What's the difference between WordPress and a custom build?

Both produce a website. The difference is what sits underneath and who can change it.

WordPress (a CMS)

WordPress is a content management system. It gives you a dashboard where you log in and edit pages, publish posts, upload images and change menus without touching code.

Choose it when:

• Your team needs to update content regularly.
• The site is mostly pages, posts, and a shop.
• You want a large ecosystem of plugins and people who know the platform.

The catch: built carelessly, with a stack of page builders and premium plugins, WordPress gets slow and fragile. Built with a custom theme and a short plugin list, it is fast and stable.

A custom build

A custom build is an application written for your specific needs, typically in React, Next.js and TypeScript, with its own database.

Choose it when:

• The site has to do something rule-based a CMS cannot express, a booking engine, a portal, a calculator.
• You are replacing a spreadsheet or a manual process.
• Content changes are rare, but the logic is complex.

The catch: more upfront work, and content changes usually go through a developer unless an editing interface is built in.

The middle ground

Plenty of sites are WordPress for the content with a custom-built piece bolted on for the part that needs it. If you are not sure which side of the line you are on, tell us what the site needs to do and we will give you a straight answer.