ButterCMS vs WordPress: Why Choose Butter
Tags: wordpress, cms, butter
Published: 2018-07-27 15:10:04

---
title: ButterCMS vs WordPress: Why Choose Butter
published: true
description: Learn about the WordPress fallacies that lead people to use it as their default CMS experience and why Butter may actually be the ingredient you need. 
tags: WordPress, CMS, Butter
---
<span style="font-weight: 400;">As we saw in the previous article, in a</span> [<span style="font-weight: 400;">typical project journey</span>](https://buttercms.com/blog/buttercms-vs-wordpress-a-typical-project-journey) <span style="font-weight: 400;">with WordPress, getting WordPress to</span> **look and behave** <span style="font-weight: 400;">the way you want it to look and behave will involve a great deal of customization (i.e. developer) work. This time spent customizing WordPress is time your developers could be working on more important core problems that will drive revenue. Looked at this way, WordPress is a cost-sink. But this isn’t the way most people think of WordPress. Why? There are several WordPress fallacies that obscure the true costs of using WordPress as your CMS. This article explores [WordPress fallacies](https://buttercms.com/blog/wordpress-alternatives-reasons-to-move-on) and shows how ButterCMS is a better solution for your CMS needs.</span>

## <span style="font-weight: 400;">WordPress Fallacy #1: We don’t need a developer</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">The first WordPress fallacy goes something like this: “Themes and plugins allow me, the marketer, to do everything I need to do to set up CMS. I don’t need a developer at all.”</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">This fallacy is based on a mistaken premise: that a marketer can, with a few simple clicks, choose a theme, add some plugins, and voila - a functional blog that fits into the existing website and behaves precisely how you want it to behave. In practice, this simply isn’t true.</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">You’ll always need a developer to customize WordPress, fix plugins, and do other work to ensure that your WordPress site behaves exactly as you want it to behave.</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Since you’ll need a developer no matter what, this leads to a number of other questions:</span>

*   <span style="font-weight: 400;">What is a better process or system for them? Is it to work in a system they may not be comfortable with (like WordPress’s underlying millions of lines of code), or is it to work in a language they already love working with?</span>
*   <span style="font-weight: 400;">Which tech stack (WordPress or their own) will they be more proficient (read: cost savings) with? Which will they enjoy more?</span>
*   <span style="font-weight: 400;">Which CMS - WordPress or headless - will do more for them (maintenance, scaling, hosting) and free up their time for more important and more interesting work?</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">The answer to all of these questions is that a headless CMS is likely your optimal solution. It means your developers can work with a tech stack they already love, meaning they’ll be more satisfied and efficient. Developers are less likely to push back when they are working with something they already love, and the marketing team will have an easier time working with happy developers. And developer time saved is a huge benefit from a cost perspective.</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">The reason ButterCMS exists is because the WordPress architecture isn’t optimal for every scenario. In fact, it’s suboptimal for scenarios where you want full control over the presentation layer (i.e. design of your website) and deep integration with your existing tech stack. In other words,</span> [<span style="font-weight: 400;">once you have a need beyond hosting a simple Wordpress</span>](https://buttercms.com/blog/buttercms-vs-wordpress-headless-cms-vs-traditional-cms) <span style="font-weight: 400;">install and purchasing an off-the-shelf Wordpress theme, you enter into a scenario where diving into the guts of Wordpress becomes required.</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Below we’ll be reviewing in-depth some of the problems with WordPress and how a headless CMS solves these problems.</span>

## <span style="font-weight: 400;">The problems with WordPress</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">When an off-the-shelf template and basic plugins aren’t going to make your blog look and behave the way you need it to look and behave, some of the problems of WordPress become more obvious.</span>

