What I've Learned Building 150+ WordPress Websites

I've built more than 150 WordPress websites. I've also built sites on Squarespace and Wix, and these days a lot of our work at Nimbus is in Webflow. So when a business owner asks me, "Should my website be on WordPress?", I don't answer from a brochure. I answer from what I've seen work, and what I've seen go wrong.

The short version: WordPress is still a brilliant choice when your website needs to do something specific, or you want to own everything. But a WordPress site is only as good as the choices made when it's built, and the care it gets afterwards. Get those right and it will serve you for years. Get them wrong and it becomes slow, fragile and expensive.

Is WordPress still worth it in 2026?

Yes, for the right business. WordPress runs about 40% of all websites on the internet, according to W3Techs. That's not an accident. It's flexible, it's yours, and there's almost nothing it can't be made to do.

The catch is that flexibility cuts both ways. Because you can add anything, it's very easy to add too much.

Lesson 1: The foundation decides almost everything

The theme and page builder you start with shape everything that comes after: how fast the site loads, how easy it is to edit, and how painful it is to change later.

My rule is simple: start light. A clean, well-coded theme with only the features you need will almost always beat a heavy "do-everything" theme packed with sliders and effects you'll never use. You can always add. Taking things away later is much harder.

Lesson 2: Every plugin is a door you have to lock

Plugins are what make WordPress powerful, and they're also where most of the trouble starts. Patchstack, a WordPress security company, counted 11,334 new security holes in the WordPress world in 2025, and about 91% of them were in plugins.

So before adding a plugin, I ask three questions:

• Do we actually need it, or can the site do this without it?
• Is it actively maintained and widely used?
• Could one plugin do the job of three?

Fewer plugins means a faster site, fewer updates and fewer ways in for attackers.

Lesson 3: Cheap hosting is expensive

This is the one I wish more people understood. You can build a beautiful site, put it on the cheapest hosting you can find, and watch it crawl. A slow site loses visitors, and it doesn't help you on Google either.

Good hosting doesn't have to be the most expensive, but it should be fast, include daily backups and come with real support. It's the foundation your whole website sits on.

Lesson 4: A WordPress site is never "finished"

This is the part people don't hear about when they're quoted for a website. WordPress, your theme and your plugins all need regular updates. Skip them and you're leaving those doors unlocked. Apply them carelessly and something can break.

Every WordPress site needs someone looking after it: updates, backups and a quick check that everything still works. That might be you, your team or a care plan with your developer. It just can't be nobody.

Lesson 5: Build it so you can edit it

A website you're scared to touch is a website that goes out of date. Whenever we hand over a WordPress site, the goal is that you can change text, swap images and publish a blog post without calling us and without breaking the layout.

If your current site makes simple changes feel risky, that's usually a sign of how it was built, not a problem with WordPress itself.

What about Squarespace and Wix?

I've built on both, and they have a real place. If you want a simple site up quickly, plan to manage it yourself, and don't need anything unusual, Squarespace and Wix are genuinely good options. Everything is in one place and there's very little to maintain.

Where they start to pinch is growth. As your business adds more pages, more content and more custom features, you can hit the limits of what the platform lets you do, and moving away later usually means rebuilding.

So which platform should you choose?

After all these builds, here's roughly how I'd steer a small business:

• Squarespace or Wix: a simple site you want to run yourself, on a tight budget, with no special features.
• Webflow: a marketing website that needs to look great and win you customers, and that your team can edit without worrying about plugins or updates. I've written a full Webflow vs WordPress comparison if you're torn between the two.
• WordPress: you need something specific (a large online store, bookings, memberships, courses or lots of content), or you want to own your code and hosting outright.

None of these is the "best" platform. The best one is the one that fits what your business actually needs.

Questions to ask anyone building your WordPress site

If you're getting a WordPress website built, by us or anyone else, ask these before you start:

1. Which theme or builder will you use, and why?
2. How many plugins will the site need?
3. Where will it be hosted, and are backups included?
4. Who handles updates after launch?
5. Will I be able to edit pages myself without breaking anything?

A good developer will have clear, confident answers to all five.

Want a second opinion?

Whether you're planning a new WordPress site or stuck with one that's slow and hard to manage, I'm happy to take a look and tell you honestly what I'd do. And if WordPress isn't the right fit, I'll tell you that too. See how we build websites or send me a message.

Sources

• W3Techs, Usage statistics of content management systems, October 2026
• Patchstack, State of WordPress Security in 2026