Web & migration
We regularly work with teams that have outgrown WordPress. Not because WordPress is bad — it often is not — but because the combination of plugins, hosting, and editorial freedom starts costing more than it gives back.
Migration to Next.js is not a magic trick that makes your site faster and better ranked overnight. It is an architecture choice with concrete benefits and concrete costs. Here is how we assess it, and what you should have in place before you start.
TL;DR
Key takeaways
- Stay on WordPress if content changes often, you have a strong editorial team, and performance issues can be solved with caching and fewer plugins.
- Consider Next.js when you want control over performance, security, and developer workflow — and when content is relatively stable or can be modelled as structured data.
- SEO loss during migration is avoidable if you plan redirects, preserve URL structure, and test in staging before cutover.
- A headless CMS (Sanity, Contentful, Payload) gives editorial freedom without tying you to WordPress' plugin ecosystem.
- Migration is a project — not a weekend task. Budget for a content audit, redirect mapping, and QA.
Why WordPress still wins many times
WordPress powers a large part of the web for a reason. Editors know it, there are plugins for almost everything, and you can publish content without involving a developer every time. For blogs, news sites, and marketing sites with frequent updates, it is often the right choice.
Problems typically start when the site grows: too many plugins loading JavaScript and CSS you do not use, a theme that has been customised over years without documentation, security updates that need coordinating, and a hosting setup that no longer matches traffic.
Before you consider migration, it is worth asking: can we solve this with fewer plugins, better caching, a new theme, and a CDN? Often much of the performance pain can be fixed without switching stack — and that is cheaper than a full migration.
What Next.js gives you that WordPress cannot
Next.js is a React framework that generates static pages at build time, server-side rendering where it makes sense, and automatic optimisation of images, fonts, and scripts. The result is typically a site that loads quickly without fighting plugin conflicts.
The developer experience is also different: versioned code, preview deploys on every pull request, type safety with TypeScript, and a deployment pipeline that makes it easy to roll back if something goes wrong. It is harder to maintain than WordPress for a non-technical team — but easier for a team already working in React.
The most important trade-off: content editing requires either a headless CMS, markdown files in git, or a combination. You do not lose editorial freedom — but you move it to a different tool than WordPress' admin panel.
WordPress vs. Next.js — honest comparison
WordPress
CMS with theme, plugins, and admin panel — all-in-one.
- Editors can publish without a developer
- Large plugin ecosystem for forms, SEO, analytics
- Hosting and maintenance are familiar
- Performance depends on theme + plugins + hosting
- Security requires ongoing plugin and core updates
- Custom functionality via PHP plugins can become fragile
Next.js
React framework with static generation and modern tooling.
- Fast page load out of the box with minimal configuration
- Full control over what is sent to the browser
- Preview deploys and CI/CD as standard
- Content requires a headless CMS or git-based workflow
- Requires a developer for structural changes
- No plugin ecosystem — you build or integrate yourself
Stay or migrate — decision guide
If more of the left rows fit, stay on WordPress. If more of the right fit, migration is worth investigating.
Stay on WordPress when…
Content is updated weekly by non-technical editors
Migrate to Next.js when…
Content is relatively stable or structured in a CMS
Stay on WordPress when…
Performance issues can be solved with caching and fewer plugins
Migrate to Next.js when…
Performance is critical and plugins/theme are the root cause
Stay on WordPress when…
You do not have a developer team that can maintain React code
Migrate to Next.js when…
You have or will build capacity to own the frontend code
Stay on WordPress when…
Budget and time for migration are limited
Migrate to Next.js when…
Long-term TCO of WordPress maintenance exceeds migration
Stay on WordPress when…
SEO and URL structure work fine as they are
Migrate to Next.js when…
You want full control over metadata, sitemap, and rendering
Migration in practice — typical flow
A migration project typically takes 6–12 weeks depending on site size and content complexity.
- 01
Content audit and URL mapping
Review all existing pages, posts, and media. Build a spreadsheet with old URL → new URL. Identify pages that can be deleted, consolidated, or redirected.
- 02
Choose a headless CMS and model content
Decide where content will live going forward — Sanity, Contentful, Payload, or markdown in git. Define content types that match your actual needs, not WordPress' post/page taxonomy.
- 03
Build Next.js site with SEO parity
Implement all pages with correct metadata, canonical URLs, Open Graph, JSON-LD, and sitemap. Ensure every old URL has a corresponding page or redirect.
- 04
Staging, QA, and redirect testing
Deploy to staging and run a crawl with a tool like Screaming Frog. Verify that all redirects return 301, that there are no broken links, and that meta tags match the old site.
- 05
Cutover and monitoring
Point DNS, submit the new sitemap to Google Search Console, and monitor crawl errors and ranking in the first weeks. Have a rollback plan ready if something goes wrong.
Questions we get again and again
Will we lose our Google ranking if we migrate?
Not if you do it right. Google treats a well-executed migration with correct 301 redirects and unchanged content as a site move — not a new site. Problems arise when URL structure changes without redirects, when content is deleted without replacement, or when meta tags and canonical URLs do not match. Plan SEO parity from day one.
Can our editors still edit content without a developer?
Yes — with a headless CMS like Sanity or Contentful, editors get an admin panel that resembles the WordPress experience. They can create pages, upload images, and publish without touching code. The difference is that structure is defined upfront, which gives more consistent output.
How long does a migration typically take?
A site with 20–50 pages and relatively simple content typically takes 6–8 weeks. Larger sites with hundreds of pages, custom post types, and complex integrations can take 10–14 weeks. Discovery and content audit often take longer than the coding itself.
Should we migrate everything at once, or can we do it gradually?
Gradual migration is possible with a reverse proxy that routes parts of the site to Next.js and the rest to WordPress. It requires more infrastructure and can create SEO challenges with duplicate content. For most teams, a single cutover with good staging and QA is the cleaner path.
What happens to our WordPress plugins — forms, analytics, SEO?
Plugins are replaced with dedicated integrations: forms via Formspree, Tally, or a custom API endpoint; analytics via Google Tag Manager or Plausible; SEO via the Next.js metadata API and structured data in code. You do not lose functionality — but you must actively choose replacements instead of installing a plugin.
If you want to think through migration with us
We are happy to have an informal chat about your WordPress site.
Write a few lines about what you are dealing with — site size, performance problems, editorial needs — and we will come back with an honest assessment of whether migration makes sense. No sales pitch.