Why static sites beat WordPress
A client asked me to patch their WordPress site, and it got me thinking about why static usually wins.
The other week a client reached out about a site they were running on WordPress, and I ended up patching it. Update the core, bump the PHP version, check the plugins, and make sure nothing broke on the way.
WordPress has real strengths. It is easy for people to log in and change their own content, easy to hand over to someone else, and there is a plugin for almost anything. For a lot of teams that matters, and I understand why it is still everywhere.
But it also feels like an old way of doing things. To run WordPress you need a live server. That usually means an instance on something like DigitalOcean or Azure, with PHP and a database running all the time. You have to keep the core, the plugins, and the PHP version up to date, and that instance costs money every month whether anyone visits or not.
A static site is the opposite. It is just files served as they are. There is no database and no login sitting on the internet, so there is far less to attack and far less to keep patched. You can host it for next to nothing, and it stays fast because nothing has to be built on each request.
WordPress still makes sense when a non technical team needs to edit content every day. But for a lot of sites, especially small ones, static wins on cost, speed, and security. And there are plenty of ways to push a static site further when you actually need more.