WordPress or custom-built!
We build both, so we have no stake in the answer. That makes this comparison more useful than one from an agency selling only one of the two.
The short version: WordPress wins on speed of starting and on price, custom-built wins the moment your site has to do something that is not in a plugin. The long version is below.
Choose WordPress if…
You want a classic company site or blog, with pages, news and a contact form. You want to start quickly on a limited budget. You want to be able to find someone else to work on it later — which you can, anywhere.
Expect a lower starting price, but licences and maintenance that come back every year.
Choose custom-built if…
Your site has to run a process: quotes, bookings, customer areas, prices per customer group, links to your own software. Or when speed and security weigh heavily because there is revenue riding on it.
Higher starting price, no licences, and a site that does exactly what you do.
What the comparisons usually leave out!
WordPress is not insecure; outdated WordPress is
The platform itself is sound. What leaks are plugins nobody has updated in two years. With maintenance a WordPress site is perfectly safe; without maintenance no site is.
Custom-built is not automatically faster
Badly built custom work is slower than a well-kept WordPress site. The gain is in what you leave out, not in the label on the technology.
The real cost is in years two and three
Do not compare the build price but three years of total cost: licences, plugins, maintenance and the hours you put in yourself. That sometimes reverses the ranking.
You can still switch later
Feel free to start on WordPress and build custom when you outgrow it. Your content moves with you and your positions in Google need not be thrown away.
Questions about the choice!
Still hesitating?
Tell us what your site has to do and we will say which of the two works out cheaper for you over three years.