well-tuned setup that happens fast. On a site nobody’s touched in two years? Slower than it looks.
What the Data Says
Google’s Core Web Vitals are a ranking signal now. Page speed directly affects where you show up in search. A site that takes 4 seconds to load on mobile is at a real disadvantage against one that loads in under a second.
We’ve been running audits on client sites all through this migration. The before-and-after numbers on load time are not subtle.
What We’re Doing About It
For clients who don’t have e-commerce or complex backend needs, we’re moving to a modern static stack. Built with AI tools, deployed through Netlify, hosted on GitHub. The result loads faster, costs less to host, and barely needs maintenance.
We didn’t move away from WordPress because it failed. We moved forward because something better came along for the right clients.
Curious where your site stands? Happy to run a quick audit. Let’s talk.