Should agencies still build websites on WordPress in 2026?

WordPress was the top pick for agencies for a long time. Now there are a lot of alternatives + AI-built websites with different technologies and set-ups.

Most popular reasons why agencies tend to use wordpress

1. Monopoly on the market. According to different sources, it’s between 33% and 43.20% of all websites that are online now. In actual quantity, we’re talking about 63 million websites that are online right now – the number is huge which leads to the second point.
2. Huge library of solutions, plugins, and themes. Each client has unique request but between 63 million websites and potentially up to 430 million websites that were active, there is more likely to be a soltuion to a very similar request from other business.
3. Agencies, freelancers who could support your agency when you need additional expertise or capabilities in certain areas.
4. Agencies, freelancers who could support your client’s website if they, for some reason, decide to switch the provider.
5. Full ownership of the website. Unlike Webflow, Framer, etc, your client owns files, the database, and does not rent it. This means you and your client can work on unique features, host, and secure the website. If WordPress is banned by Mr. Trump, your client’s website will still be live, because it’s open source software.

What has changed in 2025 – 2026 in the website development industry?

From my experience, the biggest shift is caused by AI. Tech-savvy people and people who like AI as a technology now can build decent websites that are competing with DIY website client’s been using WordPress for. This should not impact the agency’s operations much, as this kind of project rarely occurs in the target market. Idea is to eliminate developers, designers, copywriters, branding – everything. Just pure AI + 1 person doing it all.

My take is that results are often better than DIY website, but should not harm agencies working with companies who invest a lot in marketing.

• AI design is still easy to spot
• AI copy – same
• AI design is good when the brand book and style guide are given to the AI for education, not developed from scratch.
• AI development is where AI is doing it’s best, but only under certain conditions – otherwise it’s a generic website

What are the wordpress alternatives for agencies in 2026?

Here is the list of CMS and tools/approaches biting WordPress’s market share and that potentially worth agencies attention:

• Webflow
• Framer
• AI-developed websites ( Custom websites )

Where Webflow could be a better fit than wordpress?

My conversations with agencies who use Webflow after WordPress are 2 separate worlds:

• One part is very happy after moving from page builders with outdated designs. Usually this is design-first agencies – somebody, with strong design team who loves Figma to Webflow convertion and works with websites where SEO in not part of the strategy.
• Another part, who worked with custom WP themes, is less happy: Webflow behaves more like a new page builder and have own limitations, pricing tiers where you pay for things that were free in WordPress and “hacks” that they need to use for features that were basic in WordPress

So, if you’re agency with a strong design team that does great design, branding work, and don’t work with SEO – webflow is an alternative that you may investigate

Where Framer could be a better fit than wordpress?

Same as above – just different builder. Framer is a very Figma-like experience. It’s not about a development – more about designing directly in Framer and show client’s the output on staging. Not as good as WordPress in the SEO area, as good as Webflow.

When AI-developed custom websites beat WordPress?

Well, it’s a very sensitive subject for me, as 2 clients this month reported they are going to try building websites without developers – just by working with an in-house ( non-technical or semi-technical teams) – so courage and demand exist for this kind of projects

Yet again – here are the use cases:

• Works for simple landing pages.
• Works for places, where you have existing code base of similar builds

Downside:

• No CMS or new solution
• Unique bugs that you’ll need to fix yourself
• Tech SEO part is more complicated
• Works fine, when done right

Why wordpress is still best for marketing agencies?

According to W3Techs data, wordpress powers 41.5% of all websites in the world and 59.3% of all websites with CMS, that’s also means that by working with WordPress you agency select safe approach for you and your clients. Here is my top reasons why

• Unlimited capabilities because of open source
• Variety of approaches to the theme development
• Huge library of plugins for any occasion
• Huge community of agencies and freelancers

Can you use AI-assisted workflow with WordPress?

Ai could be used in different shapes and forms:

1. AI knows the WP structure and can help you to solve any tech issues without being very technical
2. AI can work with claude code with custom themes, plugins so any development could be ai-assisted
3. Plugins, like elementor have built-in AI functions to generate new designs
4. Plugins like Figmentor help translate Figma designs into Elementor sections
5. AI features in WP 7 – including content editing

Basically, because WP is open-source, you can leverage AI to build anything. The only missing feature right now is the MCP for WP core that will help communicate llms with any wordpress website.

So, should you still use WordPress in your agency in 2026?

Of course, every solution from the list above has its upsides that are highly advertised and downsides that are kept quiet or undiscovered.

For most agencies wordpress is still a good solution with no visible downside.

I see 0 reason to migrate website from WordPress to any of the selected CMS for agencies.

For individual companies – if they have a designer in-house – more likely Webflow/Framer could be a good oppotrunity to discover to speed up iterations, but for agencies – no, here is why

• WordPress websites load faster than Webflow
• WordPress websites load faster than Framer
• WordPress is native for clients and they are used to it
• WordPress websites has wider support and capabilities than Framer, Webflow, Custom AI solutions
• WordPress is much better for SEO. Confirmed by multiple SEO agencies working with different tech stacks

If you ask me – I’m bullish on WordPress in 2026 and what’s important atm is to have MCP for wordpress so it will be more integrated with LLMs