WordPress is the tube TV of web design.
Intro
Still using ? You probably still have a tube TV at home too. It works, it's just not what you want anymore. was built for bloggers in 2003, before smartphones, before AI, and before the speed thresholds Google now demands. We build sites on a modern stack: on the front, on the back, and a bespoke admin the editor can actually run, without plugins, without , and without the monthly security update that breaks everything else.
The problems
Plugin bloat
Every feature means another plugin: plugin, forms plugin, cache plugin, plugin, security plugin, image plugin. Before you know it thirty plugins are running side by side, each with its own author, its own update cadence, and its own conflict with the others.
Security holes
is the number-one attack target on the web because so many people run it. Every plugin is a new way in, one missed update is enough to turn the site into a casino-redirect bot overnight.
Slow and heavy
Bloated rendering, fragile caching, loaded twice because and a modern plugin are at war. Google measures and punishes slow , sites start on the back foot and rarely hit AAA with the plugins they need.
Theme lock-in
You buy a theme for $60, change two colours, and end up with a site that looks like a thousand others. Want real customisation? Then it's page builder on page builder, or a custom job that breaks at the next theme update.
Updates that break things
core updates itself. Plugins update themselves. The theme updates itself. None of this happens in sync, and more often than not somebody wakes up Monday morning to a white screen and confirms they need a developer, or another specialist, right now.
Editing experience from 2010
Classic editor, Gutenberg, page builder, custom fields, four interfaces stacked on top of each other. A marketing manager who needs to publish a page spends half a day finding the right block. We build an admin that fits your work exactly, no excess, no controls that don't apply to you.
Comparison
, , and 20–40 plugins from unknown authors
, , , one team, one codebase
Typically 3–6 s without heavy caching
Sub-second on , from
Monthly updates or compromise, plugins are the main vector
No plugin vector, , on the database
Theme settings or a page builder, the platform leaks into the look
Every line of design is yours, no platform shadow on the work
Three or four interfaces stacked together, long learning curve
Bespoke admin that fits your work exactly
Bolted on with plugins, consent, logs and export in separate systems
Built in from the start, consent, logs and privacy part of the design
A plugin that talks to OpenAI over HTTP, slow, costly, unreliable
direct in the codebase, over your data, streaming
Developer + specialist + monthly plugin updates
One team owns front, back and ops, no plugin treadmill
Case
Wiim Home, migrated from WordPress
From WooCommerce to a stack of their own.
Wiim Home previously ran on with , even though no card payments were ever taken on the site. The stack stayed heavy, slow, and hard for non-developers to maintain. We rebuilt it on with underneath: catalogue in , images in Storage, orders and service through a bespoke admin. Content was migrated via import scripts that run once and leave a clean schema behind, no legacy plugins, no , no monthly security update treadmill.
See the case study →Our stack
- Next.js 16
- React 19
- TypeScript
- Supabase Postgres
- Tailwind v4
- Vercel Edge
- Server components
- Claude (Anthropic)
Common questions
But isn't WordPress free?
The core is free. The maintenance contract, the plugins, the theme, the hosting, the upkeep, and the developer you need every time an update breaks something, are not. Add it all up over three years and a site usually costs more than a bespoke one from us.
Can I edit it myself?
Yes, probably more easily than on . We build an admin that fits your work: not a general-purpose editor everyone tries to use for everything, but screens that do exactly what you need. Products, news, orders, mailing lists, each in its own place, no excess.
What about SEO?
returns straight from , Google reads the page like any other text document, without plugins and without heavy . The result is consistently better than + can deliver, and structured data is part of the design, not an add-on.
What if I want to move off WordPress?
That's exactly what we do. Import scripts read your export, normalise the content into , and set up from the old URLs so traffic isn't lost. Wiim Home went through this, no gaps, no downtime.
What about 8.is, isn't that simpler?
8.is is an Icelandic site-builder and hosting service running largely on the stack. The same limits apply: rented templates, plugin sprawl, a heavy layer you don't control. It starts simple and becomes the same bottleneck the moment you want something 8.is doesn't ship. We build custom sites you own from day one, no rented platform, no vendor to migrate off later.
See also
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