WordPress vs. HTML: Which is Best for Your Website?

Introduction to WordPress vs. HTML

When you think about developing a website, two terms, WordPress and HTML, hit your mind. Both are used for web pages and have their features, advantages, and disadvantages. Building a website for your business needs planning, designing, and launching. But, WordPress vs. HTML, which one to choose?

Today, we will know the difference between WordPress and HTML and what should be considered while making any website or blog.

What are their features and drawbacks, and what expertise do you need to know while using them?

First, we will know what WordPress and HTML are.

What is WordPress?

WordPress is an online tool or Content Management System(CMS) that provides the features to create and run a website without coding skills. It is easy to customize and install, entirely browser-based, and you don’t have to install any software separately.

It can be installed on your hosting service, where you can deploy live websites or make offline websites for knowledge.

WordPress has many plugins and advanced features that make your webpage creation work efficiently.

What is HTML?

HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language and is used to create websites. It would help if you had to know the syntax and appropriate tags used in HTML to make an HTML-based website.

Every webpage is made of HTML, including the pages created in WordPress is also HTML page. Developers know HTML makes websites from scratch and use different scripting languages along with HTML like JavaScript, CSS, or PHP.

Key Takeaways

• WordPress is easier for beginners, but HTML requires coding knowledge.
• HTML offers a more flexible design and functionality. In WordPress, you will have limited capabilities of the themes and plugins you use.
• WordPress requires regular updates for themes and plugins to ensure security and functionality. However, HTML websites don’t require as much maintenance.
• While WordPress is free, you may need to purchase premium themes or plugins. With an HTML website, you’ll also need to pay for hosting. You won’t have any additional costs unless you hire a developer.

Does WordPress use HTML?

The simple answer is. Yes, however, WordPress is not written in HTML. It is primarily written in PHP, which is a programming language. It controls how a WordPress website looks and connects it with a database.

PHP runs entirely on a server that hosts any website, so whenever a user requests any webpage by typing its URL, the PHP code requests and pulls the content from your WordPress database and converts it into a readable HTML file.

You can see your web page’s PHP code from WordPress, which differs from an HTML file.

Comparison between WordPress and HTML

So, now you know what WordPress and HTML are and how it works. It would help if you also understood the comparison between them and which is more suitable for a website.

1. Speed

You don’t want to wait long to load a website as a user. A study by Google shows that page load time goes from one second to 5 seconds, and then the probability of bouncing increases by 90%.

Page load speed is very crucial for any business and SEO.

While making a website, make sure it takes less time to load to reduce the bounce rate. Now, let’s compare the speed of WordPress and HTML sites.

WordPress

The WordPress site runs on PHP, and every time a user requests, it executes PHP code to load the information and show it to the users. It can increase load time and delays.

However, you can use Content Delivery Network(CDN) to optimize and compress the images that will boost your website and show your site’s contents from the nearest server to the visitors.

HTML

HTML sites do not require PHP code to execute and retrieve data from the database. So, the codes are already optimized and faster than the WordPress site.

You can optimize an HTML site by eliminating unnecessary CSS, Javascript, white spaces, and comments. Reduce the number of inline scripts, minify images, and more.

2. SEO

You are making a website and investing your time and money so people can see it. SEO is the main focus for any website owner to help rank their websites in search engines.

It helps drive more organic traffic and requires on-page, off-page, and technical SEO. So, let’s compare which site is more SEO-friendly.

WordPress

WordPress has many plugins, themes, and features that make SEO work smoothly. You can customize your dashboard’s image alt-text, meta description, URLs, and headings without touching a single line of code.

It comes with thousands of responsible and mobile-friendly themes.

You can install and activate them with a few clicks, and you don’t have to be techy. You don’t have to hire developers to manage these works. Several plugins available for SEO, like Yoast SEO and WP Rocket, will handle your SEO-related work.

WordPress is a complete SEO solution because it has many loaded features, and compared to an HTML site, it takes care of this job quickly.

HTML

To make an HTML site SEO-friendly, you need some knowledge, or you can hire a developer to handle it.

As mentioned above, in a WordPress site, you don’t have to touch any code, but in the case of an HTML site, you have to do it in your HTML code.

You have to add code to your HTML file from image alt-text to an external link, and it takes more time than a WordPress site. You can optimize your site for SEO from HTML, but it needs technical expertise.

3. Ease of Use

Every website owner wants to create and manage their site to be easy. So, let’s compare which one is easy to use and more flexible.

WordPress

If you use WordPress, you will have complete control over your site. Without coding from scratch, you can write and manage content, change your website’s appearance, configure its settings from the dashboard, and extend the functionality using plugins.

For the platform’s flexibility, you must spend time, effort, and money on updated software, themes, and plugins. You have to make your site safe and compatible. However, it will not take day-to-day management.

