Why I don’t build with WordPress

I get this question every week. Why don’t you just use WordPress? It’s faster, right?

It’s faster to start. It’s slower at everything else.

The hidden cost of page builders

A WordPress site with Elementor ships ~2MB of JavaScript before your visitor sees the headline. A hand-written Next.js page ships ~50KB. On a 3G connection — which is what a lot of your customers actually have — that’s the difference between a sale and a closed tab.

What you trade

When you sign up for WordPress + a builder, you’re renting a cage:

• Plugin lock-in — your forms, your SEO, your speed all depend on third-party add-ons that break on every update.
• Hosting traps — managed WP hosting starts at $25/mo and climbs the moment you get traffic.
• No real customization — anything beyond the builder’s presets becomes a nightmare of custom CSS hacks.

What hand-written code gives you

• Speed: sub-second page loads, no plugins to babysit.
• Ownership: the codebase is yours. No vendor can deprecate your business.
• Scale: when traffic grows, you don’t need a new platform — you just need more servers.

I build with Next.js because it’s what real apps are built with. Vercel, Linear, Notion, OpenAI — none of them ship WordPress. There’s a reason.