Why We Switched From WordPress to Next.js for Every Client Site

When we started Digitari, we built on WordPress. It was what most clients knew, what most agencies used, and what made sense to propose when someone asked if they could update their own content. We stopped building on WordPress entirely. Here is the honest version of why.

The performance gap is not a small difference

WordPress sites built with page builders like Divi, Elementor, or WPBakery consistently perform poorly on Core Web Vitals. A typical WordPress HVAC site built with a premium theme loads in 3 to 6 seconds on mobile. A Next.js site with static generation on Vercel's edge network loads in under 1 second.

That difference is not a technicality. For a trades business where 70 percent of traffic is mobile and emergency searches convert immediately or not at all, a 4-second load time is a direct revenue problem. We measured it on client sites before and after migrations: session duration went up, bounce rate went down, and Google rankings improved within 60 days of launching the rebuilt site.

Static generation is the right architecture for service business sites

A local HVAC company's website does not change constantly. The services are the same. The location pages are the same. The about page changes maybe once a year. There is no good reason for every page request to hit a database, execute PHP, and assemble HTML on the fly.

Next.js with static site generation pre-renders all pages at build time. The HTML is ready before any visitor arrives, served from Vercel's edge network at the location closest to the searcher. The result is sub-100 millisecond Time to First Byte globally. WordPress cannot get close to this without expensive caching infrastructure that adds cost and complexity.

Security is a real ongoing cost with WordPress

WordPress powers roughly 43 percent of the internet. That market share makes it a permanent target for automated attacks. Plugin vulnerabilities, theme vulnerabilities, outdated PHP versions, XML-RPC exploits: these are constant threats. A WordPress site needs active security monitoring, regular plugin updates, and ideally a web application firewall.

A statically generated Next.js site has no CMS attack surface, no plugin vulnerabilities, and no database to exploit. The only dynamic surface is the contact form API route, which can be locked down with rate limiting. The maintenance overhead drops significantly, which is a big part of why our retainer pricing can start at $200 per month.

TypeScript catches problems before they reach production

This matters more as projects scale. TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript that adds static typing: the ability to define what shape your data should be and catch mismatches at compile time rather than at runtime in production.

When we built Yesso, our own SaaS product, TypeScript caught four breaking changes introduced by Next.js 15 at compile time. Without it, those would have been silent production failures. For client sites, it means that refactoring a component or changing a data structure immediately shows you everywhere the change breaks something, rather than finding out through a support call three weeks later.

The trade-offs are real

WordPress has a content editor most non-technical clients can use without help. Next.js does not, by default. If a client needs to publish blog posts weekly without developer involvement, we add a headless CMS like Sanity or Contentlayer. That adds some cost and complexity.

WordPress also has a plugin for almost everything. Want a booking system? There is a plugin. Want a job board? There is a plugin. Next.js requires building or integrating these things directly, which takes more time upfront.

For clients who need a fast, modern, low-maintenance site that ranks well and converts visitors (which is most of the trades and service businesses we work with), Next.js is the right call. For a media company publishing 50 articles a week with a non-technical editorial team, WordPress or a purpose-built CMS might make more sense. We are honest about that distinction.

The numbers we ship

Every Digitari client site targets 90-plus on all four Lighthouse categories: Performance, Accessibility, Best Practices, and SEO. Our current client sites average 96 on Performance. Admirable Contracting scores 99. Air Comfort Systems scores 96. Vista Peak Estate scores 97.

These are not vanity metrics. Lighthouse Performance score correlates directly with Core Web Vitals, which are a confirmed Google ranking signal. A faster site ranks higher, loads better on slow connections, and converts more of the visitors it earns.