Next.js vs WordPress for Business Websites

As a Next.js agency, I should tell you WordPress is dead. But I won't — because it's not. WordPress powers 43% of the web for good reasons. It has a 21-year ecosystem, 60,000+ plugins, and a content editing experience that no React framework has matched. But for certain businesses, Next.js is categorically better. Not marginally. Categorically.

Here's the part most agency comparison posts won't tell you: we've built 40+ sites on Next.js and still recommended WordPress to 6 clients in the past year. The "best platform" question is meaningless without context. Your budget, team, performance requirements, and growth trajectory determine the answer — not some blogger's framework preference.

This comparison uses real data from projects we've shipped on both platforms, not synthetic benchmarks or cherry-picked examples.

Dimension 1: Performance — Where Next.js Dominates

Let's start with the dimension where the gap is largest. We tested identical content — same copy, same images, same page structure — across both platforms. The results aren't close.

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

• Next.js (Vercel, App Router, optimized images): 0.8-1.4s median LCP on mobile 4G
• WordPress (managed hosting, optimized theme, caching plugin): 2.1-3.8s median LCP on mobile 4G
• WordPress (shared hosting, premium theme, no optimization): 4.2-7.1s median LCP on mobile 4G

The gap comes from architecture, not effort. Next.js serves pre-rendered HTML with automatic image optimization, code splitting at the route level, and streaming server rendering. WordPress serves a monolithic PHP response, then loads jQuery, theme JavaScript, and plugin scripts serially. Even with aggressive caching (WP Rocket, Cloudflare), WordPress has a structural performance ceiling that Next.js simply doesn't face.

Interaction to Next Paint (INP)

• Next.js: 45-120ms (minimal client JS, React Server Components reduce bundle)
• WordPress: 180-450ms (jQuery + plugin scripts block the main thread)

INP measures responsiveness — how quickly the page reacts when users click, tap, or type. A WordPress site with 8 active plugins (the median for business sites) loads 200-500KB of JavaScript that competes for main thread time. Next.js with React Server Components sends only the JavaScript needed for interactive elements — often 60-80% less than a comparable WordPress page.

Dimension 2: Total Cost of Ownership Over 3 Years

This is where the conversation gets honest. Next.js is more expensive upfront. Whether it's cheaper long-term depends on scale.

WordPress: 3-Year Cost Breakdown

• Hosting: $300-1,200/year (shared to managed WP Engine/Kinsta)
• Premium theme: $60-200 one-time (or $200-500/year for theme builder subscriptions)
• Premium plugins: $200-800/year (SEO, security, forms, caching, backup)
• Initial development: $3,000-15,000 (custom theme or builder-based)
• Ongoing maintenance: $100-500/month (updates, security patches, backups)
• Security incident recovery: $2,000-10,000 (if it happens — and 4.3% of WP sites get hacked annually)

WordPress 3-year total: $8,000-45,000 depending on hosting tier and maintenance approach.

Next.js: 3-Year Cost Breakdown

• Hosting (Vercel): $0-240/year (Hobby free, Pro $20/mo, Enterprise varies)
• CMS (if headless): $0-600/year (Sanity free tier, Contentful from $300/year)
• Initial development: $8,000-40,000 (custom React development)
• Ongoing maintenance: $50-300/month (dependency updates, fewer moving parts)
• Security incidents: Near-zero for static/SSR sites (no database exposed, no plugin attack surface)

Next.js 3-year total: $15,000-60,000 depending on complexity and hosting tier.

Dimension 3: Time to Launch

WordPress wins here, and it's not close for standard business websites.

• WordPress with premium theme: 1-3 weeks for a 10-20 page business site
• WordPress with page builder (Elementor/Divi): 2-4 weeks with custom design
• Next.js custom build: 4-8 weeks for equivalent scope
• Next.js with template/starter: 3-5 weeks

The gap is structural. WordPress themes provide 80% of the functionality out of the box — forms, galleries, sliders, testimonials. In Next.js, every feature is built from components. The tradeoff: those WordPress themes carry 200KB+ of CSS and JS you don't need, and customizing beyond the theme's options often takes longer than building from scratch in React.

