WordPress or Next.js for your small business website?

I build both. The question I get most often from UAE and UK small business owners is which one they should pay for. The short answer is simpler than the industry wants you to believe.

Pick WordPress if you need to edit the site yourself

WordPress wins on one specific axis: a non-developer can log in, edit a page, upload a photo, publish a blog post, and the site stays alive without you calling a developer every month. That is the whole product. Everything else WordPress does — themes, plugins, WooCommerce — is scaffolding around that one benefit.

If your business reality is 'I will update this site a few times a month and I do not want to pay for every change,' WordPress is the right answer. This is 80 percent of small businesses.

Pick Next.js if you are building a product or need pure speed

Next.js is a modern React framework used by companies like Vercel, Nike, Hashnode and most new SaaS startups. It produces sites that feel instant — sub-second loads, smooth transitions, interactive features that would be clumsy in WordPress. In exchange, every change requires a developer to redeploy, and your content lives in code rather than in an editor.

Pick Next.js when: the site is a product (dashboard, SaaS, calculator, portal), the brand demands cinematic motion, or the content changes rarely and is maintained by a developer anyway.

The pricing reality

• WordPress site, 5 pages — my WordPress Starter at AED 2,500 / 7 days.
• Custom Next.js marketing site, 5 pages — AED 8,000 to 15,000 / 3-4 weeks.
• WooCommerce store on WordPress — AED 5,000 to 10,000 depending on product count.
• Next.js SaaS or dashboard — AED 20,000 to 60,000+ depending on scope.

The maintenance reality (this is the one that gets missed)

WordPress needs plugin updates every month. If you skip them for a year, your site gets hacked. The cost is a quarterly check-in (AED 300 to 500 for an hour of a developer's time) or an annual retainer.

Next.js has no plugins to update. The site keeps running until you deploy a new version, and when you do, you need a developer. The cost is zero per month but non-zero per content change.

The one choice that is almost always wrong

I see this a lot: a small business is sold a Next.js build they will never update. The site goes live, looks beautiful, and six months later the owner wants to add a new service page. They cannot. They WhatsApp the agency, the agency quotes AED 400 for the change, the owner delays, the page never ships, and the business falls behind competitors who are on WordPress and shipping a new service page every month.

If you are not going to pay a developer to maintain the site, pick WordPress. If you are a product company with an engineering team, pick Next.js. The middle ground — a small business on Next.js without an engineer — is where sites die.

What I use for each kind of project

• My own portfolio (abdullah-haroon.com) — Next.js 16 + TypeScript + GSAP. I am a developer, I ship it myself, I never touch an editor.
• My SaaS (noonspy.com) — Flask + Python back end, React front end. A product, not a website.
• My own e-commerce (hanooon.com) — WordPress + WooCommerce custom theme. 100+ products, I edit copy weekly.
• Client salon (greenvelvet.ae) — WordPress. Owner updates services, specials and blog posts herself.
• Client contractor (fscontracting.ae demo) — Static HTML (not even WordPress). Content changes once a year, no CMS needed.

Decision tree in 30 seconds

1. Will you (or your team) edit the site more than once a month? → WordPress.
2. Is the site a product (user accounts, dashboards, search, SaaS features)? → Next.js.
3. Are you a developer or do you have a developer on retainer? → Either works; pick the one the team prefers.
4. Everything else → WordPress.

If you want a straight recommendation for your project, WhatsApp +971 56 985 8632 with one paragraph about your business — I will say which one fits and quote accordingly.