WordPress, a website builder or a custom site?
All three can give you a good website. They differ in who does the work, what it costs every month, and what happens when you want something it was not built for.
12 November 2026
The short answer
If you want to do it yourself and your needs are simple, a website builder is fine. If you want lots of add ons and someone to look after it, WordPress is the common choice, but it needs keeping up to date. If you want a fast site that needs little looking after, or something the others cannot do, a custom built site is worth the higher starting cost.
| Website builder | WordPress | Custom built | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who builds it | You, from a template | Usually a developer, using a theme and plugins | A developer, from your brief |
| Cost to start | Your time | Low to middling | Middling to high |
| Running cost | A monthly plan, rising with features | Hosting, paid plugins and updates | Hosting, often low, and changes when you need them |
| Looking after it | Done for you | Regular updates needed | Little, if built simply |
| Can you leave? | Hard: the design stays behind | Yes, to any host | Yes, if you own the code |
Website builders
You pick a template, drag in your words and pictures, and pay a monthly plan. For a few pages and a contact form, that can be all you need, and the company handles security and updates. The catches: the monthly price climbs as you add a shop, bookings or more storage; you can only do what the builder allows; and if you leave, you usually take your words and pictures but not the site itself.
WordPress
WordPress is free software that runs about four in ten of all websites. Its strength is its size: thousands of themes and plugins, and plenty of people who know it. Its weakness is the same thing. Each plugin is written by someone different and needs updating, and that is where most problems come from. In 2025, security researchers logged over 11,000 new weaknesses in WordPress add ons, 91% of them in plugins, and the most exploited were attacked within hours of being made public. A WordPress site is fine if someone keeps it updated; one left alone for a year is a risk.
Custom built
A developer builds exactly the site you need. Done well and kept simple, it can be very fast and need almost no looking after, because there are no plugins to update and less to go wrong. It costs more to start, and changes need a developer, so you want one you can rely on and code that is yours. It makes most sense when speed matters, when you need something unusual, or when you are tired of paying for updates.
Questions that decide it
- Will you update it yourself every week, or rarely?
- Do you need a shop, bookings, a members area or a link to another system?
- Who will keep it up to date, and are they paid to?
- Over five years, what will the monthly costs add up to?
- If you leave, what do you take with you?
For what each option tends to cost up front, see what a small business website costs to build. We build custom sites as ready made pages, which keeps them fast and cheap to host. Our website work page has more on how.
Where this comes from
- How many sites use WordPress: Usage statistics of WordPress, W3Techs.
- WordPress security in 2025: State of WordPress Security in 2026, Patchstack.
Not sure which suits you?
Tell us what your site needs to do. We will tell you which way we would go, even if it is not us.
Or email us at
hello@moonlathetechnologies.com