WordPress runs about 40% of the internet. That's a real number. So when someone asks me why I don't use it, I get the question. It's popular. It works. Millions of people use it every day.
But popular doesn't mean it's the right fit for a barber shop in Greene, NY.
The plugin problem
WordPress by itself doesn't do much. You need plugins for contact forms, SEO, image optimization, security, caching, backups. A typical small business site ends up with 15-25 plugins installed.
Every plugin is code someone else wrote. Every plugin needs updates. Every plugin is a potential security hole. And when two plugins conflict with each other — which happens more than you'd think — your site breaks and you're Googling error messages at 11 PM.
A hand-coded site has zero plugins. The contact form is 20 lines of HTML. The SEO is built into the page. There's nothing to update, nothing to conflict, nothing to break.
Speed isn't optional anymore
Google measures how fast your site loads. It's part of how they decide where you show up in search results. A typical WordPress site with a theme and plugins loads in 3-6 seconds. Some are worse.
The sites I build load in under a second. Not because I'm doing anything fancy — because there's nothing in the way. No database queries. No PHP processing. No unused CSS from a theme that has 200 features you'll never touch. Just clean HTML that the browser reads and renders immediately.
For a local business, that speed difference matters. Someone pulls up your site on their phone while sitting in a parking lot deciding where to eat. If it takes 4 seconds to load, they're already looking at the next result.
The monthly fee trap
WordPress itself is free. But you still need hosting. The cheap hosting ($3-5/month) is slow and unreliable. The decent hosting ($15-30/month) adds up. Then you need a premium theme ($50-100). Then a few premium plugins ($50-200/year each). Then you realize you need someone to maintain it all ($50-150/month).
A year in, you've spent $500-2,000 on a WordPress site that still loads slowly and still needs babysitting.
My sites are hosted on Cloudflare Pages. Free hosting. No monthly fees. No maintenance contracts. The only recurring cost is your domain name — about $10 a year.
You actually own it
When I hand you a website, I hand you the code. Every file. It's yours. You can move it anywhere, hire anyone to edit it, or just keep it running as-is for the next ten years.
With WordPress, you own your content, but you're tied to the platform. Moving a WordPress site means migrating databases, reconfiguring plugins, fixing broken themes. It's possible, but it's a project. With a hand-coded site, you literally copy the files to a new host and it works.
When WordPress does make sense
I'll be honest — WordPress makes sense for some things. If you're running a blog with 500 posts and multiple authors, you need a CMS. If you're running an online store with 1,000 products, you need WooCommerce or Shopify.
But most local businesses don't need that. You need a homepage, a services page, some photos, your hours, and a way for people to contact you. That's 5-7 pages. Hand-coding that takes me less time than fighting with a WordPress theme to make it look right.
The bottom line
For a local business that needs a clean, fast website that actually shows up on Google — hand-coded wins every time. It's faster, cheaper to maintain, more secure, and you own every line of it.
I build these starting at $250. No monthly fees. No contracts. Just a site that works. If that sounds like what you need, text me — (607) 221-5678.