WordPress or Custom Development: Which do you prefer for your website?

[VPSMakers]

With WordPress, you can build almost anything you need by using existing plugins or developing your own. You don't necessarily have to start from scratch to create a custom website.

On the other hand, you can develop your own platform using PHP, JavaScript, or other technologies and have full control over how everything works.

Which approach do you prefer? Do you usually stick with WordPress and customize it with plugins, or do you prefer developing your own platform from scratch?

What makes you choose one over the other?

 

[Mivocloud]

Hello,

WordPress is a classic choice for websites, but it has its known drawbacks that are familiar to almost everyone in the industry.

Personally, I would prefer building a website from scratch, as it offers far greater flexibility for custom design and functionality. In fact, I once took on a project where I could have easily built the site using WordPress (having previously created one for an educational institution), but I decided to write it from scratch using plain CSS and PHP. Overall, the resulting website turned out quite well, and what I appreciated most was the complete freedom to implement any changes as needed.

 

[VPSMakers]

but I decided to write it from scratch using plain CSS and PHP

Yes, sometimes building a website from scratch is a great choice, especially when you need complete control over the design and functionality. However, when it comes to a website for a VPS hosting provider, which requires a powerful content management system for handling posts, pages, categories, and other content, I don't think starting from scratch is the right choice unless you have plenty of time and resources to develop and maintain everything yourself. WordPress already provides most of these features, and you can always extend it with custom plugins and development when needed.

 

[Mivocloud]

Yes, sometimes building a website from scratch is a great choice, especially when you need complete control over the design and functionality. However, when it comes to a website for a VPS hosting provider, which requires a powerful content management system for handling posts, pages, categories, and other content, I don't think starting from scratch is the right choice unless you have plenty of time and resources to develop and maintain everything yourself. WordPress already provides most of these features, and you can always extend it with custom plugins and development when needed.

I understand you, but I still think that if you have the opportunity to take the time, it's better to create everything from scratch yourself, because then you will have the maximum level of protection because you configure everything yourself. WP is cool, but having the skills and changing everything yourself as you wish in the process is much cooler.

 

[VPSMakers]

I understand you, but I still think that if you have the opportunity to take the time, it's better to create everything from scratch yourself, because then you will have the maximum level of protection because you configure everything yourself. WP is cool, but having the skills and changing everything yourself as you wish in the process is much cooler.

I get your point! But for our website, we've used WordPress with several custom-built plugins to meet our needs, and it still took us around a month and a half. Imagine building everything from scratch! It would take much more time and effort.

 

[PerLod]

Choosing between WordPress and Custom Development depends on your project goals, budget, timeline, and technical requirements. Neither option is universally better; instead, each fits a different set of use cases.

 

[rackrat_sas]

because then you will have the maximum level of protection because you configure everything yourself

Not sure about that part. With custom code you're the only one who ever looks at it for holes, while WP core has a whole security team on it. On WordPress the real risk is the pile of plugins, so keeping that list short gets you most of the way.

 

[Mivocloud]

Not sure about that part. With custom code you're the only one who ever looks at it for holes, while WP core has a whole security team on it. On WordPress the real risk is the pile of plugins, so keeping that list short gets you most of the way.

On the one hand, I agree with you, but again, purely in my opinion and from my experience, I can say that when you do everything from scratch yourself, you have a complete understanding of everything and all possible vulnerabilities.

And don't forget that in the age of AI, you have an assistant who will run through all the code and find loopholes.

 

[rackrat_sas]

And don't forget that in the age of AI, you have an assistant who will run through all the code and find loopholes.

True, but the people looking for holes have the same tools now and can point them at your code just as easily. With WP core a lot of people are already doing that before an update reaches you, with custom code it's just you and your assistant.

 

[bigredseo]

We have been building WordPress sites for over 15 years and love the platform. We can get it to do things that it was never designed to do, and some of the sites we've created are pretty insane. From massive 8,000-member subscription websites getting daily use, to websites with over 1 million products located in 14 different warehouses and needing APIs to verify inventory and the cheapest shipping from various locations. The restrictions with WordPress are really only what you put on it.

On the flip side, we have 1-page websites, 5-page sites, and small sites with big blog content running WordPress; again, it handles the smaller sites too.

Then there are the straight HTML sites - you can do so much with an HTML site and not need any of the holes or backdoors that can be created in PHP code, not to mention it doesn't need a database to pull data or pre-processing of markup before delivering the pages. Again, depends on the product and goal of the website.

Having created sites since the early 90s, I've seen it all 🙂 Now in walks EmDash and Astro, and again, a whole new technology stack depending on the person who needs it. For most clients, you don't need EmDash to generate pages in markup when I can just do it in HTML and bypass the processor. But it all depends right?

At the end of the day, MOST people online are not developers and have no experience with HTML - even getting someone to type <strong></strong> for bolding or <i></i> for italics can be a challenge for some 🙂

There's always another tool out there; Wix is great too for drag and drop - would I personally use it? No, I know how to code. But could my sister use it for her site? Definitely - I'm not building websites with family again 🙂