A business case for Craft versus WordPress 2025

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Nine years ago, I wrote an article titled A Business Case for Craft versus WordPress, in response to a client who wanted to understand why the agency I was working for chose Craft CMS over WordPress. At that time, we had been using Craft for about eight months, and I had completed seven Craft builds.

After spending the past eight years primarily focused on WordPress, I recently revisited Craft CMS. Given my renewed experience with the platform, I felt it was a great opportunity to update and refresh the original article for 2025.

Last week, I shared my personal experience converting a WordPress site to Craft, focusing on the how of the process. This article, however, makes the business case for why an agency, freelancer, or client should consider Craft—whether for a new site or migrating from WordPress. Given the current landscape of the WordPress community, this is a strategy worth serious consideration.

Note: This is written from the perspective of comparing Craft CMS to the self-hosting version of WordPress (wordpress.org), not the WordPress solution found at wordpress.com.

Craft was built by a company and does not have one central figure behind it

I am going to start out by addressing one of the main reasons I would consider Craft over WordPress in 2025. The future of WordPress is a bit shaky right now given all the drama that Matt Mullenweg stirred up in the past 6 months. In my opinion, Matt had acted very unprofessionally in how he has handled the situation. I believe it has hurt the credibility of the WordPress community and raised alarms about the future of the software.

WordPress is open source software. But it is also a business and many businesses have been generated around it, like WP Engine. It is interesting to me that the main thrust of the drama has to do with those profiting off of WordPress and the investment that they are making in the open source software. It feels a bit like a blurring of the lines.

Craft is not open source. And you need to buy a license if you are going to use the software to build a website as part of a business, like an agency or freelancer for a client. I am guessing that the licensing is a barrier to many when you could use am open source software like WordPress for free. But I think there are a lot of other costs that are not considered when using free software.

Craft is built by a team and it is a business. And from where I am standing, there are no central personalities that represent Craft. No one creating a lot of drama or calling others to the carpet because they are not happy with how other businesses are contributing to the product.

I believe because Craft is a business and has always been a business, it has a more stable and secure future. It is in the interest of the business to keep producing a quality product and working with its partners to further that business for all those involved.

Craft is a true CMS out of the box

When I wrote my original article, I had to modify configuration files extensively just to disable WordPress features that interfered with building a website. Originally designed as a blogging engine, WordPress only later introduced custom post types to support content beyond posts and pages. Even then, plugins like Advanced Custom Fields were needed to add custom fields and make WordPress function more like a true CMS. These workarounds required extra coding in PHP or reliance on third-party plugins to achieve essential CMS functionality.

Craft is a true CMS right out of the box. You can easily create new content types directly in the dashboard—no plugins or coding required. It offers a wide range of built-in field types, including the powerful and flexible Matrix field, which has been a core feature from the start. Craft allows you to structure content exactly as needed without unnecessary constraints, while giving you full control over template coding. This seamless integration makes for a more intuitive and efficient authoring experience.

Craft is a more robust solution that doesn’t rely on third-party plugins for custom site development. Its ease of setup allows for faster development, saving clients money while increasing profitability for agencies and freelancers.

Craft only uses one programming language

Craft is built upon PHP. Developers write Twig, which is a templating language that compiles to optimized PHP code. Twig is actually much cleaner and more concise to write. It is easy to learn and I believe it is much more readable and understandable than plain PHP. Not a lot had changed when I reacquainted myself with building with Craft after a eight year hiatus. It was easy to relearn and pick up where I left off.

WordPress is built on a combination of PHP and React. React became an integral part of the platform with the introduction of the Gutenberg editor in 2021. Developing native WordPress blocks now requires proficiency in both React and PHP. However, WordPress did not handle this transition well, particularly for developers who relied on the platform for their livelihood. The documentation was sparse, and as Gutenberg evolved, frequent changes often broke existing implementations.

The shift didn’t stop there. With the introduction of full-site editing, WordPress continues to redefine how sites are built. Instead of refining and expanding their existing expertise, developers must constantly adapt to entirely new approaches. This constant upheaval diverts attention from other critical aspects of web development, such as user experience, accessibility, and creating high-quality digital experiences.

To be clear, learning new skills is an inherent part of being a developer. However, when a platform undergoes continuous, disruptive changes, staying current becomes more of a challenge than an opportunity.

Additionally, the coexistence of both React and PHP within WordPress feels disjointed. A more cohesive approach might have been to rebuild the platform from the ground up, committing to a single, well-integrated technology stack.

Security, software updates, and higher cost of maintenance

Due to its popularity, WordPress has long been a prime target for hackers. I’ve experienced WordPress site hacks firsthand. One of the most effective strategies for reducing vulnerabilities is diligently applying software updates, as many patches address security flaws.

However, WordPress updates can sometimes break third-party plugins, potentially disrupting site functionality. This creates a dependency on plugin developers to keep their plugins compatible with the latest WordPress versions. Unfortunately, not all plugins are actively maintained, increasing the risk of compatibility issues and security vulnerabilities.

