Headless WordPress? Here’s Why It’s a Bad Idea
With a market share of almost 40% of all websites on the internet, Wordpress is one of the powerhouses in the CMS space.
However, all that glitters isn’t gold. WordPress isn’t a one size fits all solution, and many companies won’t benefit from using WordPress as their CMS, especially if they need headless capabilities.
In this article, we’ll tell you about headless WordPress and explain why it’s a bad idea.
What Is Headless WordPress?
Ever since REST API was bundled with the WordPress core in 2016, developers can experiment with it in a decoupled way, using JavaScript frameworks or libraries to write the front-end.
With a decoupled WordPress, the WYSIWYG editor is disabled, and most of the critical functions are instead managed through REST APIs.
The WordPress REST API returns JSON instead of HTML, giving you more flexibility around what kind of front-end you use: vanilla JavaScript, a native mobile application, an SPA, or all of the above.
While several types of sites and apps can benefit from the headless WordPress approach, WordPress comes pre-packaged with a myriad of options that you might not probably need, resulting in hefty performance losses.
When Headless WordPress Isn’t The Best Choice For Your Project
There are a few scenarios where headless WordPress is a bad idea. These are some of them.
1. Your Marketers Team
Since the headless architecture removes the visual interface, it’s likely that you will need someone fluent in JavaScript to maintain the site. Your marketers will need to learn more than basic front-end code.
2. When You Need an Easy-to-Use CMS with a great EX
While regular WordPress might be a good idea for many people out there, it’s headless component isn’t that simple to use, especially if you are not a developer. EX — Editor Experience — is not there. The truth is that going headless on WordPress might be an overkill and chances are that you’re better with a headless CMS that gives you a non-gimmicky performance and build EX features like native Page Management.
3. When You Rely on Plugins To Get Functionalities
Let’s say that you’ve built a WordPress site and want to go headless. It’s possible that the functionalities of any plugins you’ve installed won’t carry over to another application.
This means that if you’re building omnichannel experiences, you might not be able to with WordPress.
According to Aashni Shah, CEO at Elixir Labs “What made WordPress powerful was the numerous plugins; however, support for those plugins would randomly die or break between different versions of WordPress and then I’d either have to find and reconfigure a replacement or look for some other alternative.”
For example, static websites or PWAs need system-specific plugins and integrations, or maybe even new functionalities to be developed by a dedicated team. When you’re using headless WordPress, all the functionalities of the good old WP aren’t there, and you might have a hard time finding yourself at ease.
As Kira Leigh summarized in her article “This is why Wordpress sucks and you should probably stop using it”: “Wordpress is a nightmare for people who know how to code the same solutions, faster.”
A huge benefit of a true, headless, multi-tenant system is that it’s fully managed and upgraded for you. “This is a huge benefit because upgrading can often be a costly project, not to mention that it’s not very fun either so your team will be very happy to hear this benefit! A headless CMS like Agility CMS does not have versions. Updates are deployed continuously and automatically available to all users.” — Jon Voigt, CEO Agility CMS, explains.
4. When Speed Is a Must
WordPress, coupled or decoupled, isn’t really the fastest CMS out there and that’s a fact.
For instance, according to Adrian Busschaert from Soci Media,
“WordPress has an outdated structure and logic for the sake of maintaining compatibility with sites created many years ago. For this reason, the platform is slow, hard to customize and not secure.”
Due to its nature, WordPress has always been a request-heavy CMS, which makes it clunky and sluggish when we compare it with other modern CMSs. Even if you bundle responses, it might still not be enough.
Throttling the number of requests during site generation doesn’t work either as deployment takes too long, and sites are at a subpar speed, even with proper caching.
Headless WordPress vs True Headless CMS
One of the problems that headless WordPress presents is that you can’t really count on it when it comes to your long-term development needs.
Adding Features
For instance, if you require a feature on WordPress that doesn’t already exist as an add-on, plugin, or API, you’ll need to hire a developer to build that.
For example, one of the original Headless CMS (since 2003) Agility CMS is built to be an extensible platform which means you can add any feature your need or ask Agility team to build it for you. Very often, developers tweak the platform to suit client’s needs. We help you save development time and give you a stable, lightning-fast platform where you can develop all the omnichannel experiences your customers need.
Keep Reading
If you want to learn more about Wordpress vs a Headless CMS, make sure you read these articles:
Wordpress vs a Hybrid Headless CMS
Originally published at https://agilitycms.com on June 3, 2020.
