Web design
WordPress alternative: when switching pays off, with real figures
According to W3Techs, WordPress powers 39.5% of all websites (as of 30 October 2026). We left anyway: our own website ran on WordPress with the Breakdance page builder for years, and we have now rebuilt it in Astro. Here are the measured figures before and after the move, an overview of the alternatives and the cases in which you are better off staying with WordPress.
Our figures: WordPress before, Astro after
On mobile, the Lighthouse score of our homepage rose from 56 to 96, and the page weight fell from 16.1 MB to 0.3 MB. We measured both versions on 30 October 2026 with Lighthouse 13.5 in the mobile profile, three times each. The table shows the median value.
| Metric (homepage, mobile) | WordPress (before) | Astro (after) |
|---|---|---|
| Lighthouse performance score (0 to 100) | 56 | 96 |
| Largest Contentful Paint: largest element visible | 8.8 s | 2.2 s |
| First Contentful Paint: first content visible | 2.7 s | 1.4 s |
| Total Blocking Time: page blocked | 197 ms | 25 ms |
| Cumulative Layout Shift: content shifts | 0.12 | 0 |
| Server response time | 606 ms | 59 ms |
| Page weight | 16.1 MB | 0.3 MB |
| Requests on load | 124 | 32 |
| Other servers contacted on load | 12 | 0 |
| Lighthouse accessibility score | 92 | 100 |
Lighthouse measures in the lab, with a throttled connection and a simulated mid-range phone. For ranking, however, Google uses data from real visitors in the Chrome User Experience Report. The direction is still clear: Google rates a Largest Contentful Paint of up to 2.5 seconds as good. At 8.8 seconds, the old page was far above that, and the new one is below it.
Not all of this is down to WordPress. A single screenshot in PNG format accounted for 10.4 MB, almost two thirds of the total page weight. WordPress does not stop you from uploading an image like that, whereas Astro automatically resizes and compresses images during the build. The rest of the difference comes from the technology: the page builder generated 559 KB of HTML for a single page, plus scripts for Google Analytics and a cookie banner from Usercentrics. The Astro version needs no cookie banner because it sets no cookies.
Why WordPress sites often become slow and high-maintenance
WordPress itself is not the problem. What makes a site slow and high-maintenance is everything that gets added over the years.
- Page builders such as Elementor, Divi or Breakdance make design easy but generate a lot of extra code. Our old homepage had 559 KB of HTML, the new one 129 KB.
- Plugins bring their own scripts and styles and constantly need updates. According to the Patchstack security report, 11,334 new vulnerabilities were found in the WordPress ecosystem in 2025, 42% more than the year before. 91% of them affected plugins, while WordPress core itself had only 6. For 46%, no update was available at the time of publication. How to protect yourself is explained in the guide on WordPress security.
- Database and server assemble every page from scratch on every request unless good caching is set up. That takes time before anything is displayed at all. Our old server needed 606 milliseconds on average for the first response, the Astro version 59.
The consequences show up in real-visitor data. According to the HTTP Archive Core Web Vitals report, analysed by Search Engine Journal, around 49% of WordPress websites pass Google’s Core Web Vitals. For Astro, the figure is 67%. Website builders such as Wix do even better at around 80%. There, the provider controls all the technology, so users have less room to get things wrong. So the technology alone does not decide, but it determines how easy it is to make mistakes.
The alternatives at a glance
The main alternatives are Astro for fast company websites, Next.js for websites with app features, website builders such as Webflow and Wix, other CMSs such as TYPO3, and Shopify for online shops.
| Alternative | Good for | Maintenance and effort |
|---|---|---|
| Astro, optionally with a headless CMS | Company websites | Content in the CMS or via the agency. Hardly any maintenance: no plugins, no database. |
| Next.js | Websites with a login or app features | Content in the CMS or via the agency. Server functions need maintenance. |
| Website builders such as Webflow, Wix, Squarespace | small DIY sites | Content yourself in the editor. Monthly fee, tied to the provider. |
| Other CMSs such as TYPO3 or Craft CMS | large sites with many editors | Content yourself in the backend. Updates and hosting as with WordPress. |
| Shopify | Online shops | Content yourself in the backend. Fees per month and per sale. |
For most company websites we build, Astro is the first choice. For web apps and portals we use Next.js, more on this under Web app development.
What changes with Astro instead of WordPress
Astro generates all pages once during the build as ready-made HTML. When someone requests a page, the server simply sends this file. There is no database queried on every request and no admin login for attackers to try.
- Open source: Astro is released under the MIT licence and is free. Since January 2026, the team behind Astro has been part of Cloudflare. According to the Astro team, the project remains open source and continues to run on other hosting providers as well.
- Editing content: Text is stored either as files in the project or in a headless CMS such as Storyblok or Decap CMS. There you manage text and images in an interface, and the website then rebuilds itself automatically.
- Forms and features run on small server functions. Our contact form, for example, is one such function, running in a data centre in Frankfurt and forwarding the enquiry by email.
- Images are automatically resized during the build, converted to modern formats and delivered in suitable sizes for mobile and desktop.
- Maintenance does not disappear entirely but is much smaller: code dependencies, forms, domain and hosting still need looking after. What this involves is explained under Maintenance & hosting.
When you should stay with WordPress
Switching is not worthwhile in every case. Stay with WordPress if:
- your team edits content itself every day and is familiar with the WordPress editor,
- you need plugin features that would otherwise have to be custom-built, such as a WooCommerce shop, a members’ area or a booking system,
- there is no budget for a rebuild. In that case, it often helps a lot just to shrink large images, remove unnecessary plugins, set up caching and improve the hosting.
If you stay with WordPress, we take care of updates, backups and monitoring as part of our maintenance from €129 per month.
How to move without losing rankings
The biggest mistake when switching is not the new technology but forgotten URLs. This is how we approached it for our own website:
- Record all URLs. We collected the 102 URLs from the old sitemap, plus the pages that get clicks in Search Console.
- Give every URL a destination. Pages that stay keep their URL. All others get a redirect to the matching new page; in our case there are 46. Each one leads to its destination in a single step, without chains.
- Carry over and improve content. Whatever ranks is kept. Duplicate and very thin pages are merged.
- Test on a preview. The new site first runs at its own address, which Google does not index. There we check forms, redirects and load times.
- Switch over and monitor. After moving the domain, we submit the new sitemap in Search Console and check over the first few weeks whether all pages are being found.
How we approach a relaunch in detail is explained on the Website relaunch page. What a new website costs is covered in the guide How much does a website cost?.
Conclusion
WordPress is not bad, but many WordPress sites have become heavy and high-maintenance over the years: only around half pass Google’s Core Web Vitals. If your site mainly shows services, case studies and guides, moving to Astro brings noticeably faster load times and less maintenance. For us, the mobile Lighthouse score rose from 56 to 96. If your team works in the WordPress editor every day or you use a lot of plugin features, a thorough overhaul of the existing site is often the better choice. We can work out which route suits you in a free intro call.