WordPress · 10,000 Sites · Small Business

I've Built 10k+ Sites. Here's What I Hate About WordPress.

Built for Speed, Not Babysitting

Pete holds the Balls Out Marketing book beside a giant hen, standing over a dumpster of dead WordPress crates, 10,000 sites later.

Ten thousand sites. One tall pile of regrets.

I have built more than 10,000 websites. I have seen every way WordPress lets a business owner down. Here is the short list of what I hate about it, and what I build instead.

This is not a hater's rant. It is 25 years of cleaning up the same five messes.

TL;DR (the short answer)

After 10,000+ sites, what I hate about WordPress is the plugin pile, the updates that break things, the bloat, the security holes, and maintenance that never ends. It is a lot of cost and babysitting for a site that still loads slow. I build light, fast, static sites instead, and I never look back.

3 Key Takeaways

WordPress makes you rent a dozen tools to do what a real site does out of the box.

It is the biggest target on the web, and every plugin is another unlocked door.

The maintenance never ends. There is always something to patch, back up, or babysit.

Interactive · Build the Junk Pile

Build the Junk Pile

Tick every WordPress pain you've hit. Watch the pile grow.

Nothing ticked yet. Lucky you.

What I Hate, in Order

1. The plugin pile

You end up renting a dozen tools just to do what a real site should do out of the box. A form. A gallery. Speed. Security. Each one is a bill and a risk.

2. The update that breaks everything

Core updates on a Tuesday, and the contact form dies. You find out from a customer who could not reach you. That was a job.

3. The bloat

Huge files, sloppy third-party code, and a site that crawls on a phone. Speed is where jobs are won, and WordPress starts you in the hole.

4. The security holes

It is the biggest target on the web, and every plugin is another door left unlocked. Google flags hacked sites, and buyers do not come back to one.

5. The maintenance that never ends

It is never done. There is always a patch, a backup, a plugin conflict, something to babysit. You wanted a website, not a second job.

of the 1,334 WordPress vulnerabilities reported in 2025 were in plugins, not the core. Every plugin you keep is one more door left unlocked. (Patchstack, 2025)

Do it yourself

Audit My Plugin Pile

Paste your plugin list, hit a button. Claude or ChatGPT tells you which ones are pure recurring cost, which a real site bakes in for free, and which to cut. Takes a minute.

Prompt · Audit my plugins

You are a web platform expert helping a small business owner cut waste. Here is my list of active WordPress plugins: [PASTE YOUR PLUGIN LIST]. For each one, in plain English a busy owner gets, tell me: is it a paid yearly license or free, is it something a custom-built site would just include for free, and is it a known performance or security risk. Then give me: 1) my likely total yearly plugin cost, 2) the three I could drop today, 3) the ones actually worth keeping. Be blunt, no jargon.

Swap in your active plugins where it says PASTE YOUR PLUGIN LIST.

Ten thousand sites. One tall pile of regrets.

What I Build Instead

The mistake: running a business on a platform that needs constant babysitting to stay alive.

The fix: a light, static site with the features built in, batch-loaded so it stays fast.

The payoff: it loads in under a second, nothing breaks on update, and there is no pile to maintain.

I got so tired of the mess that I moved 1,300+ of my own posts off a dying WordPress stack and kept every ranking. Now I build light and static, and even a heavy, interactive site loads lightning fast. That is the 100K Site. If you want the deeper case, here is why WordPress is dead, why your plugins hold you hostage, and how I build a website with AI.

of phone visitors leave a page that takes over 3 seconds to load. The bloat is not just annoying, it loses you the job before the site says a word. (Think with Google, 2017)

Do it yourself

Own It or Rent It?

List what your site has to do and what you pay now. Claude or ChatGPT tells you, for your exact stack, what is worth renting and what you should just own.

Prompt · Own vs rent my site

Act as a straight-talking web consultant. Here is what my business website needs to do: [LIST YOUR MUST-HAVE FEATURES]. Here is what I pay every month right now: [LIST YOUR CURRENT CHARGES]. For my exact situation, tell me: 1) which of these features could be built in and owned instead of rented every month, 2) which recurring tools are genuinely worth keeping, 3) a rough 3-year cost of renting this stack versus owning one custom site, 4) what you would cut first. Be honest, not gentle.

Fill in your must-have features and your current monthly charges.

Digging through the wreckage so you don't have to.

Where I Give WordPress Credit

Fair is fair. WordPress made publishing easy for a whole generation of the web, and a carefully tuned, stripped-down setup run by someone who knows what they are doing can still be fine. That was then. The web got heavier, search runs on speed, and buyers ask AI who to call. For most small business sites, the babysitting is not worth it anymore.

of Google searches now show an AI summary up top, and a slow, plugin-heavy site rarely makes it in. Buyers ask AI who to call, and a bloated WordPress site does not get named. (Pew Research Center, 2025)

Do it yourself

Check Your Own Site Against My List

Want to know how many of my red flags your site is hitting? Paste this into Claude or ChatGPT.

Prompt · Score my site

I run a WordPress site at [your URL]. Go through the most common WordPress red flags a builder of thousands of sites would check:
1. Plugin overload and abandoned plugins
2. Updates that break the site
3. Slow load and bloat, especially on mobile
4. Security and hack risk
5. Endless maintenance
For each, tell me if my site is likely at risk and the one thing to do about it. Then tell me straight whether I would be better off on a light static site.

Swap in your real URL where it says [your URL].

Ten Thousand Sites Taught Me One Thing

Build light. Build fast. Build it so nothing can break it on a random Tuesday. Your website should make you money while you sleep, not wake you up at 2am.

Get a Site That Doesn't Need Babysitting

Send me your site. I will tell you straight what it is costing you and what a light static build fixes.

Take a Test Drive →

See what a site that just works, and never needs babysitting, feels like.

Want the whole playbook first? Read Balls Out Marketing.

FAQ

Is WordPress bad for a small business?

It can be. For most small business sites the plugin pile, the bloat, the security exposure, and the constant maintenance add up to a lot of cost and risk for a site that still loads slow. A light static site avoids all of it.

Why do WordPress sites get hacked so often?

WordPress is the most common platform on the web, which makes it the biggest target, and most vulnerabilities come in through plugins. An abandoned plugin that no longer gets updates is an open door.

Why is WordPress slow?

Bloat. Multiple plugins, heavy themes, and large files all load at once. That drags down speed, which costs you buyers and rankings. A static site ships lean and loads fast.

What should I use instead of WordPress?

A custom, light, static site with the features built in and content prerendered to HTML. It loads in under a second, does not break on update, needs no plugin stack, and is easy for AI search to read.