“Everybody thinks their website is above average.” – Matt Cutts

Every company out there wants to make their website stand out from the rest of 1.94 billion websites across the globe, to stay ahead of the competition. The foremost task being to define your business needs and what is to be accomplished. On this foundation, the platform on which the website is to be built can be decided upon.

Looking at the market survey and current trends for website development, robust systems like WordPress and evergreen HTML seems to be at loggerheads. Both of them have their own style of website creation characteristics which completely depends on what is your requirement. The million dollar question is – how are they different from one another? Which one is better? Let us understand what is WordPress and HTML with their own sets of pros and cons.


What is HTML ?

Hyper Text Markup language or most commonly called as HTML, is a markup language that allows static page creation on the web, then giving a structure to the website. To enhance its features, CSS and JavaScript is used along with it. The content will be stored in an HTML website as static pages.

HTML is not for amateurs. Creating a website with HTML may not be easy. You may need to hire a web developer for creating your web pages as it is not easy to design & build a website yourself.


Why HTML ?

  • Security:

    Given the structure of how a website is going to be built in HTML, it hold static pages and data, bundled together by code. This makes it difficult for HTML sites to become a target of any mass virus or spam attacks.

  • Custom Design:

    HTML gives a free hand to design the UI/UX for the website as per the client requirement. Every element placed in the site can be embedded in sync with the other elements.

  • Fewer Resources required:

    HTML based websites don’t need servers with PHP or MySQL installed on them. They are fully compatible with the servers consisting of low resources and cheaper servers.

  • Ease of Maintenance:

    HTML based sites require little or no maintenance at all for the websites are static and require no data update. There is no requirement to regularly update or install updates once the website is live.


Why Not HTML ?

  • Non Beginner Friendly:

    Static HTML is good for building a basic website. However, you need to do a little coding if you want to update your content, and you need to rewrite your CSS if you want to change your site’s appearance.

  • High Maintenance Cost:

    If you have changes to be implemented and you don’t have any coding ability, you will have to pay a developer to make those changes or perform updates.


What is WordPress?

WordPress is a Content Management System (CMS) that allows users to easily create, manage, and modify website content using admin area specifically designed to be user-friendly. It doesn’t require users to understand coding to start using it.

WordPress depends on databases to store information, giving a dynamic functionality to the website. More than 30% of all websites on the internet use WordPress, thus, it makes WordPress the most well-known CMS on the market.


Why WordPress?

  • Ease of use:

    WordPress is easy to begin working with as you don’t need any technical skills to know how to use it. This allows you to almost completely eliminate the need to know how to code. When performing your website’s daily management tasks the platform is specifically designed to be very beginner-friendly. It is famous for its 5-minute installation. Instead of coding, most of the actions can be performed through its user interface.

  • Customizable:

    You can easily incorporate elements to your site with plugins and use various pre-made themes. The platform has a robust number of plugins in the official plugin directory and a dedicated theme directory also. There are also many online shops that offer WordPress plugins and themes at an affordable price. Plugins act as code extensions to further increase your site’s functionality and power. Meanwhile, themes are used to customize how you want your website to look. You can can the look and feel of the site by changing the themes and plugins whenever required with ease.

  • Open Source:

    Anyone can contribute to WordPress – helping in fixing issues and bugs, etc.; they can also create and develop their own WordPress themes and plugins. This helps the rapid development of WordPress as the platform always gets better whenever there is a new release or an update.

  • SEO Friendly:

    Now, WordPress was built as a blogging platform and thus has a lot of SEO embedded throughout its code. Not saying that having a WordPress website will give you 1000 views per day instantly, but this number is achievable faster through WordPress.

  • Full control and Ownership

    A complete control and access of the website, the domain name and its contents are with the owner. Multiple changes can be made and the site can grow limitlessly in popularity, traffic, sales, and users.


Why Not WordPress?

  • Constant Maintenance:

    You will be responsible for keeping WordPress, installed plugins, and themes up to date. Managed WordPress hosting can also be used who can do this for you.

  • Need HTML for advance additions:

    WordPress is built on PHP and MySQL. Fortunately, you don’t have to worry as you can use WordPress without any knowledge of  PHP and MySQL. However, to make more advanced customizations that are not offered by plugins or themes, you need to know PHP, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, which might take time to learn.


Which one to choose?

There is no ultimate winner, the ultimate question that one should ask oneself before making a choice is the actual use case. If it is a personal website or a lightweight corporate site or on the same lines, where the purpose is information sharing, WordPress is good to go for. But if there are enormous applications like e-commerce, social platforms, or the likes of it, the situation changes and in such cases a lot of factors are to be considered and most likely is it suitable to go with HTML  using backend and front-end tools and frameworks.

If you still have mixed thoughts about how to go about your website, Ace Infoway can help you get out of your dilemma for web development and also assist in creating a WordPress or even an HTML website depending on your requirements.