Last Updated on 1 year by Komolafe Bamidele
When it comes to content management systems, WordPress and Netlify are two of the most popular option on the market.
Both systems are open-source, free to use, and come with a service charge if you want to access more features.
Both options are used by developers, bloggers, and businesses to build websites for personal and commercial use.
In this Netlify Vs WordPress comparison guide, we are going to pit both cms platforms against each other and at the end, we will provide an answer to the question, Is WordPress or Netlify CMS Better?
What Makes WordPress and Netlify The Top Options?
While they both hold a major part in the market, WordPress is the most popular option. It claims about 35% of all websites on the net.
There are many reasons why WordPress is the preferred option but it is most likely due to the fact that non-techies with no programming knowledge can set up their sites on WordPress and still build something successful.
Netlify, on the other hand, is targeted at developers looking to do a little more than to put their site on automatic.
WordPress sites come with a heavy backend that could slow down the website’s speed and impact its security. With Netlify, developers can set up static sites that have one of the best site speeds on the internet.
However, sites like these are only perfect if they require no user interaction and do not undergo frequent changes. If you want to run a site where you will post evergreen content, Netlify offers good services you can try out.
Complex sites require better handling and a database-driven CMS platform like WordPress is the best pick for such sites.
While the site speed would not be comparable to what Netlify offers, it should not be a reason for concern.
WordPress allows you to install several Wp performance plugins, connect to a fast web host, and update your WordPress themes frequently to boost speeds.
WordPress CMS Platform
WordPress is an open-source CMS written in PHP and paired with either a MySQL or MariaDB database.
In simpler words, it is a platform that allows you to set up websites (blogs or business sites) even if you have little or no web design knowledge. It also features a plugin architecture and a template system (themes).
Adding pages and making new posts can happen with the click of a button which explains why it is the most popular CMS platform in the world.
WordPress can be used to create different types of websites – large and small. It is designed to accommodate e-commerce, blogs, portfolios, and many other types of sites.
The plugin architecture allows you to customize and design the site just how you want it without having to type in a bunch of codes as with other CMS platforms.
With WordPress, there are thousands of themes to choose from and you can use the drag-and-drop editor to build your site without hassle.
WordPress Pros and Cons
WordPress Pros
1. Easy customization with themes and plugins
If you’re planning to run an e-commerce site, you will need several tools that would be different from someone looking to open a personal blog.
This would require a lot of customization which means you would have to set up lines of codes that will allow shoppers to purchase your products with ease.
With WordPress, this doesn’t have to happen. The CMS platform allows you to set up any site without the need for coding.
To get started, you can either download a free theme or purchase a paid template that suits the type of site you want to run.
You can customize the template – setting up the header, footer, sidebars, and pages right from the admin panel – all you would need to do is make a few clicks.
Other things like uploading your logo, changing the theme background, and creating sliders can be done without writing codes.
With plugins, you can achieve even more. You can track your site performance, set up a newsletter, and protect your comment section from spam by just downloading a plugin with the needed capability. Once installed, the plugin will do its part.
2. Boosts SEO
It is no news that sites on WordPress tend to rank higher than others in search engine results.
This is because WordPress is written using high-quality code and produces semantic markup that search engine love.
You can go further to optimize your site for SEO by using any of the numerous plugins.
Yoast SEO is one of the most popular search engine optimization plugins for WordPress with more than five million active installations.
3. Safe and Secure
The internet can be full of uncertainty. One minute you’re on your website trying to log in and the next, you’re locked out because your details were leaked. WordPress is known to be very safe and secure for users.
To keep your website secure with WordPress, you can move the site to SSL/HTTPS, enable Web Application Firewall, and add a security plugin.
4. Can Handle Multiple Media
When you think about blogs what comes to mind is usually blocks of text with images for reference, however, it isn’t always so. Blogs could include videos and audio (for music blogs).
To handle all these, a CMS platform must be compatible with different media types. With WordPress, you can embed Instagram photos and videos, YouTube videos, Tweets, and Soundcloud audio by just pasting the source URL in your WordPress post editor.
5. Requires Little Coding Knowledge
When you set up your WordPress site, you will only have to upload a theme and install plugins to get started. Writing posts and pages, and attaching images would only require a few clicks. In most cases, you won’t have to deal with any lines of code.
This makes WordPress a great option for non-techie bloggers. You can start learning how to work your way through HTML and PHP as you use the platform but in most cases, you may not need it.
While many WordPress blogs can be built with little coding knowledge, complex sites like e-commerce sites and other websites built with complex themes would be tougher to build for non-web programmers.