You can easily use WordPress because it has all the menus and options and can be managed from a single dashboard. You can add, modify, delete, and update anytime without hiring someone.

HTML

As you see, WordPress has all the functionality for managing any site and how it looks- HTML is not lucky enough. You won’t get any dashboard with built-in features, themes, and plugins to automate your task.

Instead, you must write HTML or CSS scripts for that; if you don’t know how you must pay someone who knows.

If your website does not need frequent updates, then HTML can be your choice because it requires fewer server resources. It will be cheaper and easy to build, and you don’t have to worry about updating software or extensions.

4. Pricing

Pricing can be a significant factor for someone who wants to build a website. Building a website may include design and technical knowledge, but not in the case of WordPress. Let’s look at a pricing comparison for WordPress and HTML sites.

WordPress

WordPress is open source and free to download and use. You only have to pay for your domain and hosting service, where your WordPress site will live and be available worldwide.

However, WordPress provides premium themes and plugins and free themes and plugins. It depends on whether users want to use the premium service or not.

At the same time, free resources won’t affect your site’s appearance and ranking.

Building a WordPress site can vary because hosting services and domain name registration vary in price. Also, it depends on the subscription of themes and plugins installed.

So, building a WordPress site can cost hundreds to a couple of thousands of dollars and, depending on the website owners, how much they want to spend.

HTML

Building an HTML site means building it from scratch. You must hire professionals if you don’t know how to write HTML codes and other scripting languages used in website building.

You may have to hire experienced individuals in different fields like HTML, CSS, Javascript, and PHP to complete building your site.

Also, you can hire freelancers at an hourly or monthly rate. Some will charge based on pages, design, appearance, responsiveness, SEO, etc.

So, estimating the cost of building and maintaining an HTML site is problematic because it depends on the developers and their willingness to charge.

Also, you must pay extra if you want to make site changes.

Some studies show that a responsive website with ten pages built with HTML will cost around $7,000 to $10,000. It is more compared to a WordPress site.

Also, remember that the price depends on the owners of an HTML site and how stylish, responsive, and SEO-friendly they want to make it.

5. Blogging

If you like blogging and want to publish regular content, then it is more likely to rank on search engines. Blogs are beneficial for getting information regarding anything just by typing some keywords.

So, which one to choose for blogging? WordPress or HTML? Let’s compare.

WordPress

WordPress is helpful in many ways, but it was initially made for blogging. It has lots of built-in functionality to create, modify, and update content, which is helpful for any blogger.

Its editor helps compose posts, add media files, schedule, publish, make drafts, and delete and update commands. Also, you can moderate comments, make your posts and pages public or private, or even secure them with a password.

Without editing any code, you can do everything from the dashboard. From a blogger’s perspective, it has many features that make blogging easy.

HTML

You can create even more complex posts from HTML than WordPress. It needs some knowledge of codes, and you can make any post or page per your requirements.

But, it will take longer than WordPress because you will not have menus or drag-and-drop editors.

You will have complete control over your content and how it should look, but it needs in-depth knowledge of CSS, Javascript, or PHP. So, if you want to make a blog and publish regular updates, WordPress will be a good fit for you rather than HTML.

FAQ

Is it better to use WordPress or HTML?

The choice between WordPress and HTML depends on your specific needs.

WordPress might be the better option if you’re a beginner and want to create a website quickly and easily.

It offers a user-friendly interface and a wide range of themes and plugins.

However, you have coding knowledge and want more control over every aspect of your website. In that case, HTML might be the better choice.

Which is better for blogging, WordPress or HTML?

For blogging, WordPress is the better option. It was originally designed as a blogging platform.

It offers features like easy content management, built-in blog layouts, and the ability to add comments.

While you can create a blog with HTML, it would require more coding and doesn’t offer the same built-in blogging features as WordPress.

How do WordPress and HTML compare in terms of SEO?

Both WordPress and HTML can be optimized for SEO. WordPress makes it relatively easy with SEO-friendly themes and plugins like Yoast SEO that guide you through optimizing your content.

With HTML, you have more control over your SEO, but it requires a good understanding of SEO principles and practices.

WordPress vs. HTML – Final Verdict

The short answer is that it depends. It’s up to the person and the type of website they want to make, whether they want frequent updates, posts, or changes on their site.

Also, it depends on whether website owners want to hire developers to create and manage their site or take control of the whole website through a platform.

It’s up to you to decide whether to build it from scratch or need any website-building platform. Your decision can be anything, but a website’s main goal should be to provide your visitors with relevant and valuable information.

Small businesses, Gyms, and Restaurants may find HTML more appealing if they have infrequent changes. Whereas Ecomm stores, companies looking to grow their brands and customer base can choose WordPress.

Also, the website’s cost will determine which one will suit you. So, there is no winner or loser for website development. It depends on how people want to make their site and how it should look, perform, and serve information and services to any visitor.