What to build it with: from page builders to custom code

Before you build anything, you have to decide what to build it with. And that choice sticks with you for years, not weeks. It changes how much the site costs, how fast it runs, who can work on it, and how easily you can walk away from it later. Broadly, you have three paths: visual page builders, WordPress with a CMS, and custom code. None of them is wrong. Each one just fits a different situation.

Visual page builders (Wix, Squarespace, Webflow)

You click your site together in the browser, no coding. A template, a few images, some text, done over a weekend.

• Cost: low to get in, a monthly subscription forever. Year after year, you pay just to keep the site running at all.
• Time to launch: the fastest of the bunch. For a simple presentation site, it’s live in a few days.
• Control: limited. You can do what the tool allows. What it doesn’t allow, you can’t do at any price.
• Performance: average to weak. Pages tend to be bloated with scripts you never asked for.
• Lock-in: high. You often can’t export your content and design in any usable form. Stop paying and the site goes dark.

Webflow sits a bit apart, giving you more freedom and cleaner output, but you pay for it with a steeper learning curve and a higher price.

WordPress and content management systems

The classic that a large chunk of the internet runs on. A template, a few plugins, and an admin you pour content into.

• Cost: WordPress itself is free; you pay for hosting, a theme, and plugins. Over time it turns into a pile of subscriptions.
• Time to launch: fast, with thousands of ready-made themes to choose from.
• Control: broad, if you know how or have someone who does. You can bolt on almost anything.
• Performance: it depends. A clean install is nimble, but five plugins for every little thing drag it to the bottom.
• Maintenance: here’s the catch. WordPress and its plugins have to be updated, or the site becomes a security hole. Someone has to keep an eye on it.
• Lock-in: medium. You can get your content out, but it’s tied to the plugin ecosystem and the theme.

WordPress is a good call when you need a non-technical person to manage the content themselves, and you’re prepared for someone to maintain the site on an ongoing basis.

Custom and headless code (Astro, Next.js)

The site is built to measure. Either purely static (Astro) or as an app (Next.js), often with a separate CMS where you manage the content yourself.

• Cost: higher up front, because you’re paying for real work. Running it is then usually cheap, and a static site can be hosted for next to nothing.
• Time to launch: slower than a template, because nothing is pre-chewed. Days to weeks, depending on scope.
• Control: maximum. You get exactly what you need and nothing extra.
• Performance: the best. No dead weight, just what the site actually uses. You feel it in the speed and you see it on Google.
• Lock-in: none, if it’s done honestly. The code, the accounts, and the domain are yours. You can take them elsewhere whenever you like.

The catch is that changes need someone who can code, or us. That’s why at FRGTN we handle content through a CMS we leave in your hands, and we run weekly demos so you can see where things are heading. Custom code can be built quickly; it just takes knowing what you’re building.

Choose based on where you are

• Need a calling card by the weekend and don’t mind a subscription and limited control? A page builder.
• Want to manage the content yourself, have someone for maintenance, and a ready-made theme fits? WordPress.
• Care about speed, performance, and owning the whole site with no lock-in? Custom code.

And one warning to close on. The most expensive choice isn’t the one with the highest number on the invoice. It’s the one you can’t escape for a year afterward, or the one you’re rebuilding from scratch two years in. Choose with an eye on where you want to be next year, not just on what’s cheapest today.