WordPress Cons
While WordPress has a lot of benefits, it also has some shortcomings
1. Requires Lots of Plugins for Additional Features
Plugins help with site optimization. With them, you can add a newsletter, contact us form, SEO optimizer for your posts, and several other plugins depending on what your website needs. However, this means you may end up putting too much on your plate.
With so many plugins on your site, managing it won’t be easy especially if you’re the only one running the site.
Another big problem with plugins is that they are susceptible to viruses and software bugs. Worse, they can also be hacked.
2. Slow Speed
With so many plugins hooked onto your WordPress site, it is sure to slow it down. Not just plugins, but themes can lower the loading speed of your site as web pages take longer to build due to the heavy backend.
3. Cripples SEO and User Experience
Site speed is one of the main features used to identify how well a site would rank on search engine results pages. Slow sites won’t rank well and this means you would have less organic traffic coming to your site.
Also, the longer it takes your web pages to load, the less interested the user would be in reading your content.
This could lead to high bounce rates which also has an effect on your search engine rankings.
4. Expensive
While WordPress is free to all, you would have to pay to get access to premium features. You would have to buy a hosting plan, a custom domain name, a theme, and plugins. All these make managing a WordPress site expensive.
5. Hacks
Hacking plugins and injecting malware and adware is just one of the security issues WordPress sites have to deal with.
Due to the fact that it is the most popular CMS platform, WordPress sites are more prone to hacking than others.
Hackers and spammers usually make use of the contact form and blog comment section to inject malware into these sites.
Netlify CMS Platform
If you prefer building static sites, then Netlify is the to-go option. This CMS platform describes itself as the fastest way to build high-speed sites without worrying about servers or other infrastructure you would have to add with other platforms.
Netlify is based on JamStack technology which is built on headless and serverless technology based on APIs, client-side JavaScript, and prebuilt Markup. This structure boosts its overall security.
Content uploaded on Netlify is stored in your Git repository for easy edits and updates.
There is also the Netlify platform for creating fast sites. To get started, you would have to connect to your code repository, run automated builds using each git commit, set automatic deploys so you can rollback at any time, and customize your Netlify site using add-ons and third-party integrations.
Netlify would work best for developers with coding knowledge.
Netlify Pricing Plans
Beginners looking to start personal projects or hobby sites would find Netlify’s starter plan quite helpful.
There are also other Netlify plans that give you more features and better access but you would have to spend a lot more to get on these plans.
Netlify Pros and Cons
Netlify Pros
1. Speed
With Netlify, you will go serverless and this means a better page loading speed for your site. Faster loading speeds would help boost your overall search engine rankings and boost your user experience.
2. Automatic Deployment
With Netlify, you can configure continuous deployment from GitHub with ease. This works well with static website generators and plain websites.
There are other things to enjoy from Netlify but you would get them only on the paid plans. Paid plans offer advanced features like
- Password-protected sites
- Multiple account owners
- Emails support,
- Unlimited forms, identity & function
- Unlimited analytics for all sites
- Billing administrator role
- Audit logs with full history
- 99.99% uptime SLA
- SAML, single sign-on
- Slack & email notifications and so much more
Netlify Cons
1. Very expensive
While hosting your WordPress site would cost you a lot, getting on the Netlify platform will cost you more. The free starter plan is quite similar to that offered by WordPress.
However, the paid plans offer a lot more features than the average developer would need and has a hefty price tag attached to it.
2. Requires a Learning Curve
To create new sites with Netlify, you would need to know how websites work, how to set up a static website, and what a Git repository actually means. Then you may need some coding skills to get everything set up.
While WordPress has so many theme customizations and plugins that would require patience and a bit of knowledge to get things to work, Netlify would require you to be a developer to put things in order.
Is WordPress or Netlify CMS Platform Better?
WordPress and Netlify come with their own perks and downsides, but overall both platforms are very impressive. They are the most robust CMS platforms on the net.
WordPress is the go-to-option for beginners without programming experience but looking to launch well-designed sites. With lots of plugins available, you would only require a few clicks to get things set up.
However, you might want to watch out for the number of add-ons you hook onto your site. WordPress is known to be notoriously slow when it pulls too much weight.
This can easily be solved by picking a better hosting site or shedding off some excess weight by removing some plugins from your site.
The next option would be to use a static site generation to create static web pages. This is where Netlify CMS comes in.
This platform can be used to deploy static sites and it also makes it easier for you to edit content for static websites.
Both sites have different functionalities and serve different markets, but considering the fact that WordPress is the most popular CMS platform on the internet, we can say that WordPress is the right choice for anyone looking to set up a site.