This morning, I published a comprehensive migration guide "From WordPress to Hugo: A Complete Migration Guide for 2025". After helping dozens of people migrate their sites, I kept hearing the same question: "But is Hugo really that much faster?"
So I decided to find out. What started as a simple speed test turned into something that completely changed how I think about static vs dynamic sites.
The Setup That Actually Matters
Here's what I tested: identical content on two different platforms, same VPS (4 vCPU, 8GB RAM, NVMe SSD), measured with Firefox's Load Time extension in private browsing mode. No cached results, no cheating.
Site 1: WordPress with OpenLiteSpeed, LS Cache, and Quic.cloud CDN
Site 2: Hugo static site generator
The WordPress setup wasn't your typical shared hosting disaster. This was a properly optimized machine running one of the best caching solutions available.
The First Surprise: Content-Heavy Pages
Testing a blog post with multiple images gave me results I wasn't expecting:
WordPress: 732ms
Hugo: 700ms
Wait, what? Only 32 milliseconds difference? Where's the massive speed advantage everyone talks about?
But here's where it gets interesting. The Load Time extension breaks down exactly where each site spends its time:
WordPress spent 252ms executing JavaScript after parsing the HTML. Even with perfect caching, all those theme scripts and plugins still need to run in your browser.
Hugo spent 552ms just parsing the HTML document. No JavaScript execution, but the static file was so dense that the browser needed over half a second just to read and understand it.
Same total time, completely different bottlenecks.
The Homepage Reality Check
Testing lighter homepage content revealed the real performance gap:
WordPress: 329ms
Hugo: 220ms
Now we're talking. Hugo's 109ms advantage comes from having virtually no JavaScript to execute (0ms vs 228ms for WordPress). The HTML is lighter, the parsing is faster, everything just works.
Where the 32ms Difference Becomes a Business Problem
For a single visitor hitting one page, 32 milliseconds is nothing. But scale this to real traffic, and the math gets scary fast.
At around 10,000 concurrent requests, you start seeing the cracks. WordPress, even with LS Cache, still has 5-10% of requests that miss the cache. New pages, expired cache entries, weird URL parameters - stuff happens.
With Hugo, every single request is identical: read file, send file. Done.
Push it to 100,000 requests, and those cache misses add up. We're talking 5,000 to 10,000 dynamic PHP requests hitting your database while Hugo just keeps serving files like nothing happened.
The infrastructure requirements diverge completely at this point. WordPress needs more CPU, more RAM, more monitoring. Hugo? Hugo doesn't even notice.
The Optimization Paradox I Discovered
Here's what blew my mind: my WordPress setup with LS Cache essentially turns WordPress into a static site generator. For cached pages, the server bypasses PHP entirely and serves pre-built HTML files.
It's brilliant. WordPress generates the page once, then serves it statically to everyone else. The best of both worlds, right?
Almost. The "almost" is that 5-10% of requests that slip through. Plus the complexity. Plus the moving parts that can break. Plus the constant updates and maintenance.
When WordPress works perfectly, it rivals Hugo. But "perfectly" is harder to maintain than you'd think.
The Global Performance Twist
Here's something that surprised me: with Quic.cloud CDN, WordPress might actually beat Hugo for international audiences. Hugo serves from my single server location, while WordPress gets distributed globally.
Adding Cloudflare to Hugo would level the playing field, but it won't fix the core bottleneck I discovered - that massive HTML parsing time for content-heavy pages.
What This Actually Means for You
The internet loves simple answers: "Static is faster!" But reality is messier.
Hugo wins when:
- You want simple, predictable performance
- Your content doesn't change constantly
- You're comfortable with markdown and command-line deployment
- You're serving a geographically concentrated audience
WordPress wins when:
- You need an editing interface for non-technical users
- Your site requires dynamic features
- You have global traffic and can invest in proper optimization
- You're willing to manage the complexity for flexibility
The Real Lesson
The WordPress vs Hugo debate isn't really about speed anymore. A properly optimized WordPress site can match static site performance for most use cases.
The real choice is between:
- Simplicity vs Flexibility: Hugo is simpler, WordPress is more capable
- Predictability vs Power: Hugo's performance is linear and predictable, WordPress can be optimized to incredible heights but requires expertise
- Maintenance vs Features: Hugo needs almost no maintenance, WordPress offers endless possibilities
The Bottom Line
After all this testing, I'm not telling everyone to migrate to Hugo anymore. If you're happy with WordPress and willing to invest in proper optimization, you can achieve similar results.
But if you're tired of plugin conflicts, security updates, and performance troubleshooting, Hugo offers something WordPress can't: simplicity that scales.
The future probably belongs to hybrid approaches anyway. Static generation for content that rarely changes, dynamic features where needed. Both platforms are moving toward this middle ground.
The speed difference? It matters less than choosing the right tool for your specific situation. Both can be fast. The question is which fits your workflow, your team, and your long-term goals.
This analysis comes from real-world testing on production-grade infrastructure. Your results may vary based on your specific setup, content types, and traffic patterns.
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