### <span style="font-weight: 400;">WordPress is bloated</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">A complaint that developers often raise about WordPress is that it’s bloated. They aren’t wrong. WordPress has been around for 15 years and has amassed over</span> [<span style="font-weight: 400;">1.5</span> **million** <span style="font-weight: 400;">lines of code</span>](https://www.openhub.net/p/wordpress/analyses/latest/languages_summary)<span style="font-weight: 400;">. Its themes have</span> [<span style="font-weight: 400;">additional thousands of lines</span>](https://themefuse.com/did-you-know-that-there-are-36200-lines-of-code-on-average-in-every-wordpress-theme-from-themefuse/) <span style="font-weight: 400;">of code. And it isn’t just the sheer amount of code your developers have to work through if you stick with WordPress. The bloated nature of WordPress means that it can be slow.</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">When discussing WordPress with ButterCMS, many customers have concerns about WordPress’s speed: “We've historically used Wordpress REST/JSON APIs (with the front-end disabled) for the comfort of our writers but are finding it is having significant impact on page load times because the API is slow, isn't really customizable and we are limited in the ways we can query it.”</span>

### <span style="font-weight: 400;">WordPress requires a lot of security upkeep</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">WordPress is open source software, which means it is especially vulnerable to hostile attacks. It’s certainly possible to do everything you can to protect your WordPress site from malware or hacking, but it requires a significant investment of time and resources to do so. As an example, here’s a</span> [<span style="font-weight: 400;">2018 guide to keeping WordPress secure</span>](https://www.wpbeginner.com/wordpress-security/) <span style="font-weight: 400;">(warning: it’s long). Failure to keep WordPress updated can open up your site to significant security vulnerabilities that can create real costs (developer time spent dealing with the security breach, paying ransomware, losing business while the site is down).</span>

## <span style="font-weight: 400;">WordPress Fallacy #2: WordPress is “free”</span>

### <span style="font-weight: 400;">WordPress has a lack of transparency about total cost of ownership</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">One of the biggest draws of WordPress is that it’s free. But is it really?</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">The short, WordPress sales pitch answer is, “yes.” It’s not a lie: you can get the files you need to set up WordPress and run it -- on a basic level -- for free. However, when you are using WordPress in any way other than a very simple blogging tool with minimal to no customization, the</span> **total cost of ownership** <span style="font-weight: 400;">is significantly more than $0.00\.</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">As we’ve already discussed, developer time is a</span> _<span style="font-weight: 400;">significant</span>_ <span style="font-weight: 400;">cost if you want to customize WordPress to match your existing site. Some simple math will tell you the approximate cost of having a developer (even a freelance developer) dive into WordPress to customize it for you by ripping out the parts you don’t need, fixing buggy plugins, etc. If it takes three full weeks (a conservative estimate) to customize your WordPress blog, take those 120 hours and multiply it by the developer’s rate. Suddenly you’re looking at thousands of dollars just to get your WordPress site to play nice with your existing site.</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">On top of that, there are other “hidden costs” associated with WordPress once you step outside the off-the-shelf templates and basic hosting. This</span> [<span style="font-weight: 400;">article does a great job of shining a light</span>](https://www.copyblogger.com/wordpress-website-cost/) <span style="font-weight: 400;">on some of those hidden costs which include, but are not limited to:</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span>

*   <span style="font-weight: 400;">Domain registration</span>
*   <span style="font-weight: 400;">Hosting</span>
*   <span style="font-weight: 400;">Premium theme</span>
*   <span style="font-weight: 400;">Premium plugins</span>
*   <span style="font-weight: 400;">Developer fees</span>
*   <span style="font-weight: 400;">Security services</span>
*   <span style="font-weight: 400;">Storage and backups</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Most critically, WordPress’s “free” model doesn’t take into account the most invaluable resource you have: time. Software is only really free if you don’t value your time.</span>

## <span style="font-weight: 400;">A Butter solution</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Puns aside, ButterCMS was created to be a better solution for your CMS needs. Butter is a professional, scalable platform that allows you to smoothly integrate CMS into your existing tech stack in a matter of minutes. Butter handles the infrastructure side of things so you aren’t wading through a DevOps nightmare when your site starts to grow. Butter also offers professional support, including 24/7 chat support, integration help, and more.</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Additionally, you don’t have to worry about the hidden costs of WordPress with Butter. Here’s how Butter compares on the hidden costs of WordPress:</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span>

