Yesterday morning I got a call from a potential client. E-commerce website โ online store, small blog, and a couple of features specific to his business. Clear scope, reasonable requirements.
I did what I always do. Asked the right questions, wrote down every requirement, and built a picture of what the project actually needs. By afternoon, the offer was ready.
The offer
WordPress with WooCommerce. One premium plugin that covers one of his requirements out of the box. Two custom plugins I'd develop for the features that are specific to his use case โ the parts where nothing off the shelf reaches.
The price reflected the actual work: setting up WordPress, configuring WooCommerce, installing the premium plugin, and developing two custom ones. Not rebuilding an entire e-commerce engine from zero.
Timeline: two weeks to a working store.
And the end result โ what his customers would see and interact with โ would be identical to anything built with a modern JavaScript framework. Same UI. Same UX. Same checkout. Same everything.
"My friend said React"
His response was quick: no. He doesn't want WordPress. WordPress is old and out of fashion. He wants it built with React โ because his friend told him React is the new thing and WordPress is the old way of doing things.
I asked if the friend is a developer. He isn't.
So here's the situation: a non-technical recommendation, from someone with no stake in the project, overriding a technical recommendation from the person who'd actually build it. This happens more than you'd think.
What React actually means for this project
I like React. I use it. I build with it. But let me be honest about what choosing React for this particular project would mean:
- Cart, checkout, payment processing, inventory, order management โ all built from scratch
- A custom backend API to power the storefront
- Database design, authentication, admin dashboard โ from zero
- Six to eight weeks minimum, realistically longer
- A price tag three to four times higher
- Every single piece maintained by me going forward, because there's no community maintaining it for you
With WordPress and WooCommerce:
- Cart, checkout, payments, inventory, shipping โ built, tested, and maintained by thousands of developers and millions of users
- One premium plugin: installed and configured
- Two custom plugins: developed for his specific needs
- Two weeks to launch
- A fraction of the cost
The customer clicking "add to cart" at the end has no idea what's behind the button. They don't care. And they shouldn't have to.
Your friend is not your CTO
I laid all of this out. Both options, honest numbers, honest timelines. The client chose React.
I respect the decision โ it's his money and his project. But I want to be clear about what happened: a project that could have been live in two weeks, for a fraction of the cost, got scoped into a two-month custom build. Because of a recommendation from someone who doesn't write code.
I don't have a personal attachment to WordPress. I built this very website with Astro โ precisely because WordPress wasn't the right tool for what I needed here. But for an e-commerce store with standard requirements and a couple of custom features? WooCommerce is exactly what it was built for.
Choosing the right technology isn't about what sounds modern at a dinner table. It's about what fits the requirements, the budget, and the timeline.
The best technology for your project is the one that solves your problem โ not the one your friend heard about.
React is a great framework. WordPress is a great platform. The mistake isn't preferring one over the other. The mistake is making that choice based on someone else's opinion instead of your project's actual needs.
