Short version: WordPress is fine when several people work on one site and you publish something every week. For a five-page small-business site whose job is to win customers, a site in code is faster, safer and cheaper to keep.
What you buy with a theme
A WordPress theme is built to sell to everyone. So it contains everything: sliders, portfolio grids, team members, pricing tables, a shop. Your site might use a tenth of it, but the visitor loads all of it — plus the plugins needed to make the theme do what you actually wanted.
That is not the theme's fault. It is the price of something that has to work for everybody.
What you buy with code
A site in code contains only what your site does. No theme options you never open, no plugin to make a form, no plugin to make that plugin faster.
This site is the example: every page is built ahead of time into plain HTML, and the framework's JavaScript is stripped out again after the build. What is left is one small script for the motion. You can measure it yourself in Chrome with Lighthouse — which is exactly why I build this way.
The honest comparison
| | WordPress theme | Site in code | |---|---|---| | Speed | Depends on theme and plugins | Fast, and stays fast | | Maintenance | Weekly updates, plugins that clash | Almost no moving parts | | Security | The web's biggest target | No database, no login page | | Editing your own text | Yes | Yes, with a CMS | | A shop with 500 products | Better suited | Not what I build | | Daily publishing with four editors | Better suited | Possible, but not the strong point |
When WordPress is the right answer
When you have an editorial team. When you want a shop with hundreds of products. When your business runs on one specific plugin. Then WordPress is the right choice, and I will say so.
When code is the right answer
When your site mostly has to explain what you do, earn trust and get found. That is most small-business sites. With a theme you are paying for complexity you never use — and paying for it again every month in maintenance.
What about the CMS?
That question always comes. You get one: you change text, photos and opening hours yourself, with no per-change fee and no waiting for me to have time. The difference is that the CMS is not also your website.
More on how I build is on the websites page. What it costs is on the pricing page.