The Numbers Are Lying
Yes, WordPress still powers around 43% of all websites worldwide. This figure is often cited as proof that WordPress is alive and well. But when you look more closely, the numbers tell a different story.
Market share has stagnated since 2023. The growth rate has fallen from 4% per year to under 1%. Meanwhile, the share of modern frameworks – Next.js, Astro, Remix – is growing at double-digit rates. WordPress is no longer winning new projects. It's just slowly losing existing ones.
The Technical Debt of an Ecosystem
WordPress launched in 2003 as a blogging platform. Since then, it's been extended into a CMS, an e-commerce system, a page builder and an app platform – without ever rethinking the fundamental architecture.
The result is a system that's based on PHP 5 patterns, misuses a MySQL database for everything, relies on plugins as the primary extension mechanism, and whose frontend rendering consists of server-side assembled HTML strings.
Every WordPress project starts with the same problems: performance optimisation through caching plugins, security hardening against chronic vulnerabilities in the plugin ecosystem, and the endless juggling of plugin compatibility after updates.
The Plugin Problem
WordPress has over 60,000 plugins. That sounds like an advantage – until you look at how the plugin ecosystem actually works.
Most plugins are maintained by individuals or small teams. Many are abandoned after a few years. There's no standardised quality control, no guaranteed compatibility and no uniform security review.
This leads to a paradoxical situation: the more plugins a WordPress project uses, the more fragile it becomes. Every plugin update can have side effects. Every abandoned plugin becomes a security risk. And any WordPress site with more than ten plugins is a maintenance nightmare.
What Modern Alternatives Do Better
Modern web architecture has surpassed WordPress in every dimension.
Performance: Static Site Generation and Edge Rendering deliver pages in under 100ms. A typical WordPress setup takes 800ms to 2 seconds – with caching. Without caching, it quickly becomes 3–5 seconds.
Security: Headless architectures have no publicly accessible admin interface, no plugin system as an attack surface, and no database directly connected to the frontend. The attack surface is reduced by 90%.
Developer Experience: TypeScript, component-based development, Hot Module Replacement, type safety – all things that are standard in modern frameworks and simply don't exist in WordPress.
Scaling: JAMstack sites scale at CDN level. There's no server to collapse under load. No database bottlenecks. No PHP processes consuming memory.
Why the Switch Is Still So Slow
If WordPress is so outdated, why do millions still use it? The answer lies not in the technology but in the economics.
Switching Costs: Migrating an existing WordPress site costs money and time. For many small businesses, the pain isn't yet great enough.
Developer Availability: There are more WordPress developers than Next.js developers. For non-technical businesses, it's easier to find someone who can "change something on the WordPress site".
Content Editor Habits: Editors know the WordPress backend. A headless CMS with a different interface means retraining.
But all three factors are losing their force. AI tools are lowering migration costs. Modern frameworks are becoming more accessible. And content editors adapt to new interfaces when the benefits are clear.
The Tipping Point
We predict the tipping point will be reached in the next two to three years. Not because WordPress suddenly stops working, but because the opportunity costs become too high.
When a modern website loads three times faster, requires half the maintenance and ranks better in Google search, it becomes increasingly hard to justify staying with WordPress. Especially for companies that use their website as a sales channel.
What We Recommend to Our Clients
For companies with existing WordPress sites, we recommend a phased migration. Not everything at once, but targeted: first, migrate the publicly visible pages to a modern architecture. Then transition the content workflow. And finally, switch off the WordPress backend.
The cost of a WordPress migration is typically a fraction of what companies would spend over the next three years on WordPress maintenance, plugin updates and performance optimisation.
WordPress isn't dying overnight. But it is dying – and those who switch early have a competitive advantage.