Should your firm stay on WordPress or move to a modern stack in 2026?
If your WordPress site is fast, ranks well and your team can update it, keep it. This comparison is for firms where that's stopped being true. It sets WordPress against the modern stack we build on, with 2026 data on security, speed and upkeep, including a number that doesn't flatter us.
If your WordPress site is fast, ranks well and your team can update it without fuss, keep it. We said so in choosing the right web architecture and we still mean it. This post is for the firms where that's stopped being true. It compares WordPress with the modern stack we build on, using 2026 data, including a number that doesn't flatter us.
WordPress earned its place.
WordPress runs 40.2% of all websites and 58.7% of those whose content system is known, according to W3Techs. It's easy to hire for, there's a theme or plugin for almost anything and plenty of marketing people already know the editor. For a small firm with a simple site, it's often the right answer.
The strain shows as a B2B site grows: more project pages, more people editing and more plugins bolted on to do things WordPress doesn't do by itself.
Where WordPress starts costing more.
Security upkeep. Patchstack logged 11,334 new WordPress vulnerabilities in 2025, 91% of them in plugins. For the most heavily attacked, mass attacks began a weighted median of five hours after the hole was made public. Someone has to keep every plugin current. There's more in is your WordPress site a security risk.
Server upkeep. WordPress runs on PHP, and PHP versions lose security support on a fixed timetable. In September 2026, WordPress.org's figures showed 37.6% of WordPress sites on a PHP version that no longer gets security fixes.
Speed. In the HTTP Archive's real-visitor data for August 2026, 48.7% of WordPress sites passed Google's Core Web Vitals on phones, against 53.0% of all websites. Sites built with the Elementor page builder managed 36.8%.
Editing. Page builders get harder to live with as a site grows. Someone edits a heading and a layout shifts somewhere else. Content ends up stored in the builder's own format, which makes it hard to move.
What we mean by a modern stack.
A modern stack splits the website into parts that each do one job. Ours has four:
- Next.js builds the pages your visitors see. It's the site's code, kept in version control, so every change is recorded and can be reversed.
- Payload is the editing system your team logs into. It's what's called a headless CMS, explained in what is a headless CMS.
- Neon is the database where your content lives. It can make a copy of your data for testing without touching the live site, and restore to an earlier point in seconds.
- Vercel hosts the site and serves pages from 126 locations in 51 countries.
None of it needs plugins. Forms, redirects, search settings and image handling are part of the site's own code.
A modern framework won't make a slow site fast by itself.
Here's the number that doesn't flatter us. In the same August 2026 data, only 35.1% of sites built with Next.js passed Core Web Vitals on phones, a lower share than WordPress. Their biggest gap is responsiveness: 59.8% reacted to taps fast enough on phones, against 90.8% of WordPress sites. That usually means too much code running on the phone.
Speed comes from how a site is built. We build pages ahead of time, keep the code sent to phones small, size images for each screen and test against Google's thresholds before launch. More in is a slow website costing you inquiries.
WordPress and a modern stack side by side.
| WordPress with plugins | Modern stack | |
|---|---|---|
| Security updates | Core, theme and every plugin, each on its own schedule | One codebase, updated and tested together |
| Editing | Familiar editor, and page builders can break layouts | Plain forms for each kind of content, with live preview |
| Trying a change | A staging copy, if your host offers one | A private preview for every change |
| Undoing a mistake | Restore a backup | Roll back to the last version in one click |
| Speed on phones | Depends on theme, plugins and host | Depends on the build, and can be very fast |
| Finding help | A huge pool of WordPress developers | A smaller pool, and new layouts need a developer |
| Cost to start | Low for a template site | Higher, because it's built for you |
| Running cost | Cheap hosting plus plugin licenses and upkeep time | Hosting and upkeep in one monthly plan with us |
The one-click rollback is a standard feature of the hosting, Vercel's Instant Rollback.
Stay on WordPress if.
- It's fast on phones and ranks for the work you want.
- It runs a short list of well-kept plugins.
- Your team edits it without calling for help.
- It sits on a supported PHP version with a decent host.
Move if.
- Updates are a monthly worry, or nobody does them.
- Speed scores are poor and the page builder is part of the reason.
- Simple changes need a developer anyway.
- You need a proper project library, several languages or a client area, and each would mean more plugins.
What moving involves.
A rebuild is a real project, and it runs in a set order:
- We audit the current site and list every page, file and address it has.
- We agree the structure and the content with you, including what to cut.
- We build on private previews you can open and comment on as the work goes.
- We move the content, set up the redirects and check every page.
- We launch, then watch Search Console and real-visitor speed data in the weeks after.
The two things to plan for are your Google rankings and your content. Rankings can come through a move intact when every old address is redirected properly, which we cover in moving off WordPress without losing your rankings. Content moves faster than it used to, because AI tools now handle much of the copying and checking, as we explain in how AI tools change the cost of a rebuild. Our prices are on our pricing page.
If you're weighing it up, read how we rebuild legacy websites or book a call. If your current site should stay, we'll tell you.