When to choose DatoCMS over Wordpress?

Our customers prefer DatoCMS for its convenient scalability, unrivaled developer experience, and clean editing interface.
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We power experiences for over half a billion users

DatoCMS vs. Wordpress:
How we're different

DatoCMS is the right option for agencies and tech teams that want to embrace headless and speed up development, while maintaining a smooth experience for editors.

Wordpress is the juggernaut CMS on the market, but it's also known for its heavy-load maintenance and bloated plugin system, leading to performance lags.

What our customers say

DatoCMS helped us move headless, and we've never had more fun using a CMS. It's elegant, it's fast, and it's totally intuitive. Our clients love it and we couldn't have been happier with the move.
Jamie Warburton
Head of Engineering
Hex Digital
This is precisely what I want: a CMS that's been built by an agency because they know what my clients need.
Marc Ammann
CEO @ Matter Supply Co.
Clients love DatoCMS. With a proper setup, they prefer DatoCMS over anything, especially with a Wordpress background.
Maarten Vleugels
Creative Developer @ Wonderland.

At a glance comparison

DatoCMS
Wordpress
Who is it for
DatoCMS...

Built for tech teams that want to speed up development pace and leave antiquate systems behind, ensuring editors keep a user-friendly platform.

...vs Wordpress

The world’s most adopted CMS, powering 43% of the internet, well known for being easy to use, but still fairly customizable through plugins.

Costs
DatoCMS...

Transparent pricing with no hidden costs, and a full-featured free tier to experiment before committing.

...vs Wordpress

Starts free, but costs add up quickly - premium plugins and themes, hosting, engineering - resulting in dozens or even hundreds of dollars per month for larger-scale projects.

Developer Experience
DatoCMS...

Gives engineers the freedom to choose any tech stack and framework, like Next.js, Vue, React, as the content is separated from the presentation layer, without worrying about the backend.

...vs Wordpress

While integrating a chosen frontend using WordPress APIs is doable, it comes with its challenges — you'll still need to handle backend tasks to ensure scalability and maintaining security.

DatoCMS...

Frontend development demands time, but opens the door to user experiences that are both custom-fit and technologically superior.

...vs Wordpress

An all-encompassing solution allows for rapid site building and deployment, but venturing into customizations quickly becomes complex and time-consuming.

Editor experience
DatoCMS...

A clean editing experience where editors coming from Wordpress can transition quickly and be productive from the get-go.

...vs Wordpress

The editor delivers an environment that has achieved widespread adoption and recognition throughout industries.

Extensibility
DatoCMS...

Extend UI and functionality using a mix of official, community, and private plugins. However, they may lack the capabilities of WordPress's, and often require frontend modifications for integration.

...vs Wordpress

Offers a huge selection of plugins and themes to enhance a site's functionality and appearance, optimizing for SEO, security, and user experience without any development.

Performance & Scalability
DatoCMS...

Without the burden of managing backend scalability, developers can channel their creativity into actually building their projects.

...vs Wordpress

Scalability hinges on the backend's web and database servers, placing a burden on your IT or forcing reliance on expensive hosting services.

DatoCMS...

Includes media management with storage and CDN on Imgix for images and Mux for video optimization

...vs Wordpress

Plugins can enhance multimedia content with a CDN to boost performance, but they are not cheap and can lead to vendor lock-in

Security & Maintenance
DatoCMS...

Enterprise-grade network security with DDOS mitigation, TLS encryption at rest and in transit, network rate limits, and two layers of caching to minimize downtime risks, with an average 99,99% uptime.

...vs Wordpress

Widely known for security issues due to vulnerabilities in plugins, themes, and outdated versions.

DatoCMS...

Sit back and relax, no need to worry about backend maintenance - DatoCMS keeps the solution up-to-date for you.

...vs Wordpress

Navigating updates across themes, plugins, and various software layers can be a minefield that often leads to site disruptions, turning maintenance into a tricky endeavor.

Ready to migrate from Wordpress to DatoCMS?

Switching to DatoCMS is a breeze with our Wordpress importer. It takes care of the complexities, allowing you to move your site to a new DatoCMS project in no time at all.

Learn More
Three reasons to consider DatoCMS
  1. Lightning-fast performance

    With a global CDN and optimized media delivery, your projects get an impressive boost in speed, plus improved SEO rankings and user engagement. It’s what your projects need to match the swift pace of today’s web.

  2. Delightful developer experience

    We’ve designed DatoCMS as a flexible platform to build precisely what you need. Our native GraphQL API and visual content modeling give you the freedom to build a content infrastructure that adapts to any scenario.

  3. A perfect blend of easy and powerful

    Our editing interface feels like a friendly wave from Wordpress, but with more power under the hood. Get creative with features like Blocks and Modular Content for a no-fuss, no-code page building experience that still packs a serious punch.