WordPress vs static sites: a pragmatic menu

When WordPress is the right hammer, when static HTML wins, and how to avoid choosing based on vibes alone.

WordPress is excellent when non-developers need a rich editing loop, plugins, and a mature ecosystem. Static sites win when the content is stable, the threat surface should stay tiny, and deploys should be diffable files.

Quick heuristics

• Choose WordPress when editorial workflows, memberships, or dynamic pages are the product.
• Choose static when uptime, speed, and security simplicity matter more than frequent layout experiments.
• Hybrid is allowed: static marketing + WP on a subdomain is a pattern that ages fine.

WordPress’s own “Requirements” page at wordpress.org/about/requirements is a good sanity check before you size a database and PHP runtime you do not need yet.

SEO without anxiety

Either stack can be search-friendly. The boring wins are clean titles, fast pages, and internal links humans would actually follow.