WordPress or a static site? Decide by who will maintain it

Last month I moved a small ministry blog off WordPress. While rebuilding it, I found the contact form had been sending enquiries to a misspelt email address. A few days after launch I found the newsletter sign-up had been posting to a mailing list that no longer existed, so nobody who subscribed was ever added. Nobody knew, because nobody had looked at the site’s insides in years.

That is the real question. Choose by who maintains the site and how often it changes. If it changes a few times a year, a static site is faster, cheaper and safer. If one person edits text and posts weekly, static with a simple editor works. If you need a shop, bookings or several daily publishers, WordPress earns its overhead.

What is the actual difference between WordPress and a static site?#

A WordPress site is a program that runs every time someone visits. The server reads a database, runs PHP, loads every active plugin and assembles the page on the spot. That is what makes it flexible: anything can change at any moment, and a plugin exists for almost anything.

A static site is built once, ahead of time, into plain HTML files. Those files sit on a content delivery network and are handed straight to the visitor. There is no database to query, no login page to attack and no plugin code running per visit.

Both can look identical. I build both, and on screen you often cannot tell which is which. The differences show up in speed, in running cost, and above all in who has to look after it. I covered the speed side in what a fast website actually looks like, so this post is about the looking after.

Who will actually maintain your website?#

Answer this honestly before anything else. There are really only four answers.

Nobody, most of the year. The site is a brochure. You update prices or opening hours a few times a year, or ask someone to. This is most small business sites I see. A static site wins easily here: there is nothing to patch, nothing to renew, and nothing to quietly rot while nobody watches.

One person, now and then. You, or someone in the office, edits text, adds a news post, or changes a menu price every few weeks. A static site with a browser-based editor handles this well. The ministry blog I mentioned is built this way: the owner logs in to an editor in the browser, writes a post, presses publish, and the site rebuilds itself.

A team, every week. Several non-technical people publish articles, update listings or run campaigns, often at the same time. This is where WordPress starts to earn its keep. Its editing experience, roles and scheduling are mature, and nobody on the team needs to know what a build is.

The site is an application. Online sales with stock control, payments, bookings, memberships, course access. These are not websites with content, they are software, and WordPress plus a plugin (or a hosted platform like Shopify) gives you that software ready made. Rebuilding it static would mean rebuilding the software.

What does “maintaining” WordPress actually involve?#

This is the part that rarely gets priced into the quote.

A typical small business WordPress site runs the core software, a theme, a page builder such as Elementor, Divi or Breakdance, and somewhere between ten and thirty plugins. Each has its own update cycle. Some updates break other plugins. The page builder often has an annual licence. The hosting needs a supported PHP version, backups, and ideally a staging copy to test updates on before they touch the live site.

None of that is difficult for someone who does it every month. The trouble is that on most small business sites nobody does it every month. The site launches, the developer moves on, and the update notices pile up in a dashboard nobody opens. That is how a perfectly good WordPress site becomes the one that gets hacked, or the one whose contact form stopped working a year ago.

If you choose WordPress, choose it with a named person and a monthly budget for upkeep. If you cannot name the person, that is your answer.

What do you give up with a static site?#

I would not be honest if I only argued one side.

• ✗ Drag-and-drop page building. With a static site you edit content inside layouts that were designed up front. You can change words, images, prices and posts. You cannot invent a new landing page layout on a Friday afternoon without a developer.
• ✗ The plugin shelf. Want a booking calendar, a membership area or a quote calculator? On WordPress you install one. On a static site it is either a third-party service you embed or something built for you.
• ✗ Forms do not work out of the box. A static page needs a form service or a small server function behind it. That is a one-time setup, but it is a setup.
• ✓ In exchange: pages that load in under two seconds on mobile, hosting that often costs nothing, no login page for bots to hammer, and a site that keeps working untouched for years.

When I rebuilt a coastal pub’s site off WordPress, every old admin address that bots used to probe stopped existing. The menus, which had been four photographs of paper menus, became structured data the owner can edit by changing a price in a file. He has not needed a plugin since, because there are none.

When should you stay on WordPress?#

Sometimes the right advice is to stay where you are.

A furniture retailer I work with is a good example. I built them a fast static prototype of their catalogue to compare against their WordPress and WooCommerce store, and they chose to stay on WordPress. Their team manages the products and the homepage themselves, in tools they already know.

Stay on WordPress if any of these are true:

1. You sell online with stock, variations and payments, and your team manages it themselves.
2. A plugin runs a core part of the business (bookings, memberships, courses) and replacing it would mean custom software.
3. Several people publish every week and need roles, drafts and scheduling.
4. You already have someone who maintains it properly every month, and the site is fast enough.

If none of those is true, you are probably paying the WordPress overhead for flexibility you never use.

So how do you decide?#

Ask three questions, in this order:

1. How often does the content change? A few times a year points to static. Weekly or daily points either way, depending on the next answer.
2. Who changes it? One person with a simple editor suits static. A team that publishes constantly suits WordPress.
3. Is any part of it software? A shop, bookings or memberships point to WordPress or a hosted platform, unless you are ready to pay for custom work.

Then add one more question for WordPress: who updates it every month, and what does that cost? If the answer is “nobody” and “nothing”, the cheaper option in the long run is the one with nothing to update.

I build both, and I would rather tell you to keep what you have than sell you a rebuild you do not need. If you want a second opinion on your own site, send me the link. I will tell you which camp you are in, and what it would cost to stay there or move.