Why We Switched from WordPress to a Static Site
Why WordPress Became Overkill
Our blog ran on WordPress with 15 plugins, PHP, MariaDB, and 254 MB in wp-content alone. For a content blog, this was too much:
- Security: WordPress is the most attacked CMS in the world
- Resources: PHP + MySQL constantly consume RAM and CPU
- Speed: even with caching — slower than static
- Updates: monthly core, theme, and plugin updates
What We Chose
Astro — a framework for generating static sites:
- Zero JS by default
- Markdown for content
- Fast builds
Results
| Metric | WordPress | Astro + nginx |
|---|---|---|
| Lighthouse Performance | 62 | 98 |
| Load time | 2.8s | 0.4s |
| RAM usage | ~300 MB | ~5 MB |
| Attack surface | High | Minimal |
A static blog is just HTML files behind nginx. No PHP, no database, no CMS vulnerabilities.