WordPress vs HTML: What’s the Best Way to Host Your Website?
When starting out building your website, there are few more important choices than how to host your online space. And with almost 75 million websites powered by WordPress, it’s easy to bypass many other options without giving them the chance they deserve. One legitimate choice is an HTML website, using HTML5, which is the latest technology offered.
In many cases HTML can be the right choice for your business. “Choosing between WordPress or HTML really comes down to ease versus flexibility” comments Nachum Sokolic, CEO of Working Title Software.
Which option gives better value for money?
Even the most basic WordPress website will need a MySQL database and PHP support included. While this is included as standard with even the cheapest options at the best hosting websites, you will not need to consider this at all when you build an HTML website. Web hosting costs can therefore be cheaper when you choose HTML.
When it comes to choice of theme, HTML wins on value for money again. A basic HTML theme the same as your WordPress choice is usually around half the cost, and both include all the support and updates you may need. Both of these facts contribute to why websites such as wplift.com agree that “the initial and long term invest in building a business portfolio or a personal website using WordPress is pretty high compared to HTML.”
Which choice is more flexible?
In terms of ease of use, you can’t get simpler than WordPress. Even considering the higher initial investment, it is certainly an easier to manage option. Update content as often as you please, make changes and post new content however you choose. Dynamic information like a photo gallery or ecommerce functionality will undoubtedly be easier to control, and without you needing to learn any of the technical skills which are used to create an HTML website.
However, once you have mastered the HTML scripting and some basis CSS, HTML5 is a far more flexible choice for whatever you want your online presence to be. Your website can be more responsive, more mobile friendly, offer simpler options for Search Engine Optimization and beyond. In fact, the latest HTML5 includes interactive options such as document editing and media playback, all of which give you more control over what your website is going to look like and offer to your visitors.
Lastly, HTML5 does not use client to server communication, which can also increase your website latency, providing better speed for your visitors, by allowing your website to load much faster.
What’s the bottom line when choosing between WordPress and HTML hosting?
When building a static website which does not need to be changed often or require dynamic content, HTML5 is a great choice and offers excellent value for money as well as added flexibility in terms of customization.
You might instead be looking for a more interactive website that can be changed often, perhaps with blog interaction with your visitors, or easy management of dynamic content many of which come with 1-click install. If this is the case, you have limited technical skills, and you don’t mind a slightly higher price tag or a loss to specific customization options, WordPress may well be the way to go.
What a weird comparison… I mean WordPress is a CMS and HTML is a markup language. it’s like comparing apples and oranges.
WordPress is the best platform to blog. One should follow it with custom domain and hosted with best wordpress web hosting.
Not really apple and oranges. More Oranges and tangerines. WP is a CMS but it also manages the scripting languages and which much be converted to PHP language to operation in the CMS. So the language question is relevant.
This is great, I would always choose HTML for myself and maybe use a third party CMS. I don’t like the security risks that come with wordpress and unless I am updating a blog, there is no real reason to host my site through wordpress. Thank you for this share!
Ha ha. I also prefer plain html.
I have many websites, but I’m seriously thinking to change (again) from WordPress to HTML5 in one of them. Is about recipes and I have more then 300, but I’m a little afraid about my SEO. Do you guys knows if is possible that this change is going to hurt my SEO?
@Teelah
Come on, do you mean that you code a whole html from the scratch? I didn’t know such people still exist… Nothing personal, but with WP I can create a dozen of sites within a day, and they will be getting traffic in a month. In the end, time is money, so why not use shortcuts with modern CMS that gets updates every month or so?
Hell yah. Those kinds of people do exist. :)
Stacy, such people still exist. If not, you will never have a “theme” to build your WordPress websites. The themes don’t grow in the thin air. Some coder must build them from scratch so that you can enjoy the themes they built and you can use. Without a coder WordPress won’t exist, neither your dozen of sites. Nothing personal.
superb reply, since becoz 100s templates available on net it doesnt meants everything built automatically…
Absolutely right. All those widgets and plugins were developed in HTML, PHP, JAVA Script etc. As a software engineer for many years, using WordPress, unless required by my client, is an attempt to loosing my coding skills. WP is great for new age developers who do not have the need to learn/know the engine behind the hood.
Every add-on to WP starts from scratch coding.
@Stacy – anyone can copy and paste a WordPress website together and then call themselves a Web Designer and they use to charge $10,000k+ for these. But now that everyone’s brother is doing them $100-2K
@Teelah – Your so right WordPress needs to be maintained for many security reasons and where are those so called web designers, oh wait they did not create it… SOL
@Ralph – Great point WP and HTML attract different users. WP is easier to update by the clients and HTML is better for Search Engine Ranking, WP is like Flash (clunky) compared to HTML.
I want to host new website but i am so confused. I studied some blogs and discussed with some experts but could not be satisfied. Some one told WP can get traffic faster and some one told html is more safe. Can anybody tell me what is the best way?
im sorry but wordpress outdated html coding. Its technology. I mean wordpress will not make multi million dollar apple websites. However, the basic medium business needs or start up companies will all go to wordpress. It costs way too much to hire some guy to write code when you can do wordpress in 5 minutes lol
The best Ways to designer a website is by scratch because if u design a site from scratch it help you to understand what call a website than designer it with CMS. But for past and lazier ways to developer a site is by used CMS e.t.c
WordPress 4 is using html5…?
If you are looking for a simple site then WordPress is the easiest option. If your going to provide a web app and are trying to use WordPress, be prepared for a headache. @darrel wilson, saying that wordPress is the future is silmilar to saying that flash was the future back when it was popular- the future is merely a matter of time, and mark up languages seem to outlast everything which attempts to be “user friendly”
ya! if you’re using WordPress don’t call yourself coder or web developer cos you know nothing about coding. you can’t code your customs themes, HTML pages, CSS and JavaScript as well. so HTML is d best to and if your a coder where ever your got problem you can debug and fix it skillfully..
Awesome article! WP indeed gives you en easier interface to update your site and it’s time saving too for non-tech friendly people specially. However the worst thing about WE is that almost all websites look similar. For someone like me who wants innovation and things done as per my own requirements, HTML is the buddy.
It really depends on the type of project that is being done. If there is a lot of information needed, HTML is probably your best bet, but that can even make your site slow. Using both together is a great option.
which is the best ranking coming to google .
wp sits or html sites
I reslly would love to hear what you think about my site. We are working on a new custom php site ( current one is also custom php) but my new coder wants to use WP…I’m just not sure that is a hood idea…can you be more clear about the security issues on WP ? Also i find the themes to be more money, why is that?
We’ve been running a WP site for a number of years now. I’ve learned along the way that while I believe our site is simple; it’s apparently too complex for WP. We continue to receive numerous errors regarding plugins, denial of access or failure to properly communicate with our database. If you have a blog; WP is great. If you’re trying to run a full-featured site with live chat, forums, live support, numerous daily updates, multiple membership levels, donations, etc…. I would highly suggest you look at HTML first. We are now looking into a complete redesign on a VPS with HTML and hind site being 20/20; I wish we would have started with HTML. One major problem with WP; you are at the mercy of every developer to update their products quickly and correctly. When you update WP; which is needed for security reasons monthly, you can easily kill multiple plugins since the path has been redirected to /js-template from /jstemplate. (example) I’m not a web developer; so I apologize for the “plain speak” or if anything I said strikes you as completely ignorant to how WP works, due to me lacking a professional level of knowledge on this subject.
thank you for sharing this artical