Do You Need a CMS Like WordPress? Or Would a “Lighter” Solution Be a Better Choice?

Because we have so much experience building sites with CMS platforms like WordPress or Drupal, it’s tempting to think that a CMS is always the right tool for the job.

While CMS platforms may indeed be the right solution in many instances, they come with costs that may make them less than ideal in other scenarios.

In this whitepaper, we will share when alternative faster-to-implement technologies might be a better approach.

**Question #1: How frequently will content need to be updated in the short term and long term? Will a developer be tasked with content updates?**

The main premise of CMS platforms like WordPress is that they allow a non-developer to perform content updates on demand—and without the need for knowledge of HTML.

In an effort to make updates easy, infrastructure and complexity must be built into the platform. This is a counterintuitive point, but it’s important to emphasize: the easier you want content updates to be for a non-technical content editor, the more expensive the initial site buildout will be.

We have built out hundreds of CMS sites over the years, and in perhaps 75% of the cases, we have observed that, in the end, a developer is still often tasked with content updates on the site. In the remaining 25% of the cases, aside from blog updates or team changes, most content on a site is rarely updated at all after the initial launch of a site.

What this means is that considerable resources were invested in ease-of-updates for a non-technical person, but a software developer is then tasked with the process using a mechanism that can often take longer than doing the change directly in code.

Dramatically faster and less expensive alternatives to CMS buildouts are:
- A simple static HTML site. Content changes can be made directly in code and deployed to the live site.
- “Static site builders” such as Gatsby allow for content to be maintained cleanly in code, with updates done in “markdown” (eliminating the need to know HTML). When files are updated, they automatically deploy to the live site.
- Low- or no-code platforms. Especially when coupled with technologies like Figma and hybrid CMS platforms like Webflow, sites can still be built out quickly—and updates can be made live instantaneously.

**Question #2: Will only a specific “type” of content need to be updated in the long term?**

After a site is built, it’s often the case that only a particular type of content, such as blog updates or press releases, is updated with any regularity. Using a CMS like WordPress can often be overkill for many sites.

An alternative would be building out the majority of the site using static HTML, and then using a “headless” CMS such as Contentful for content updates by your editors. The static site can then “query” this content directly to display on the site.

This solution allows for the best of all worlds: your content editors have a no-nonsense place to add/update/delete the content that most commonly needs updating, and the main site need rarely be even touched.

**Question #3: How important are speed and budget in the initial build-out?**

CMS-based sites can often take a lot of time to build out. And, in general, the easier the content updating needs to be, the more time-consuming the buildout will be (which can be wasted time if a developer is tasked with updates in the end).

Static sites can frequently be built in a fraction of the time of a CMS-based site. By way of illustration, we have implemented sites in straight HTML for just a few thousand dollars, when a full WordPress build-out would have cost 5-figures (or in some instances, even 6-figures).

Even when cost isn’t a concern, time might be. Dollars usually translate to time. Sites that need to be built out quickly can be done so with simple HTML. As was mentioned above, tools like Figma can even allow a designer to export designs and components directly to code, speeding up the process even further.

**Question #4: How will the site be maintained in the long term? How secure does the site need to be?**

Long-term maintenance is an important consideration. CMS platforms require security and code updates over time that require a developer to maintain, even if the content hasn’t been changed in years. This will be an ongoing cost, and when new versions of the CMS come out, old versions can become unsupported, requiring costly upgrades.

With the rare exception, static sites don’t need to be maintained, remaining secure with little to no ongoing maintenance costs (aside from hosting).

**Conclusion**

If static sites are so good, then why is everyone using platforms like WordPress, even when it might not be the most appropriate or efficient solution? It’s a fair question.

While there are likely many ways that the answer to this question could be explored, the bottom line is that complex solutions mean more money for software developers and digital agencies. Because your service provider nearly always has a vested interest in a time-consuming solution, it’s important to take a careful look at the foundational assumptions behind the decision to use a more complex platform like WordPress.

The question is rarely “if” a platform like WordPress should be used. Rather, it’s more often than not “How much will it cost to implement this in WordPress?”.

Sometimes the more appropriate question is “Should I be using a CMS at all? Or might there be a way to achieve my goals more quickly, efficiently, and with less cost in the short term and long term?”

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