After working with a wide range of businesses during the past 15 years, I've promoted WordPress over all of the alternatives to our clients. We started out working with Joomla and Drupal back in 2008 but moved over to WP as our platform of choice from around 2014 onwards due to some of the amazing advancements and features introduced by plugin developers. Sadly, I've also seen it slowly lose its performance edge while static site generators (SSGs) gained ground. The numbers tell a story that WordPress advocates might not want to hear.
What does the data say?
The data from HTTP Archive and Chrome UX Report cited on astro.build gives us a clear picture. Only 44% of WordPress sites pass Core Web Vitals benchmarks, while Astro (unsurprisingly) leads the pack at 63%.
Here's what the 2024 data shows for Core Web Vitals passing rates:
- Astro: 63% of sites pass
- WordPress: 44% of sites pass
- Gatsby: 42% of sites pass
- Next.js: 27% of sites pass
- Nuxt: 24% of sites pass
When nearly 60% of WordPress sites fail basic performance standards, we need to ask why small businesses are still choosing this platform for their primary web presence.
My personal experience
As an agency owner, developer and SEO, ensuring our websites load quickly and perform optimally has always been a top priority. As a general benchmark, I've always tried to ensure <2s full page load times on 4G and mobile core web vitals achieving a score 80+.
This used to be relatively straight-forward with plugins like WP Total Cache, WP-Optimize and my personal favourite, WP Rocket. If we threw in Cloudflare (the free version), even more complex sites did well. Later, we updated our infrastructure stack to include an expensive dedicated LiteSpeed Enterprise server running LiteSpeed Cache for WordPress.
However, with time, the WordPress sites started to grow more complex due to the number of plugins and customisations needed and it became a challenge to hit those scores of 80+ on core web vitals.
We then switched to Nitropack, an all-in-one CDN, compression and caching provider, which worked a treat due to their fancy JS/CSS delay tricks. All of a sudden 90-100 scores were possible again, but something felt uneasy with this approach, like we were trying to trick the system rather the build websites the right way.
Data from a recent study
A recent migration study by developer mfyz.com (https://mfyz.com/wordpress-to-astro-migration-performance-comparison) provides concrete data outlining what happened when they moved from WordPress to Astro.
His heavily optimised WordPress site (already using WP Rocket caching and Cloudflare) showed these improvements after switching:
| Metric | WordPress | Astro | Improvement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Largest Contentful Paint | 0.81s | 0.44s | 46% faster |
| SEO Score | 86 | 100 | Perfect score |
| HTML Size | 38.9KB | 10.9KB | 72% smaller |
| JavaScript Load | 13.4KB | 5.3KB | 60% reduction |
| CSS Load | 67.2KB | 6.6KB | 90% reduction |
These aren't small gains, it's a massive jump in performance.
Why this matters for small business SEO
Google's algorithm updates prioritise site speed and user experience. I know first-hand how quickly speed optimisation can improve organic rankings on search.
Core web vitals scores play an important role in this. When your WordPress site loads in 3-4 seconds while your competitor's static site loads in under 1 second, all else being equal, you're potentially loosing customers.
Consider these business implications:
- Bounce rate: Every 100ms delay increases bounce rates by 7%
- Conversion impact: Sites loading in 1 second have 3x higher conversion rates than sites loading in 5 seconds
- Mobile performance: 53% of mobile users abandon sites that take longer than 3 seconds to load
*Sources:
- Akamai Technologies State of Online Retail Performance Report (2017): https://www.akamai.com/newsroom/press-release/akamai-releases-spring-2017-state-of-online-retail-performance-report
- Portent Site Speed Revenue Impact Study (2022): https://www.portent.com/blog/analytics/research-site-speed-hurting-everyones-revenue.htm
- Google Think with Google Mobile Site Statistics: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/consumer-trends/mobile-site-load-time-statistics/*
The technical differences that matter
Static generation vs server processing
Without caching, WordPress pages are dynamically created on the server. Every site visitor triggers PHP code to be generated, database calls, and server processing. Even with caching, this creates inherent delays.
SSG frameworks pre-build everything beforehand, so when someone visits the site, they're served pre-rendered HTML files, the same as the good old days when we created static HTML websites.
The mfyz.com case study shows WordPress delivered nearly 120KB of combined resources (HTML, CSS, JS) per page, whereas the Astro version delivered just 23KB, an 80% reduction in data transfer.
For mobile users on slower connections, this kind of difference determines whether a site loads in 2 seconds or 8 seconds. And this can make the difference between a page 1 organic ranking or a page 5 ranking in SEO terms.
SEO improvements
Basic static sites typically achieve near-perfect SEO scores in Lighthouse audits. WordPress sites average 86 points due to factors such as those listed here:
- Render-blocking resources
- Unused JavaScript bundles
- Image optimization issues
- Third-party plugin overhead
WordPress still makes sense
Don't get me wrong, I still believe WordPress is the best choice for specific scenarios and we continue to suggest it as our CMS of choice for those with heavy ongoing content management requirements or functional needs.
For example:
- Complex editorial workflows: Multiple content editors, approval processes, user roles
- E-commerce: WooCommerce provides extensive shopping functionality
- Dynamic user content: Comments, user-generated content, membership sites
- Non-technical teams: Familiar interface for content managers
However, most small business websites don't need these features. They need fast loading and good SEO.
The static site alternative
For small business websites, static generators offer several advantages, including:
- Performance: Sub-second loading times
- Security: No database to hack, minimal attack surface
- Reliability: 99.9% uptime without server maintenance
- Development time: Thanks to AI agents, development time can be much faster
- Cost: Minimal hosting fees ($0-20/month on Netlify or Vercel vs $50-200/month on Litespeed for WordPress)
Popular options include:
- Astro (my favourite): Best performance, supports multiple frameworks, great for SEO
- Next.js: React-based with good SEO features
- Gatsby: Rich plugin ecosystem, GraphQL integration
- Hugo: Extremely fast build times, simple deployment
Should you migrate
Moving from a CMS platform like WordPress to a static generator requires planning:
Content migration: Most generators can import WordPress content via XML exports, API connections, or even markdown format.
Design rebuild: Themes need conversion to static templates, though many agencies now offer this service.
Content management: Consider headless CMS options like Contentful, Strapi, or Forestry for non-technical content editors.
SEO preservation: Proper redirects, URL structure planning, and meta tag preservation to prevent search ranking loss.
Final thoughts
The data doesn't lie. WordPress performance continues declining while static generators improve. For small businesses who need a website developed quickly, with fast loading, strong SEO, and lower maintenance costs, static sites provide clear advantages.
It's not a case of whether SSGs perform better - there's a wealth of public test data to prove that they do. The question is whether your business can afford to ignore this performance gap while competitors gain market and ranking advantages.
About me: 15+ years experience in web development and digital marketing, having worked with over 100 business websites across various platforms and frameworks in the UK. Follow me on dev.to for more articles 👇🏻
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