Let us say it plainly: WordPress is a good tool, it powers a large share of the web, and some situations fully justify it. This comparison is not an indictment — it is a factual grid for a conventional “editorial” website (presentation, news, contact), which is what most non-profits and small businesses need. For each line item, we give the figures and what makes them vary.
A word on vocabulary. What is commonly called a “static site” is a pre-generated site: its pages are built at the very moment you publish them, rather than reassembled on every visit. The term describes how pages are made, never your freedom to change them — content stays editable at any time from a back office (see point 5).
The summary table
| Criterion | WordPress | Pre-generated site |
|---|---|---|
| Time to display a page | 1.5 to 4 s (depending on hosting and plugins) | 0.2 to 0.8 s |
| Typical Lighthouse score | 50 to 85 | 95 to 100 |
| Updates to manage | core + theme + 5 to 15 plugins, continuously | none on the site itself |
| Attack surface | database, PHP, plugins, login page | static files only |
| Hosting required | PHP + MySQL (€8 to €30/month for a serious plan) | any web server |
| Three-year total (8-page site) | ≈ €3,000 | ≈ €2,100 |
| Content editing | WordPress back office | equivalent back office (Keystatic), with history |
| Dependence on plugins | high (forms, SEO, cache, security…) | none — features are built in |
Let us take each line in turn.
1. Speed — measurable, and decisive for Google
A WordPress page is built on every visit: PHP queries MySQL, assembles the theme, runs the plugins, then returns the page. Even well optimised (cache, CDN), the foundation stays heavy. A pre-generated page is already built: the server sends it, and that is all.
Typical measurements on an eight-page non-profit site (4G connection, mid-range phone):
- entry-level shared WordPress: 2.5 to 4 s before the page is fully displayed;
- well-optimised WordPress (cache + CDN, around €10/month of plugins): 1 to 1.5 s;
- pre-generated site with no particular optimisation: 0.3 to 0.8 s.
Google factors these metrics (Core Web Vitals) into its ranking: with equal content, the faster site comes first.
2. Security — a question of attack surface
The public figures from Patchstack and Sucuri have agreed for years: more than 90% of hacked WordPress sites are compromised through a vulnerable plugin or theme, the rest through weak admin accounts. It is not that WordPress is badly written — it is that every plugin is one more door, maintained (or not) by a third party.
A pre-generated site exposes no database, no code execution and no login page to the public. The classic attack vectors simply do not exist. What remains is the server itself — shared and maintained for every site at once, by professionals.
The cost of a hack for a non-profit: €300 to €800 of clean-up, a site unavailable or defaced for days, and a Google ranking damaged for a long time if the site was used to spread spam.
3. Three-year total cost — the build price tells you nothing
Here is the full sum for an eight-page site with news:
| Line item | “Economical” WordPress | Pre-generated site |
|---|---|---|
| Build | €1,000 | €1,200 |
| Hosting, 36 months | €540 (€15/month) | €900 (€25/month, maintenance included) |
| Premium plugins (forms, backups, SEO) | €250 | €0 |
| Maintenance / updates | €900 to €1,800 (€300–600/year) | included |
| Incidents (likelihood × cost) | ≈ €300 | ≈ €0 |
| Three-year total | ≈ €3,000 to €3,900 | ≈ €2,100 |
The line item that tips the balance is never the build: it is recurring maintenance, essential and unavoidable on WordPress (not paying for it amounts to budgeting for a hack).
4. Dependence on plugins — the hidden cost
A typical non-profit WordPress carries 8 to 15 plugins: forms, SEO, cache, security, backups, gallery, anti-spam. Each one may, at any update: start charging, break the layout, conflict with another, or be abandoned by its author (and become a vulnerability). Life with a WordPress site is the management of that ecosystem.
On a modern pre-generated site these functions are built in: the form, the performance, the SEO and the backups are part of the foundation, with no third party to watch.
5. What about editing content?
This is WordPress's real historical strength, and the most legitimate objection. It no longer holds: modern content management systems for static sites (we use Keystatic) offer a back office just as simple — entry forms, images, preview — with two advantages on top: every change is kept in history and can be undone, and the editor cannot break the site (no plugins to touch, no white screen).
When WordPress remains the right choice
In fairness, the cases where we do not recommend a pre-generated site on its own:
- a full online shop (WooCommerce has its ecosystem);
- a high-volume multi-author blog with complex editorial workflows;
- a team already trained and invested in WordPress, with serious management in place — migrating for the sake of migrating makes no sense.
For everything else — and that is the vast majority of non-profit websites — the sum is not close: faster, safer, cheaper over time.
Want to check these figures against your own site? We offer an audit of what you have, with written recommendations (€300 excl. VAT), deductible from the project if you entrust it to us. Let's talk.