WordPress, Shopify or a custom build: choosing the right platform

One of the first decisions in any website project is what to build it on. The platform affects how much the site costs, how fast it is, how easy it is to update and what you can add later. There is no single best choice, only the right one for your situation.

Start with five questions

1. What must the site do? Present your services, sell products, take bookings, publish articles, run a members’ area?
2. Who will update it, and how often? A marketing team publishing weekly has different needs from a site that changes twice a year.
3. What is the budget, both to build and to run each year?
4. How important are speed and design freedom?
5. What might you need in two or three years? New languages, more products, integrations with your CRM or ERP?

WordPress

WordPress powers a large share of the web and is excellent for content-led sites: service businesses, blogs, publications and portfolios.

• Strengths: a familiar editor, a huge range of themes and plugins, strong SEO plugins, full ownership of your site and content, and developers are easy to find.
• Watch out for: it needs regular updates and good security practice. Sites built with heavy themes, page builders and many plugins often become slow and fragile.
• Best for: sites where publishing content is central and you want flexibility without a fully custom build.

Shopify

Shopify is a hosted e-commerce platform. It handles hosting, security, payments and checkout for you.

• Strengths: a reliable, well-tested checkout, inventory and order management, many payment and shipping integrations, and very little technical maintenance.
• Watch out for: monthly fees plus app subscriptions that add up, transaction fees on some setups, and less control over certain URL structures and checkout customisation.
• Best for: most businesses whose main goal is selling products online.

WooCommerce, the e-commerce extension for WordPress, is a strong alternative when content and commerce are equally important or you want full control, at the cost of more maintenance.

Hosted website builders

Tools such as Wix, Squarespace and Webflow let you build and host a site in one place.

• Strengths: quick to launch, predictable costs, no server to manage. Webflow in particular offers considerable design freedom.
• Watch out for: you are tied to the platform, moving away later can mean rebuilding, and advanced functionality may be limited.
• Best for: small sites, early-stage businesses and projects that need to launch quickly.

A custom build

A custom site is coded specifically for your business, often as a static or framework-based site with a headless CMS for editing.

• Strengths: complete design freedom, excellent speed, strong security with fewer moving parts, and functionality shaped exactly to your needs.
• Watch out for: higher upfront cost and reliance on developers for structural changes, unless a CMS is set up for content editing.
• Best for: brands where design and performance are a competitive advantage, complex requirements, or products and tools that off-the-shelf platforms cannot handle.

A quick guide

• Mostly selling products online: Shopify, or WooCommerce if content is equally important.
• Service business with regular articles: WordPress, built on a lightweight theme.
• Small site that needs to launch this month: a hosted builder.
• Distinctive brand, performance-critical or complex: a custom build.

Whatever you choose

Make sure you own your domain, can export your content, have access to analytics and Search Console, and know who is responsible for updates, backups and security. A good platform choice is one that still fits the business two years from now, not just on launch day.