WordPress or custom development: which to choose

Among people who build websites the debate never ends: WordPress on one side, custom development on the other. Writing WordPress off is a mistake. In many cases it’s the best choice for value, speed and ease of management. In others, a custom site pays back with interest.

Here’s how to choose.

The two routes

Custom development. The site is built from scratch with technologies like Astro, SvelteKit or Next.js, with a custom backend when needed. Maximum freedom and control, better performance. In exchange, higher up-front costs and longer timelines.

WordPress. A proven CMS, with a huge ecosystem of themes and plugins and an interface many people already know. It gets you a solid site quickly and with a modest investment.

When to choose WordPress

• Limited budget. You want a professional site without a big investment.
• Tight deadlines. You need to be online in a few weeks.
• Self-management. You want to update pages and posts yourself, with a widely used tool.
• Standard features. What you need already exists as a reliable plugin.

We’ve done it ourselves: for My Home Designers the first version of the site was in WordPress, to get to market quickly.

The myth of the slow WordPress

A slow WordPress site is usually a badly configured one: heavy theme, too many plugins, cheap hosting. With good hosting, caching set up, optimised images and a few carefully chosen plugins, it can perform well.

There’s a structural limit, though: every plugin adds code, and every update needs following up. Maintenance isn’t optional.

When custom is worth it

• Speed is a goal. An Astro site produces light pages with no unnecessary JavaScript, and starts ahead on Core Web Vitals.
• The design has to be yours. No compromises with a theme’s structure.
• You need specific features. Bookings, private areas, integrations with business software or a CRM.
• You want less maintenance over time. A static site has far less to update and a smaller attack surface.
• Staff need to update content. You add a panel like Directus, as simple as WordPress for the people writing.

That’s the route we took for the second version of My Home Designers and for sites like Artigiani del Salotto and Misericordia di Vecchiano.

How to decide

Ask yourself three questions:

1. How long does it need to last? For a project you need to validate quickly, WordPress. For a site that has to grow for years, custom.
2. How much does speed matter? If the site brings in clients from Google or from campaigns, every second counts.
3. Who will look after it? If nobody will follow updates and plugins, choose something that needs few of them.

There’s no answer that fits everyone. There’s the right one for your case: if you like, let’s find it together.