When people find out I build websites, one of the first things they ask is: "Do you use WordPress?"
No. And I want to explain why, because it's not about WordPress being bad. It's about what makes sense for the type of sites I build.
WordPress Is Great (For Some Things)
Let me be clear: WordPress powers something like 40% of the internet. It's a solid platform for certain use cases. If you're running a large content site with hundreds of pages, an e-commerce store with thousands of products, or a blog that gets updated multiple times a week, WordPress makes a lot of sense. There's a reason it's so popular.
But most of my clients don't need any of that.
What Most Small Businesses Actually Need
The typical local business website is 5 to 10 pages. A homepage, a services page, an about page, a contact page, maybe a gallery. The content changes a few times a year at most.
For that kind of site, WordPress is like renting a warehouse to store a suitcase. It works, technically. But you're paying for a lot of space you'll never use, and you've got a lot of doors to lock.
The Plugin Problem
WordPress by itself is just a content management system. To make it do anything useful (contact forms, SEO, security, caching, backups), you need plugins. The average WordPress site has 20 to 30 plugins installed.
Every plugin is code written by a different developer with different standards. Every plugin is a potential security vulnerability. Every plugin needs updates. And when one plugin conflicts with another (which happens constantly), things break.
I've seen small business sites running 40+ plugins for functionality that could be handled with a few hundred lines of custom code.
Security and Maintenance
Because WordPress is so popular, it's also the biggest target for hackers. Automated attacks scan the internet for WordPress sites and try known vulnerabilities constantly. Keeping a WordPress site secure means updating the core software, updating every plugin, updating your theme, monitoring for conflicts, and hoping nothing breaks in the process.
That's ongoing maintenance. Forever. If you stop updating, you're running software with known security holes.
The sites I build don't have this problem. There's no admin panel to hack, no plugins to update, no database to exploit. The attack surface is tiny by comparison.
Speed
A basic WordPress page load involves the server running PHP, querying a MySQL database, assembling the page from a theme template, loading whatever JavaScript and CSS the plugins need, and then sending the result to the browser.
A hand-coded site? The server sends the files. That's it. No database queries, no plugin overhead, no theme engine. The result is a site that loads significantly faster, which matters for both user experience and Google rankings.
When I'd Actually Recommend WordPress
If someone came to me and said they need a site where multiple people can log in and edit content regularly, or they're building an online store with inventory management, or they need a membership site with user accounts, I'd probably point them toward WordPress or a similar CMS. Those are the problems it was designed to solve.
But for a contractor who needs a professional web presence, a restaurant that needs their menu and contact info online, or a service business that wants to show up when people search locally? Custom code is simpler, faster, more secure, and cheaper to maintain long-term.
It's About the Right Tool
This isn't a WordPress hit piece. It's about choosing the right tool for the job. I've just found that for the businesses I work with here in Sedalia, the right tool is almost never a full CMS with a database and 30 plugins.
If you're not sure what your business needs, let's have a conversation. I'll be straight with you about what makes sense and what doesn't.