15 May 2026
For years, our website ran on WordPress with the Divi theme. It worked. Clients could find us, the contact form did its job, and we didn't think about it much. But over time, the cracks started showing.
Page load times crept up. Plugins needed constant updates. The design felt dated. And every time we wanted to change something simple, we'd spend more time fighting the page builder than actually building.
So we rebuilt the whole thing in Next.js. This isn't a "WordPress is bad" article. It's an honest look at what changed when we made the switch, and how to think about whether it makes sense for your business.
WordPress powers roughly 40% of the web for good reason. The plugin ecosystem is massive. You can get a site up in a day without writing a single line of code. Content management is straightforward. And finding someone to maintain a WordPress site is easy and affordable.
For blogs, small business brochure sites, and e-commerce stores using WooCommerce, WordPress is often the right choice. If your site is primarily content-driven and you need non-technical staff to update it regularly, WordPress handles that well.
Our problems were specific but common. The Divi page builder added significant JavaScript overhead, which slowed down every page. We had 20+ plugins installed, each adding its own CSS and JS files. Security updates were a weekly chore. And the site didn't reflect the kind of modern web development work we actually do.
The biggest issue was performance. Our old site scored in the 40s on Google Lighthouse. That's not just a vanity metric. Slow sites rank lower, bounce higher, and convert worse.
Thinking about switching from WordPress?
We've done it ourselves and helped clients do the same. Let's talk about your site.
Get a QuoteThe new site is server-rendered, which means the HTML arrives fully formed. No waiting for JavaScript to paint the page. Every route is optimised at build time. Images are automatically compressed and served in modern formats. And the whole thing deploys globally on Vercel's edge network.
Our Lighthouse scores went from the 40s to the high 90s. Time to first paint dropped from several seconds to under one. And because we control every line of code, we added proper structured data, Open Graph tags, security headers, and Content Security Policy without wrestling with plugins.
Next.js isn't free of downsides. You need a developer to make content changes (or you need to build a CMS integration). There's no plugin marketplace for adding features with a click. And the hosting model is different from traditional shared hosting.
For us, those trade-offs made sense. We are developers. We don't need a visual page builder. And the performance and control gains far outweighed the convenience of WordPress.
Choose WordPress if your team needs to update content frequently without developer help, you need e-commerce with WooCommerce, your budget is limited and you need something fast, or you're primarily running a blog or content site.
Choose Next.js (or a similar framework) if performance and page speed are critical, you need custom functionality beyond what plugins offer, you want full control over SEO and structured data, your site is part of a larger web application, or you have developer resources available.
There's no universal right answer. The best tool depends on your specific needs, team, and budget. If you're not sure which direction to go, talk to us. We've built with both and can help you figure out what fits.
We specialise in turning ideas into working products fast. Tell us what you're building and we'll show you how we'd get it done.
Australian dev team. 10+ products shipped. Free initial consultation.