Dimension 4: Maintenance and Security

This is where WordPress's greatest strength — its plugin ecosystem — becomes its greatest liability.

WordPress Maintenance Reality

• WordPress core updates: 4-6 per year (minor), 2-3 per year (major)
• Plugin updates: Weekly across 8-15 typical business plugins
• Theme updates: Monthly
• PHP version updates: Annual
• Compatibility conflicts: 15-20% of updates cause issues with other plugins

Wordfence's 2025 report found that 97% of WordPress vulnerabilities come from plugins, not WordPress core. The more plugins you install, the larger your attack surface. And here's the catch-22: you need plugins for security (Wordfence), caching (WP Rocket), SEO (Yoast), backups (UpdraftPlus), and forms (Gravity Forms). Each one is a potential entry point.

Next.js Maintenance Reality

• Framework updates: 3-4 per year (mostly non-breaking)
• Dependency updates: Monthly (npm audit + renovate bot)
• No plugin layer — all functionality is first-party code
• No database exposed to the internet (for static/ISR sites)
• Attack surface: minimal — static files on a CDN with no server-side entry points for typical business sites

The security comparison isn't even a fair fight. A Next.js site deployed on Vercel has no admin login page to brute-force, no xmlrpc.php to exploit, no wp-login.php to attack, and no database accepting connections from the internet. It's pre-rendered HTML sitting on a CDN. You'd have to compromise Vercel's infrastructure itself.

Dimension 5: SEO — The Great Equalizer

Here's the contrarian take most Next.js advocates won't give you: WordPress and Next.js are equally capable for SEO. The platform is not the bottleneck — your content and technical implementation are.

Both platforms can deliver:

• Server-rendered HTML that Google can crawl immediately
• Clean URL structures with proper canonicals
• XML sitemaps, robots.txt, structured data (JSON-LD)
• Proper heading hierarchy, meta tags, Open Graph
• Core Web Vitals in the "good" range (with effort on WordPress)

Where Next.js has an edge: automatic code splitting means every page loads only the JS it needs, resulting in consistently better Core Web Vitals without manual optimization. WordPress can achieve the same scores, but it requires caching plugins, image optimization plugins, script deferral, and constant vigilance.

Where WordPress has an edge: Yoast/Rank Math provide content optimization guidance inline while writing. Next.js has no equivalent — you handle SEO programmatically through generateMetadata() and structured data functions.

Dimension 6: Customization and Scalability

Next.js offers unlimited customization because you're writing code, not configuring a theme. Every pixel, every interaction, every data flow is under your control. WordPress offers configuration-based customization — powerful within its boundaries, painful beyond them.

Where This Matters in Practice

• Interactive calculators and tools: Trivial in Next.js (React components). Requires plugin or custom PHP in WordPress.
• Real-time data dashboards: Native in Next.js (API routes + React state). Nearly impossible in standard WordPress.
• Multi-step forms with conditional logic: Built with React Hook Form + Zod in Next.js. Requires Gravity Forms Pro ($259/yr) or custom PHP in WordPress.
• AI-powered features: Direct API integration in Next.js. Plugin-dependent in WordPress with limited flexibility.
• Internationalization: Built-in i18n routing in Next.js. WPML plugin ($99/yr) in WordPress with performance overhead.

For scalability: Vercel auto-scales to millions of requests with zero configuration. WordPress on managed hosting handles spikes well, but you're paying for server capacity you may not always use, and there's a hard ceiling before you need to re-architect.

Dimension 7: Content Editing Experience

This is WordPress's strongest advantage and the most common reason we still recommend it.

WordPress Gutenberg gives non-technical editors a visual, block-based editing experience. They can write posts, add images, embed videos, create layouts — all without touching code. The learning curve is 30 minutes. For a marketing team publishing 10+ articles per week, this matters enormously.

Next.js has no built-in content editing. Your options:

• MDX files in the repo: Developers edit markdown with React components. Non-technical editors can't use this.
• Headless CMS (Sanity, Contentful): Excellent editing experience, but adds $0-600/year and 20-40 hours of integration work.
• Headless WordPress: Use WordPress as the CMS, Next.js as the frontend. Best of both worlds, but highest complexity.
• Keystatic/Tina: Git-based CMS with visual editing. Good for smaller teams, less mature than WordPress.