Craft sites tend to be less dependent on third-party plugins so there is less chance of compromising site functionality when Craft needs to be updated. I have only used a handful of plugins in the past and was only recommended a handful when I built a site through CraftQuest’s Real World Craft CMS 5 course.

Ultimately, the long-term maintenance costs for a Craft website tend to be significantly lower than those of a WordPress site. Craft also has fewer security concerns, as its team actively reviews the codebase and dependencies to stay ahead of vulnerabilities. That commitment makes the initial investment in a site license well worth it for the peace of mind it provides.

Simpler, more user-friendly interface

This was one of the points in my original article. Craft’s interface has also “felt” better to me. It is simple, elegant, intuitive, and it gets out of your way. I believe more attention was given to the design.

I used both Drupal and WordPress early on in my development career. One of the things I admired about Drupal was that it was much more robust than WordPress. Then I had the change to work with ExpressionEngine. I thought that ExpressionEngine was a great middle ground. It was robust but not too overengineered. And it had a much more elegant interface than both Drupal and WordPress.

The creators of Craft were ExpressionEngine users and plugin developers and I believe they took some really good cues from ExpressionEngine when they built Craft. The interface feels less crowded and has a generous amount of spacing which makes it feel more elegant.

My goal is to create products that are not just easy and intuitive for the audience on the front end but also easy and intuitive for the client team on the back end. I want to remove as many barriers as possible for the client to update and maintain the site after we hand off the site.

I think Craft provides a great balance that makes it easy and intuitive for the client to add and manage content through the Craft dashboard. But Craft also allows the content creator to preview the page and see what it will look like on the front end.

Many of the Gutenberg sites that I have built combine the editing experience with seeing what it will look like in the front end. I’m not sure if that is true of every Gutenberg site build but it seems like that is the default. But I believe that adds too much complexity to the editor experience. I think it is best to provide the editor with a simple interface to enter and edit content. And then they can preview it without having to save the changes, which you have to do fof the same sort of preview in WordPress.

Craft offers significant flexibility in content layout and presentation within the editor. You can create content using Matrix fields or the CKEditor, with many field types allowing you to choose how your content is displayed.

When I reacquainted myself with Craft at the end of last year, I noticed how the Craft team had improved the authoring experience. They simplified several aspects of creating content types and fields — further proof of their commitment to empowering users who rely on the software for their work.

A better authoring experience and an easy-to-use interface mean clients can complete tasks more quickly and with less friction.

Image management

One of the things that I most liked about Craft when I first started using it was the image management. In order to define custom image sizes in WordPress, you have to create those sizes in a configuration file. But WordPress will apply those custom image sizes to every image you upload.

Craft gives you the ability to define image transforms (sizes) and assign them to specific content. It gives you a more on-demand way to manipulate your images. Transforms are non-destructive and do not alter the original image. That means you could define different transforms in the future without having to run a plugin to recreate image in the updated sizes.

The business advantage is reduced server storage usage, as fewer images take up the limited space provided by your hosting service. And more flexibility to create new image size use cases in the future.

Craft is serious about accessibility

From the Craft website:

We’re committed to making Craft’s authoring experience as accessible as possible. All new features are audited for WCAG 2.2 and ATAG 2.0 compliance, and each release includes new accessibility improvements to existing features as well, as we work to make the entire control panel WCAG 2.2 and ATAG 2.0-compliant.

Designed to Be Accessible, Craft versus WordPress on Craft website

My observation is that WordPress is not as serious about accessibility. I have concerns with React powering the authoring experience and how it relates to accessibility.

From the Deque website:

In short, the WordPress community values the importance of accessibility, and it has applaudable accessibility goals, but it still has progress to make. There are still accessibility shortcomings within WordPress out of the box; it is difficult for people with disabilities to author content in WordPress, for example, and it is hard to ensure that content authors don’t create inaccessible webpages.

The Complete Guide to Accessibility for WordPress Websites

In conclusion

While the reasons I believe Craft is the better solution for developers, agencies, and their clients remain largely unchanged, the case for choosing Craft over WordPress has only strengthened. The current landscape in the WordPress world, combined with Craft’s proven track record of enhancing the authoring experience, makes it an even more compelling option. Craft consistently considers the needs of all stakeholders—developers, agencies, clients, and site audiences—and continues to improve on these areas. Personally, I prefer Craft and look forward to using it more in the future.

That said, Craft isn’t the best fit for everyone. If you’re a business with a more limited budget looking for a straightforward, off-the-shelf solution with customizable themes, WordPress is likely a better choice. However, for those seeking to collaborate with professionals to design and build a custom site, Craft stands out as the more fitting solution.

When I first made my case, I did so with an agency-client relationship in mind, and I acknowledge that this bias shaped my perspective.

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