<table>

<tbody>

<tr>

<td>

WordPress Hidden Cost

</td>

<td>

ButterCMS

</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Domain registration</span>

</td>

<td>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">No cost - use your existing domain</span>

</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Hosting</span>

</td>

<td>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">No cost - nothing to host</span>

</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Premium themes</span>

</td>

<td>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">No cost - Butter doesn’t require them</span>

</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Premium plugins</span>

</td>

<td>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">No cost - Butter doesn’t require them</span>

</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Security services</span>

</td>

<td>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Butter secures the CMS platform, saving you time and headaches</span>

</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Storage and Backups</span>

</td>

<td>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Butter handles all of it for you, freeing up developer time</span>

</td>

</tr>

</tbody>

</table>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">And by saving you time and the opportunity costs that come with time spent customizing and worrying about WordPress, Butter offers you peace of mind and the opportunity to do more interesting and profitable things.</span>

## <span style="font-weight: 400;">How to switch to ButterCMS</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">At this point, Butter might seem like the right ingredient for your website. But how do you get started with Butter? We’ve laid out a few scenarios depending on where you are.</span>

### <span style="font-weight: 400;">No existing WordPress site</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">If you don’t have an existing WordPress site, you can give Butter a try for</span> [<span style="font-weight: 400;">free here</span>](https://buttercms.com/)<span style="font-weight: 400;">. You can get setup in minutes and start publishing content.</span>

### <span style="font-weight: 400;">You already have a WordPress site</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Butter can help you transition from WordPress to ButterCMS with no switching costs. You’ll just need to follow a few simple steps:</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span>

1.  <span style="font-weight: 400;">Send us your export. You can access this here:</span> [<span style="font-weight: 400;">https://en.support.wordpress.com/export/</span>](https://en.support.wordpress.com/export/)<span style="font-weight: 400;">. We handle importing everything (text, seo meta, categories, images, etc.)</span>
2.  <span style="font-weight: 400;">You implement Butter into your site</span>
3.  <span style="font-weight: 400;">Implement URL redirects (optional)</span>

*   <span style="font-weight: 400;">If your blog is on a subdomain (blog.yoursite.com) you will want to implement 301 redirects to your new improves URLs</span>
*   <span style="font-weight: 400;">Butter lets you keep your same blog URL slugs (i.e. blog-post-slug). The difference (and one that will</span> [<span style="font-weight: 400;">improve your SEO a great deal</span>](https://buttercms.com/blog/blog-subdomain-or-subdirectory-hint-one-is-40-better)<span style="font-weight: 400;">) is that you will switch from</span> **blog.example.com**<span style="font-weight: 400;">/blog-post-slug to</span> **example.com/blog**<span style="font-weight: 400;">/blog-post-slug</span>
*   <span style="font-weight: 400;">If you’re currently on a blog subdomain (like on WordPress), you can find a WordPress plugin that helps with 301 redirects</span>

### <span style="font-weight: 400;">You are using a non-WordPress CMS</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">You can also make the switch to Butter from other CMS systems out there. If you’re using something like Hubspot or</span> [<span style="font-weight: 400;">Medium</span>](https://buttercms.com/medium-alternative/)<span style="font-weight: 400;">, the switch to Butter is just as easy.  Send us your export file and we’ll handle the rest.</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span>

## <span style="font-weight: 400;">A smooth transition</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Butter was built to make developers lives easier. By extension, using Butter instead of a traditional CMS like WordPress will save your team time, headaches, and money. WordPress has been around for 15 years at this point, and while it is often the default CMS for businesses and individuals, it may not be the right fit for you. Butter is a modern approach to CMS and will save you from having to churn through customization and security headaches.</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span>

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