WordPress, Craft CMS, or Statamic: what founders and marketing directors need to know

Most businesses default to WordPress because their agency suggested it, or because it is what they know. That is not a bad reason, but it is not a decision. WordPress, Craft CMS, and Statamic are genuinely different tools. The choice affects how often your content team gets blocked, what breaks during updates, and how much you pay to maintain the site over time.

The platform shapes everything that comes after

A CMS is not just a content editor. It determines how your developers work, what your site depends on, how updates are managed, and what it costs to add new features. Most of these consequences are invisible at the point of decision, which is why founders often only notice them once they are already a problem.

WordPress vs Craft CMS vs Statamic: a quick comparison

The table below covers the factors that matter most to non-technical decision makers. Details follow in each section.

WordPress: the most common choice, and why that cuts both ways

WordPress is an open-source CMS that powers around 43% of websites on the internet. It was originally built for blogging and has grown into a general-purpose platform through its plugin system. Most web agencies know it well, and most clients have at least heard of it.

That scale brings real advantages: a large pool of developers, thousands of plugins, and documentation for almost every problem you might encounter. Most agencies know it well, which keeps initial project costs predictable.

The risks are just as real. WordPress is the most targeted CMS for security attacks, precisely because it is so widely used. A site built on many plugins, each maintained by a different developer, creates a long chain of dependencies. When updates conflict, or a plugin is abandoned, the problem falls to whoever manages the site. I have written separately about the hidden costs of plugin sprawl, which is one of the most common issues I see on WordPress sites.

WordPress is a good fit when you need a large pool of developers to draw from, when your agency already specialises in it, or when you are running a high-volume content site that relies on its publishing ecosystem.

Craft CMS: more structure, less chaos

Craft CMS is a commercial CMS built for developers and content editors who need a structured, flexible publishing environment. Unlike WordPress, it does not ship with assumptions about how your content should be organised. You define the fields, the relationships, and the structure.

For businesses that publish regularly, manage multiple content types, or have a marketing team that needs a clean editing experience, this pays off. The editorial interface tends to be less cluttered than WordPress and more closely matches the way the content actually works.

The tradeoff is that Craft requires a capable developer to set up well. A poorly configured Craft site is just as frustrating to edit as a poorly built WordPress site. The platform is not the guarantee. The build quality is. If you are considering Craft, I work with Craft CMS regularly and can help you assess whether it is the right fit.

Craft is a good fit when your team publishes a lot, when content structure matters, or when you want an editor experience that non-technical staff can use without much training.

Statamic: a good fit for smaller, stable sites

Statamic is a CMS built on the Laravel PHP framework. Rather than storing content in a database, it uses flat files: plain text files on the server. This makes it fast to host, simpler to back up, and easier to keep in version control alongside the code.

For small-to-medium sites with a developer in place, Statamic removes a layer of infrastructure that often causes problems on other platforms. Hosting costs are lower because there is no database to manage. Deployments are straightforward.

Where Statamic is less suitable is for sites that will grow significantly in complexity, or for teams that need to draw from a large pool of freelance developers. The community is smaller and the platform is less well known, which matters when you are hiring or when your current developer moves on.

Statamic is a good fit when your site is stable in structure, when hosting cost matters, and when you have a trusted developer who knows the platform.

The questions worth asking before you decide

Rather than asking which CMS is best, ask which platform fits how your team actually works:

• Who will be updating content day-to-day, and how technical are they?

• How often will the site need new features or structural changes?

• Does your agency have a genuine reason for recommending this platform, or is it just what they build most often?

• What does ongoing maintenance look like, and who is responsible for it?

That last question matters more than most founders expect. A CMS that works well at launch can become a liability without a clear plan for ongoing maintenance and support.

Signs the current platform is costing more than it should

A CMS that is working well should feel unremarkable. If your team regularly gets blocked on simple content updates, if developer bills are high for small changes, or if updates are being avoided because they carry too much risk, those are signs the platform is not serving you well.

Migrating to a different CMS is a real project, but it is a finite one. As I have written elsewhere, staying on the wrong platform is often riskier than the migration itself. The cost of the wrong CMS compounds quietly. A migration has a start and an end.