WordPress
Content sites, blogs, brochure sites, most small business websites. Publishing is solved, the plugin ecosystem is enormous, hosting is cheap, and any competent developer can pick it up. You own everything.
Delhi NCR
WordPress or custom? a straight answer for Delhi businesses.
You will be told custom is more secure, faster and more professional. Sometimes that is true. Usually it means an admin panel only that agency understands.
Overview
What each is genuinely good at
WordPress is the better choice for content sites, brochure sites and most small business websites, because publishing, plugins and hosting are solved problems. Custom development is justified when you are building an application with roles, workflow and business rules. The custom PHP pitch common in Delhi is frequently a lock-in strategy rather than a technical judgement.
Custom development
Applications: logins, roles, permissions, workflow, business rules, deep integrations. Where a CMS means plugins fighting each other, a framework gives you structure. Costs several times more and takes months.
The claims examined
Custom is more secure only if it is maintained, and unmaintained custom code is more dangerous than WordPress because nobody publishes patches for your specific application. Custom is faster only if built well; a badly built custom site is slower than a well-built WordPress one.
What the pitch usually means
A bespoke undocumented admin panel, no update path, and nobody else able to assess it. That is not a technical position, it is a commercial one, and it works because most buyers cannot evaluate the claim.
The question that settles it
Write down what your site must do that WordPress cannot. If the list is short, vague, or entirely about appearance, you need WordPress. If it is about roles, rules, workflow or integration, you need custom.
Either way, own it
Code, files, domain, hosting and documentation transfer to you on final payment. This matters more on custom work, because bespoke code you cannot maintain is worth less than nothing.
What to avoid
How to test the custom pitch
| Ask | Good answer | Bad answer |
|---|---|---|
| What framework and version? | Laravel or similar, current, upgrade path | Our own framework |
| Who else could maintain this? | Any competent developer in that framework | Only we know it |
| What documentation do we get? | Setup, deploy, architecture, as a deliverable | We will explain if needed |
| Where does the code live? | A repository in your account | On our server |
| What specifically can WordPress not do here? | A concrete technical requirement | It is just better |
| Who applies security updates? | A defined process with staging | Rarely discussed |
The last column is the pattern that leaves businesses paying whoever built the site indefinitely. It is the most common complaint we hear about custom work in this market.
Detail
What to ask before you hire
| Ask them | Good answer | Walk away if |
|---|---|---|
| Who owns the site and files? | You do, unconditionally, in the contract | Ownership depends on staying with them |
| Can I open three sites you built? | Live URLs you can check | Screenshots and a PDF |
| What is explicitly not included? | A written list with change pricing | Everything is included |
| How will we know it worked? | A metric agreed before work starts | Activity reports |
The exclusions question decides whether the final invoice matches the quote.
FAQ
Common questions
Is WordPress insecure?
No. Almost every compromised WordPress site we are asked to clean up was running an outdated plugin on a site nobody was maintaining. That is a maintenance problem rather than a platform one, and unmaintained custom code fails the same way with less help available.
Is a custom website faster than WordPress?
Only if it is built well. A badly built custom site is slower than a well-built WordPress one. Most slow WordPress sites are slow because of plugin weight, page builders and cheap hosting, all of which are fixable.
When is custom genuinely the right choice?
When you are building an application: logins, roles, permissions, workflow, business rules and deep integrations. If your requirements are about pages and content, custom is an expensive way to rebuild what WordPress already does.
Why do Delhi agencies push custom PHP?
Partly because some projects genuinely need it, and partly because a bespoke undocumented system means you cannot easily move to another agency. Asking who else could maintain it usually clarifies which motivation is in play.
What should I ask to test the recommendation?
Ask what specifically your site needs that WordPress cannot do. A concrete technical answer means the recommendation is real. A general claim that custom is better means it is not.
Can I move from custom to WordPress later?
Usually yes, and it means rebuilding rather than migrating, because bespoke content structures rarely map cleanly. That cost is a good reason to make the right choice at the start.
What about page builders like Elementor?
They make the first version fast and every version after it slow, and they store content in their own shortcodes so leaving means rebuilding. For anything you intend to keep, a custom block theme is cheaper to live with.
Next step
Tell us what you need.
Send us what you are trying to fix and we will tell you what it takes, what it costs, and whether we are the right people for it. If we are not, we will say so.