WordPress vs Webflow vs Next.js: How We Actually Choose

We build on all three, which means we have no stake in the answer. What follows is how we actually decide, including the cases where we've talked clients out of the platform they arrived asking for.

Short version: WordPress if editors publish constantly and you need a plugin ecosystem. Webflow if the site is mostly marketing pages and a designer will own it. Next.js if performance, integrations, or custom logic matter more than editor convenience. Most of the nuance is in what "constantly" and "custom" mean for you.

WordPress

Still runs a large share of the web, and for good reason. The editor is familiar, hiring for it is easy, and there's a plugin for nearly everything.

Where it's the right answer

• Multiple editors publishing several times a week
• A content team that already knows the interface and doesn't want retraining
• You need a specific integration — a membership system, an events calendar, a directory — that exists as a mature plugin
• Multilingual content with a translation workflow

The honest costs

Maintenance is real and continuous. Core, theme, and plugin updates; PHP version upgrades; security patching. A site we took over had 22 plugins, four of them abandoned by their authors, on a PHP version two releases behind. That's not unusual and it's not free to fix.

Performance takes work. It's achievable — we've hit sub-1.5-second LCP on WordPress — but it means a custom block theme rather than a page builder, aggressive caching, and discipline about plugins. A page builder plus fifteen plugins has a performance ceiling you can't engineer past.

Budget for maintenance from day one: $20–$75 a month depending on complexity, or the equivalent in someone's internal time. Sites that skip this are the ones that get compromised.

Webflow

A visual builder that produces genuinely decent output, with hosting and a CMS included. Best-in-class for a specific shape of project.

Where it's the right answer

• A marketing site of 10–60 pages with a modest CMS collection
• A designer on your team who'll own ongoing changes without a developer
• Fast turnaround with a small budget and no unusual integrations
• Frequent visual iteration — landing pages, campaign pages, quick tests

The honest costs

The ceiling arrives suddenly. Complex conditional logic, unusual data relationships, or anything requiring server-side processing means workarounds, third-party services, or a rebuild. We've migrated two projects off Webflow, both because a requirement appeared that the platform couldn't reach.

Collection limits matter. Webflow caps CMS items per site, and the caps are generous for a blog and restrictive for a catalogue. A 3,400-SKU retailer isn't a Webflow project.

You're renting. Hosting is bundled and non-negotiable, pricing is per site and scales with traffic and collaborators, and exporting produces static HTML without the CMS. Portability is limited in practice even though it's technically available.

Next.js

A React framework, usually paired with a headless CMS. Where we build most of our client work, though not because it's universally better.

Where it's the right answer

• Performance is a commercial requirement, not a preference — ecommerce, property listings, anything where load time maps to revenue
• You need real integrations: an ERP, a practice management system, an MLS feed, a payment flow with custom logic
• Application-like functionality alongside marketing pages — dashboards, portals, calculators
• Large catalogues where static generation and incremental revalidation genuinely help
• You want the content layer decoupled so the front end can be replaced without re-migrating content

The honest costs

Higher initial build cost. You're paying for development where WordPress and Webflow give you a head start. Expect 1.5–2.5× a comparable WordPress build for the same page count.

Editing is less immediate. A headless CMS gives editors structured fields, not a visual canvas. Good for consistency, occasionally frustrating for someone who wants to nudge a heading's spacing. We mitigate this with live preview, and it's still a real difference in feel.

You need a developer for structural changes. Adding a new section type is a code change, not a drag-and-drop. For a business with no technical resource and no agency retainer, that's a genuine dependency worth thinking about honestly.

Three-year cost, roughly

Real numbers from projects we've delivered, for a comparable 25-page business site with a blog. Your figures will differ, but the shape holds.

	WordPress	Webflow	Next.js
Initial build	$2.25k–$4k	$1.5k–$3k	$4k–$7.5k
Hosting, 3 years	$175–$625	$275–$725	$0–$350
CMS licence, 3 years	$0–$275	included	$0–$1,075
Maintenance, 3 years	$875–$2,750	$0–$725	$350–$1,450
Rough total	$3.25k–$7.75k	$1.75k–$4.5k	$4.25k–$10.25k

Webflow is cheapest over three years for the projects it fits. Next.js costs most up front and least to run. WordPress sits in between with the widest variance, because the maintenance figure depends entirely on how disciplined the build was.

The questions that actually decide it

We ask these on every scoping call:

1. How often does content change, and who changes it? Daily by three people points to WordPress. Monthly by a designer points to Webflow.
2. What has to connect to what? List every system the site must talk to. Two mature-plugin integrations favour WordPress. A bespoke API favours Next.js.
3. Is load time commercially material? For a retailer or a listings site, yes, measurably. For a five-page consultancy site, not really.
4. How many content items, realistically, in three years? Under 200 is fine anywhere. Several thousand rules out some options.
5. Who maintains this in eighteen months? The most-skipped question and often the most important. An internal marketer with no developer access should not inherit a headless build without a support arrangement.

Bad reasons to choose a platform

• "It's what we've always used." Fine if the requirements haven't changed. Frequently they have.
• "Our developer prefers it." Understandable, and not a reason on its own. Ask them to justify it against your requirements.
• "It's the modern option." Modern is not a requirement. A restaurant needing a fast menu and working bookings does not need React.
• "A blog post said it's faster." Any of the three can be fast or slow. Implementation quality outweighs platform choice more often than platform advocates admit.

We've built a restaurant site on WordPress because the manager already knew the editor and edits the menu twelve times a quarter. We've built a property platform on Next.js because a 9.2-second listing page was costing them buyers. Same agency, opposite answers, both correct.

If you'd like a recommendation for your specific case, tell us what the site needs to do. It's a twenty-minute conversation and we'll give you a straight answer, including when the answer is the cheaper platform.