Next.js vs WordPress: an honest comparison for business owners

The WordPress vs Next.js debate gets tribal online. WordPress advocates argue their platform can handle anything. Next.js developers argue that performance and developer experience make everything else irrelevant. Neither camp is entirely right, and the loudest voices in the discussion often have something to sell. Here's an honest assessment of both platforms — what each does well, where each falls short, and how to decide which is right for your specific situation.

What WordPress does well

WordPress powers around 43% of the web — not because the industry made a mistake, but because it genuinely solves real problems for a large number of use cases. The editing interface is familiar and learnable by non-technical staff without training. The ecosystem of themes and plugins is vast: if you need a specific feature, there's probably a plugin that does it. The talent pool is enormous, meaning you'll never struggle to find someone who can work on a WordPress site.

For teams that already use WordPress and have staff who know how to manage it, migration may not be the right call. If your site is performing adequately, your editors are comfortable with Gutenberg, and development needs are minimal — WordPress may well be the pragmatic choice.

What Next.js does well

Next.js is a React framework built for performance. It supports static site generation (pages pre-built at deploy time and served at CDN speed), server-side rendering (pages rendered on request with fresh data), and incremental static regeneration (static pages that update automatically when content changes). The result is sites that load significantly faster than most WordPress builds — particularly on mobile, where performance differences are most pronounced.

Beyond performance, Next.js has a genuinely modern developer experience: TypeScript support built-in, component-based architecture that makes code reusable and maintainable, built-in image optimisation, API routes for backend logic, and a large, active ecosystem. For anything complex — web applications, authenticated dashboards, sites with real-time features, or codebases that multiple developers will work on — Next.js handles it cleanly in ways that WordPress begins to struggle with.

The performance difference — and why it matters commercially

This is where the gap is most measurable. A well-built Next.js site consistently outperforms a WordPress site of equivalent content complexity on Core Web Vitals — Google's performance metrics for real user experience. PageSpeed scores for Next.js-built sites routinely land in the 90–100 range on mobile. A WordPress site with a typical theme and standard plugin setup often scores 40–70 on the same test.

A one-second improvement in page load time increases conversions by up to 7%. For a site generating £50,000 per month, that's £3,500 in additional revenue — from infrastructure, not marketing.

This matters for two reasons. First, Google uses Core Web Vitals as a direct ranking factor — a faster site ranks higher in organic search, independent of content quality. Second, faster sites convert better. Every second of load time increases bounce rate and decreases the probability of a visitor becoming a customer. For businesses where the website is a commercial asset (which is most businesses), performance is a revenue concern, not a technical preference.

Maintenance and long-term cost of ownership

WordPress requires ongoing maintenance in a way Next.js doesn't. WordPress core, themes, and plugins all need regular updates — and updates frequently conflict with each other. A plugin that worked flawlessly for two years can break your site after an update. A neglected WordPress install (one that hasn't been updated in six months) becomes a serious security liability: outdated plugins are among the most common attack vectors for website compromises.

Next.js maintenance has a different profile. Framework updates are well-documented and breaking changes are minimal between versions. There are no plugins to conflict. Deployments to Vercel, Netlify, or similar platforms are automated via Git — push to main, and the site updates. The ongoing cost of keeping a Next.js site healthy is generally lower than an equivalent WordPress site, and the risk of something unexpectedly breaking is significantly reduced.

When WordPress is the right choice

• ✦Your team already manages a WordPress site and has genuine comfort with the platform
• ✦You need something live quickly with a familiar editing interface and budget is constrained
• ✦You're adding to an existing WordPress site where migration costs outweigh the benefits
• ✦You need a very specific plugin that has no equivalent in the modern ecosystem

When Next.js is the right choice

• ✦Performance and SEO are commercial priorities — which they almost always should be
• ✦You're building anything with real complexity: user accounts, dashboards, integrations, or custom workflows
• ✦You want a codebase that a development team can maintain and extend cleanly over time
• ✦You need a headless CMS setup (Sanity, Contentful) with editorial control and developer flexibility
• ✦You're starting a new project and have the freedom to choose the right tool

Our honest verdict

For most businesses starting a new project in 2026, Next.js is the correct choice. The performance benefits are measurable and commercially significant. The long-term maintenance profile is better. The developer experience is genuinely superior. And the ecosystem — Sanity for content, Vercel for deployment, Stripe for payments, NextAuth for auth — is mature enough that you're not giving anything up.

That said, we're not dogmatic. If you have a WordPress site with years of content, a team that knows how to use it, and the site is performing adequately — the cost and disruption of a full rebuild may not be justified. In that case, we'd audit your current setup and give you an honest recommendation. Sometimes targeted performance work and security hardening on your current stack makes more sense than starting over.

What we'd never recommend: building something new on WordPress when you're starting from scratch. Not in 2026. The performance gap is too wide and the maintenance overhead too high for the flexibility advantages to outweigh them.