When it comes to designing a professional website, clients often face confusion, regardless of the cost. Many believe that custom development is the superior option due to its high cost and effort, while others think WordPress is less efficient because it requires less time and effort to design.
WordPress is Not a Replacement for Custom Development
Let’s first agree that WordPress is not a replacement for custom development, nor is custom development a competitor to WordPress. In simple terms, each has its optimal use case, and each company or individual should choose the technology that best suits their needs. That’s why various programming technologies exist, such as ASP.NET, PHP, and Laravel, all of which are successful. Likewise, there are content management systems (CMS) like WordPress, Joomla, and Shopify, which are also thriving without one technology replacing the other.
How Do I Choose the Right Technology for My Website?
You need to ask yourself what exactly you need from your website and which technology is best for those specific needs. For instance, if you are building a website to manage a group of companies and need a system to link them, gather detailed reports on sales ratios, attendance, customer tracking, and create custom graphs showing sales ratios or client categories, then custom development might be your best option.
If you also require integration with Excel files, where customer data is filtered, imported, and added to the website for detailed reporting, and you need the ability to search through your data, for example, to track an employee’s attendance from January 1, 2024, to January 1, 2025, custom development would again be the preferred choice. The same applies if you’re running a school, a factory, or a pharmaceutical warehouse.
When Should I Choose WordPress?
On the other hand, if you’re into dropshipping, need a system for booking trips, want to create an online store for your company’s products, or need a portfolio website, WordPress is undoubtedly the best option. Why? Because WordPress offers systems like WooCommerce for e-commerce and booking plugins that are well-established. Developing something similar from scratch would take years of development to reach the same level of functionality.
An excellent example of this is that AliExpress, a well-known e-commerce platform, uses a plugin specifically designed for WordPress for their e-commerce system.
Global Websites That Use WordPress
If you need more convincing, consider these global websites that use WordPress:
- Reuters News Agency
- The Walt Disney Company
- The White House
- Vogue USA
- Time Magazine
- Forbes
- The official website of Sweden
- Sony PlayStation Blog
- Facebook Newsroom
- Toyota Brazil
- University of Washington
- Canadian singer Justin Bieber
- Georgia State University
- Microsoft News
- Flickr
Conclusion
Each technology has its specific use case, and the best choice depends on the project you need to create. Custom development and WordPress both have their strengths, and the decision comes down to what suits your needs best.
Best regards,
PROGRAMER : Mostafa Salim