Is WordPress overkill for a simple static website?

asim18 · 22 Sep 2014 at 01:48

Someone needed a very simple website done with five totally static pages.

Because the site was so simple I thought I'd experiment by laying it out using Wordpress. I've got to grips with it and have managed to get a website looking exactly like I want....

But it seems pretty bloated.

I know for a fact that I could have coded from scratch exactly the same layout and it would have taken 30-50 sparse lines of code per page. Wordpress is using over 700 fully dense lines of code per page, and not to mention reading from a DB.

I think there's just too much going on in WordPress. I see almost every basic website using WordPresss these days, and I wonder how many server resources could be saved by using bespoke coding.

AHarvey · 22 Sep 2014 at 02:18

nope, I've always considered to be that basic to moderate sites main choice.

Yes, you could write it yourself and it would be cleaner and simpler, but then what happens when the "someone" needs to make changes, or comes up with ideas that require you to move away from static pages?

It may be slightly overkill now, but 3 months down the line it could be exactly what is needed.

asim18 · 22 Sep 2014 at 03:39

A fair point. I can see how it's appealing to know that your client can update their website like how they update Facebook

touch · 22 Sep 2014 at 10:57

It's a PITA to build a responsive website from scratch and testing it in all screen sizes, browsers, etc.
Wordpress (with a well-built theme) does it all out of the box.
It's also pretty well set up for SEO, which can be time-consuming to do yourself.

AJK · 22 Sep 2014 at 11:34

I know for a fact that I could have coded from scratch exactly the same layout and it would have taken 30-50 sparse lines of code per page.

Yeah, but that's missing the point a bit... of course you can produce a few basic pages with a small amount of code. It's the ease of updates and maintenance, choice of themes, and ability to add new functionality without a great deal of custom coding that a CMS such as WordPress brings to the table.

If you genuinely don't need any of that - perhaps if you're just building a holding page or two which will never, or very infrequently, change - then a CMS probably is surplus to requirements.

OhEsEcks · 22 Sep 2014 at 12:56

Wordpress is overkill. Have a look at static site generators.

mortals · 22 Sep 2014 at 19:29

OhEsEcks said:
Wordpress is overkill. Have a look at static site generators.

^^this

static sites are really easy to make (even responsive) if you have a framework

also if you use a site generator you can use templating (eg: handlebars) and have hader/footer/partials etc
another option is setup a workflow with grunt, livereload etc

so many options really

having wordpress means you have php + sql + a backend and also requires you to update for security fixes etc (eg: recent LFI in wordpress)

Throrik · 22 Sep 2014 at 23:12

I'd look at the MKDocs package, creates markdown documents where you define the layout in a YML page. Looks pretty nice. Gives you a static HTML/CSS/JS output for you to upload.

dmsims · 23 Sep 2014 at 00:28

Wordpress a CMS ? since when

Mynight · 23 Sep 2014 at 01:08

dmsims said:
Wordpress a CMS ? since when

I though wordpress had been a CMS since public release?

mtalk · 23 Sep 2014 at 06:21

Yes its a CMS from the time I know it

AJK · 23 Sep 2014 at 08:39

dmsims said:
Wordpress a CMS ? since when

Why, what did you think it was?

RoyMi6 · 23 Sep 2014 at 10:38

While I agree that WordPress my seem like overkill for small websites it's a risk that's paid off for me many times.

1) It makes updates simple for YOU. The number of times I've had a call when I'm out and about and been able to make the simplest change last minute gives the client the impression you can work magic. Simple changes via the phone app are straight forward.

2) It makes it an easy sell for extra features. Client gets in touch asking for a quote for twitter integration or even a massive revamp and it's easily done either via a plugin or just developing a new theme.

Saying that, make sure you've got some decent caching on there with something like WP Super Cache and minimise all you JS/CSS. No point it taking longer to load than it should.

Wilkotron · 23 Sep 2014 at 11:53

It depends, to a certain extent, how you want to look at it.

It makes sense from a development point of view, saving debugging and browser testing time and will be easy to upgrade in the future, as stated.

On the flip side, you've got to teach your client how to administer content and run the potential risk of things being broken, should everything not be locked down.

Just my two pence.

robbi187 · 23 Sep 2014 at 12:54

Bootstrap anyone?

I agree wordpress is perfect for most but that doesn't mean it's always perfect. As stated above you have to see where your clients want the site to be in a few months/years time.

AJK · 23 Sep 2014 at 13:11

robbi187 said:
Bootstrap anyone?

Are you suggesting that Bootstrap is some kind of CMS or page generator?

robbi187 · 23 Sep 2014 at 13:19

AJK said:
Are you suggesting that Bootstrap is some kind of CMS or page generator?

The OP wasn't asking for an alternative CMS he was asking if Wordpress was overkill / bloated. Somebody then later spoke about using a more framework orientated development, hence why I suggested researching Bootstrap. Not as an alternative CMS or Static page generator as it is neither of those things.

AJK · 23 Sep 2014 at 13:37

robbi187 said:
The OP wasn't asking for an alternative CMS he was asking if Wordpress was overkill / bloated. Somebody then later spoke about using a more framework orientated development, hence why I suggested researching Bootstrap. Not as an alternative CMS or Static page generator as it is neither of those things.

Well fair enough; since most of the conversation in this topic has been about the use (or not) of CMS's, and the comment about using a framework was buried about 7 posts up from your "bootstrap anyone", perhaps you can see my confusion? Anyway...

BS is a good enough starting point for a simple responsive site with some nice modern-looking UI elements. It doesn't really have anything to do with how you structure the site, or manage content, widgets, generate menus, or anything else you might do with a site though (even on a small scale)... that's where WP (or its alternatives) come in. There are some nice (free) Bootstrap WordPress themes out there!

robbi187 · 23 Sep 2014 at 14:52

I'm sorry you got confused.

asim18 · 24 Sep 2014 at 04:56

Wow. WP folder was 120MB, after hand-coding everything (admittedly with a little help from some bits of pre-coded JS) site is now 1.7MB in total and using absolutely no server time. Looks a lot better too as there were some layout things which weren't possible/very hard to do in WP with its million lines of redundant CSS.

Some interesting things mentioned though, I will read up on them, thanks to all.

As for Worpress in particular, I doubt I'll be interested in becoming a WP guru any time soon. To sum it up, otherwise easy tasks are much more complicated to accomplish in return for some hard things which are made very easy.