The internet is full of takes about Hybrid React vs WordPress. Most of them are written by developers who've only shipped one of the two recently, or by agencies with a financial interest in one path. We don't have that incentive — we ship both for clients depending on what fits. That gave us a side-by-side dataset we hadn't seen anyone else publish, so we wrote it up.
What we measured
50 production sites. 25 built on Hybrid React (Next.js with a mix of SSG, SSR and ISR) and 25 built on WordPress (mostly Bricks Builder and Oxygen, a few classic theme + custom CSS). All for service businesses in similar categories — roofing, legal, HVAC, med-spa, home renovations, auto. Average client revenue $2M–$25M. Sites shipped between Sept 2024 and April 2026.
We measured: Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS) at 30 days post-launch, average Lighthouse Performance score, time-to-first-organic-page-1-ranking, conversion rate on the primary form (lead form or booking widget), and 12-month cost of ownership including hosting, maintenance and content updates.
Speed: Core Web Vitals
- Average Largest Contentful Paint — Hybrid React: 0.82s. WordPress: 2.41s.
- Average Interaction to Next Paint — Hybrid React: 54ms. WordPress: 187ms.
- Average Cumulative Layout Shift — Hybrid React: 0.04. WordPress: 0.18.
- % of sites passing all three CWV thresholds — Hybrid React: 96%. WordPress: 44%.
↳ The big-picture read
WordPress is not slow because of PHP. It's slow because of plugin sprawl, render-blocking scripts, and themes built for editor flexibility rather than runtime performance. With heroic effort you can get a WordPress site to match Hybrid React on speed. We've done it. It costs more than just building on Hybrid React in the first place.
SEO baseline at 30 days
Out of the box, Hybrid React sites had cleaner schema, smaller HTML payloads, and fewer indexing issues at 30 days. Specifically: Hybrid React sites averaged 1.4 indexing issues per 100 URLs at month one. WordPress sites averaged 6.8 — almost 5× more, mostly from theme/plugin-generated duplicate URLs, parameter explosions, and rogue noindex tags.
Time to first page-1 ranking on a commercial keyword
- Hybrid React: median 38 days (range 18–112)
- WordPress: median 71 days (range 32–180+)
Conversion rate
On the same brand-and-content brief, Hybrid React sites converted 3.2× better on average on the primary lead form. We believe the bulk of this comes from speed (every 100ms below 1s improves conversion meaningfully in service categories) rather than design — both stacks got the same designer.
We controlled for traffic source and country mix where we could. The conversion delta held even after controlling.
12-month cost of ownership
This surprised us when we ran the numbers. Build cost is roughly comparable for sites of similar scope. What differs is ongoing.
- Hybrid React: hosting averaged $22/mo (Vercel/Netlify Hobby tier or low Pro). Maintenance time averaged 1.8 hours/mo. Plugin updates: zero. Security patches: zero. Total 12-month cost beyond build: ~$640.
- WordPress: managed hosting averaged $58/mo. Maintenance time averaged 4.4 hours/mo (plugin updates, security patches, theme conflicts). Total 12-month cost beyond build: ~$2,100.
↳ When WordPress still wins
Blog-heavy publishers, sites with non-technical editors who need full WYSIWYG, and clients who want zero developer dependency for content. For service businesses competing on speed, SEO and AI-search visibility, Hybrid React wins on every metric we measured.
Where the discourse is wrong
Three common myths we hear, and what our data says:
"Hybrid React is hard to edit"
True if you wire it badly. False if you ship with a headless CMS (Sanity, Contentful, headless WordPress) where editors see a real visual UI. Out of 25 Hybrid React builds we shipped, the average editorial team needed under 90 minutes of training to be productive.
"You don't own the code"
Also false. We hand every client the full repository, deployment instructions and a 30-minute video walkthrough. You can move providers, hire any senior React dev, or self-host. The argument applies more to Webflow/Framer than to Hybrid React.
"It's more expensive"
Year 1 cost is similar. Year 2+ is meaningfully cheaper because of the maintenance differential. Over 5 years, Hybrid React costs ~40% less on the typical service-business site we ship.
Our default recommendation
For service businesses competing on local + AI search visibility: build on Hybrid React. We're biased — but the data is what convinced us, not the other way around.
If you're curious how your current stack stacks up: we'll run the same battery on your existing site free as part of the 30-min audit.