Why I'm Moving My Websites from WordPress to Hugo

I’ve made the switch. After years of running my websites on WordPress, I’ve moved them over to Hugo — and I think you should at least consider doing the same. Let me explain why.

So What Actually Is Hugo?

Hugo is what’s known as a static site generator. In plain English, that means it builds your entire website in advance as a collection of simple files — no databases, no server-side processing, no moving parts. You write your content, Hugo turns it into a website, and that’s it. Done.

WordPress, by contrast, is dynamic. Every time someone visits your site, it pulls content from a database, processes it through code, and assembles the page on the fly. That’s brilliant if you need it, but for most small business websites and blogs? It’s like driving a lorry to the corner shop.

There is a learning curve with Hugo. You’ll want to get comfortable with Markdown (a dead-simple way of formatting text — think of it as writing in a plain text editor with a few symbols for bold, headings, and links). Ideally, you’d also learn a bit about Git (a tool developers use to track changes to files), though it’s not strictly necessary. And you’ll need to install some software on your computer. None of this is rocket science, and I reckon anyone who’s moderately technical could get the hang of it in under half an hour.

WordPress Is Great — But It’s Also a Target

Let me be clear: WordPress is a fantastic platform. It’s open source, meaning nobody owns it and you keep full control of your data. It powers an estimated 60% of the world’s websites, and there’s a good reason for that — it’s versatile and relatively easy to use.

But that popularity comes with a downside. Because WordPress is everywhere, it’s also the biggest target for hackers and automated attacks. In security terms, it has a massive attack surface — essentially, there are lots of potential entry points that bad actors can try to exploit. If you’re running a simple blog or a brochure-style business website without an online shop, you’re maintaining a complex system you probably don’t need, and that complexity invites trouble. Keeping WordPress secure means staying on top of updates, managing plugins carefully, and sometimes paying for additional security tools. It’s overhead you could do without.

Speed Matters More Than You Think

Here’s something every small business owner should care about: how fast your website loads. Google uses page speed as a ranking factor, and visitors are ruthless — if your site takes more than a couple of seconds to appear, many people will simply leave. That’s called bounce rate, and it directly affects your bottom line.

WordPress, with all its database queries and processing, can struggle to achieve top marks on Google’s Lighthouse speed test. My WordPress sites scored around 84 out of 100, which isn’t bad but isn’t great either.

After switching to Hugo? I hit 100. A perfect score. And I barely had to lift a finger to get there. Because Hugo serves simple, pre-built files, there’s almost nothing to slow it down. Pages load virtually instantly, especially on mobile — which is how most people browse the web these days.

You Can Host It Practically Anywhere — Often for Free

One of the best things about a static site is that it’s incredibly cheap (or free) to host. Services like Cloudflare Pages, GitHub Pages, Vercel, and Netlify all offer free hosting for static websites.

And if you’d prefer a European-based option with no reliance on US infrastructure, that’s exactly why I built Static Host UK. It bundles hosting, contact form processing, and privacy-friendly analytics into one package — no US dependencies, no fuss. You can read more in my Introducing Static Host UK post.

“But What About Contact Forms?”

This is the question everyone asks. WordPress handles forms natively with plugins, so what do you do without it? The answer is simpler than you’d think. Services like Formspree handle form submissions for you, and platforms like Netlify have their own form processing built in. Static Host UK includes this too, so it’s one less thing to worry about.

Is It Right for You?

If your website is essentially a blog, a portfolio, or a small business brochure site — and you’re not running an online shop — then yes, a static site generator like Hugo (or its alternative, Jekyll) is well worth considering.

If you work with a web designer or a small agency, ask them about it. If they haven’t heard of static site generators, that’s worth a conversation about why not. And if you’re the adventurous type who’s been experimenting with AI coding tools like Claude or Gemini, you’ll find that building a Hugo site with a bit of AI assistance is remarkably straightforward.

There are loads of free Hugo themes to get you started, and at its core, writing content is just typing in a text editor. No complex dashboards, no plugin conflicts, no worrying about whether you’ve remembered to update everything this month.

So do yourself a favour. Have a look at what static site generators can do, and consider whether it’s time to ditch the WordPress habit. Your website will be faster, more secure, and a whole lot simpler to maintain.