WordPress vs React vs Shopify: Which Platform Should You Build On in 2026?

Choosing the right platform is one of the most important decisions you’ll make for your website. Get it wrong and you’ll be paying for a rebuild within two years. Here’s an honest comparison of the three most popular options in 2026, including what each actually costs and how to tell which one fits you.

Quick comparison

WordPress: the all-rounder

WordPress powers over 40% of all websites on the internet. It’s flexible, has thousands of plugins, and nearly every developer knows how to work with it.

Best for: Business websites, blogs, portfolios, membership sites, and small-to-medium e-commerce stores via WooCommerce.

Pros: Huge plugin ecosystem, easy content management, strong SEO capabilities, massive developer community, you own your code and data.

Cons: Requires regular updates and maintenance, can be slow if bloated with plugins, security requires attention.

Typical cost: £495 to £10,000+ depending on complexity. See our fixed-price packages.

React (Next.js): the performance king

React with Next.js is the go-to for developers building fast, interactive web applications, and it’s the technology behind a lot of the large web apps you use daily.

Best for: Web applications, SaaS dashboards, interactive tools, headless CMS setups, and sites where speed is critical.

Pros: Blazing fast performance, excellent developer experience, great for complex interactivity, server-side rendering for SEO.

Cons: Higher development cost, smaller pool of developers than WordPress, overkill for simple brochure sites, and a non-technical owner usually can’t edit it without a CMS added on top.

Typical cost: £3,000 to £30,000+.

Shopify: the e-commerce specialist

If your primary goal is selling products online, Shopify is purpose-built for exactly that.

Best for: Online stores, product-based businesses, anyone who wants to be selling quickly.

Pros: Built-in payment processing, inventory management, shipping calculators, an app store for extensions, and it’s hosted so there’s no server management.

Cons: Monthly fees, transaction fees unless you use Shopify Payments, limited customisation without Liquid templating knowledge, and you don’t own the store, you rent it.

Typical cost: £2,000 to £15,000 for a custom theme, plus the monthly platform fee.

Is a React website more expensive than WordPress?

Usually yes, and often by several times. A React or Next.js build starts around £3,000 because everything is built bespoke: there’s no plugin to drop in for a contact form, a blog or a booking system, so a developer writes it. WordPress starts far lower because you’re standing on an ecosystem that already exists.

Where React earns the extra is when your site does something rather than just says something: live dashboards, complex filtering, real-time data, an app-like experience. If your site is pages of content, services and a contact form, React is a bigger bill for a result most visitors won’t be able to tell apart. Our guide to what a website should cost in 2026 breaks the numbers down further.

What about speed and Core Web Vitals?

React has a deserved reputation for speed, but platform alone doesn’t decide this. A lean, well-built WordPress site beats a badly-built React one every time, and a plugin-stuffed WordPress site will lose to almost anything. What actually moves the needle is image handling, caching, hosting and how much JavaScript you ship. Our guides to Core Web Vitals and INP cover what Google measures and how to fix it on any platform.

Can you switch platforms later?

You can, but it’s rarely cheap, which is why the first choice matters. Moving off WordPress or React is manageable because you own the code and the database. Moving off Shopify is harder: your theme is Liquid, your data lives with them, and you’re rebuilding from scratch. If there’s a realistic chance you’ll outgrow a hosted platform, factor that rebuild into the decision now rather than in two years.

Our recommendation

For most UK businesses, WordPress remains the best balance of flexibility, cost and long-term ownership. If you’re building something interactive or data-heavy, React is worth the investment. If you’re purely selling physical products, Shopify gets you to market fastest.

The honest summary: pick the cheapest platform that can do the job properly, and spend what you save on making the site actually convert. If you’re also weighing up who should build it, we’ve written an honest comparison of agency vs website builder vs freelancer.