- Selling products is mostly a Shopify question. Publishing a lot of content is mostly a WordPress question.
- Custom code wins when speed, a distinctive design or unusual features matter more than editing every page yourself.
- Logins, dashboards and your own business rules need a custom web app, not a website platform.
- A wrong choice rarely hurts on launch day. It shows up a year later as monthly fees, a slow site or a costly rebuild.
The platform decision matters more than most design decisions. It sets your monthly running costs, how fast the site loads, who can change it, and what it will cost to grow in two years. Here is how I help clients choose.
The quick answer
| If you mainly need to... | Start with |
|---|---|
| Sell physical products and manage stock and orders yourself | Shopify |
| Sell a modest range from a site that already runs WordPress | WooCommerce |
| Publish articles or pages often, and edit everything yourself | WordPress |
| Have a fast, distinctive site whose structure rarely changes, or use 3D and rich animation | Custom-coded |
| Give customers logins, bookings with your own rules, a portal, a dashboard or a CRM | A custom web app |
WordPress
WordPress runs about 40% of all websites, according to W3Techs. That popularity is its biggest strength: editors everywhere know it, and there is a plugin for almost anything.
The same popularity is its weakness. Every plugin is code written by someone else, and each one must be updated, can conflict with the others, and can slow the site down. Many WordPress sites are also built with heavy page builders that make building fast and loading slow.
When I build on WordPress, I keep it lean: content blocks designed for your site, very few plugins, and no page builder. Your team can edit what changes often, and the rest stays fast.
Shopify
For most stores, Shopify is the safest choice. Hosting, security, the checkout and payments are handled for you, and the checkout is one that many shoppers already know.
The trade-offs are cost and control. You pay a monthly plan, transaction or payment fees, and often several app subscriptions on top. Content-heavy pages and unusual checkout rules are harder than on a custom build. Before you choose Shopify, list the apps you will need and add up their monthly fees.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce turns a WordPress site into a store. It is flexible and avoids Shopify's platform fees, but you are responsible for hosting, updates and security. It suits businesses that already have a strong WordPress site and sell a modest range.
Custom-coded
A custom-coded site is built from scratch for you, with no platform underneath. It loads fast because it carries only what it needs, the design has no limits, and there are no plugins to update. Running costs can be very low.
The trade-off is editing. Changing the structure needs a developer. For the parts that change often, such as news, prices or a team page, I add simple editing for just those parts, so you are not calling me for every typo.
Custom web apps
Once people log in, see their own data, book under your rules or pay invoices, you are building software. Website platforms can be stretched to do this with plugins, but the result is usually fragile. A custom web app, with its own secure backend, is built around how your business actually works. I explain these systems in What is a custom CRM?
Five questions that decide it
- Who will edit the site, and how often?
- What must it connect to: payments, a CRM, accounting, a booking calendar?
- What will it cost to run each month, including every app and plugin?
- How important is speed? For a site that depends on Google and ads, it matters a lot.
- What happens if your business doubles? Can the platform grow with it without a rebuild?
Mistakes I see often
- Choosing a platform because a friend uses it.
- Choosing a page builder because it makes the first version quick to build.
- Comparing launch prices and ignoring three years of running costs.
- Building a portal or booking system out of ten plugins that were never meant to work together.
Sources
I design and build websites, online stores and business systems for clients in the US, UK, Europe, Australia and Canada, from Colombo, Sri Lanka. When you work with iVishwa, you talk to me directly, from the first call to launch and after.
Want a straight answer for your own project?
Design your website in the Studio, tell me your budget if you like, and I will reply with one fixed, written quote.