Dimension 8: The Headless WordPress Middle Ground

For teams that need WordPress's editing experience but Next.js's performance, headless WordPress is a legitimate option. You keep the WordPress admin panel for content management and use the WordPress REST API or WPGraphQL to feed content to a Next.js frontend.

Headless WordPress Tradeoffs

• Pros: WordPress editing + Next.js performance. Content team uses familiar tools. Frontend team has full React flexibility.
• Cons: You maintain two systems. Every WordPress plugin that outputs frontend HTML (forms, sliders, page builders) no longer works. Development cost is 30-50% higher than either platform alone.
• Best for: Content-heavy businesses with large editorial teams who also need high performance (media companies, publishers, large e-commerce brands).
• Not for: Small businesses. The complexity isn't justified for a 20-page site with a blog.

When WordPress Is the Right Choice

After building on both platforms for years, here's when we recommend WordPress without hesitation:

• Content-heavy sites with non-technical editors: If your marketing team publishes daily and has no developers, WordPress is the answer. Period.
• Budget under $10K for the entire project: You'll get more site for your money with WordPress at this price point.
• Need-it-tomorrow timeline: If you need a professional site in 1-2 weeks, a WordPress theme gets you there.
• 500+ page content sites: The editorial workflow in WordPress is still unmatched for high-volume publishing.
• E-commerce with WooCommerce: If you're selling physical products and need inventory management, WooCommerce provides a complete solution. Next.js + Shopify/Saleor is powerful but more complex.
• Plugin-specific functionality: Need LMS (LearnDash), membership (MemberPress), or booking (Amelia)? WordPress plugins provide turnkey solutions.

When Next.js Is the Right Choice

• Performance is a business requirement: If your conversion data shows that sub-2s load times directly impact revenue, Next.js gets you there with less fighting against the platform.
• Custom web applications: Dashboards, portals, multi-step tools, real-time features — these are natural in React, painful in WordPress.
• API-first architecture: If your site integrates with 5+ external services (CRM, payment, AI, analytics, chat), Next.js API routes handle this natively.
• You have developers on staff: A team that knows React will ship faster in Next.js than in WordPress PHP.
• Security is paramount: Financial services, healthcare, legal — industries where a breach has regulatory consequences should prefer Next.js's minimal attack surface.
• Long-term cost optimization: If you're building a site you'll maintain for 5+ years, the lower ongoing costs of Next.js (no plugin licenses, less security patching) compound.

The Migration Question: When to Move from WordPress to Next.js

We get this question monthly. Here's our framework:

Migrate If:

• Your PageSpeed score is below 50 despite optimization efforts
• You've had a security breach and can't afford another
• You need custom functionality that plugins can't deliver
• Your hosting costs exceed $200/month for a standard business site
• Plugin conflicts are consuming 5+ hours of maintenance per month
• You're rebuilding anyway — migration during a redesign costs 20-30% more, not 100% more

Do NOT Migrate If:

• Your WordPress site is performing well (PageSpeed 80+, no security issues)
• Your team depends on the WordPress editing experience and you don't have CMS budget
• You're relying on WordPress-specific plugins with no headless equivalent
• The site is generating leads/revenue and you can't afford 4-8 weeks of rebuild time
• "It would be cool" is your primary motivation — that's not a business case

Our Decision Framework

When a client asks us "WordPress or Next.js?" we ask five questions:

• 1. Who will update content? Non-technical team = WordPress or headless CMS. Developer team = Next.js with any content strategy.
• 2. What's your performance floor? Need sub-2s LCP on mobile = Next.js. 3s is acceptable = either platform.
• 3. What's your 3-year budget? Under $15K total = WordPress. Over $25K = Next.js likely wins on TCO.
• 4. Do you need custom functionality? Calculators, portals, dashboards = Next.js. Standard pages, blog, contact form = either.
• 5. How fast do you need to launch? Under 3 weeks = WordPress. 4-8 weeks acceptable = either platform.

There is no universal winner. There's only the right tool for your specific business context. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something — probably their preferred platform.