WordPress vs Astro performance: a real benchmark in 2026
The two stacks compared on an identical corporate site (WordPress with a standard theme vs custom Astro): real figures for Lighthouse, TTFB, bundle size and costs.
Contents
Benchmark methodology
To compare WordPress and Astro objectively, we built the same corporate site (15 editorial pages) on both stacks, with the same content and the same design. The conditions:
WordPress site:
- WordPress 6.7 (latest stable)
- Theme: Astra (one of the faster themes available)
- Essential plugins: Yoast SEO, WP Rocket (cache), WPForms, Smush (images), Polylang (multilingual)
Astro site:
- Astro 5
- Tailwind CSS
- Content Collections for the content
- @astrojs/sitemap, astro-icon
Test: PageSpeed Insights mobile, 5 runs, median. Date: June 2026.
Mobile Lighthouse results
| Metric | WordPress | Astro |
|---|---|---|
| Performance | 62 | 97 |
| Accessibility | 89 | 96 |
| Best Practices | 88 | 100 |
| SEO | 91 | 100 |
| Overall score | 82 | 98 |
A 16-point difference in the overall score, and a 35-point gap on Performance alone.
Core Web Vitals results
| Metric | WordPress | Astro | Google target |
|---|---|---|---|
| LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) | 3.8 s | 1.1 s | < 2.5 s |
| INP (Interaction to Next Paint) | 280 ms | 60 ms | < 200 ms |
| CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) | 0.12 | 0.01 | < 0.1 |
| FCP (First Contentful Paint) | 2.1 s | 0.8 s | < 1.8 s |
The top three metrics are the Core Web Vitals, the ones Google uses as a signal. WordPress fails all three; Astro passes them all with room to spare.
For reference, outside the official thresholds: the measured TTFB is 720 ms for WordPress against 180 ms for Astro. TTFB is not a Core Web Vital and Google publishes no threshold for it, it only feeds into LCP, but the gap explains a good share of the LCP row above.
Bundle size
| Asset | WordPress | Astro |
|---|---|---|
| Home HTML | 45 KB | 12 KB |
| CSS loaded | 380 KB | 18 KB (critical inline) |
| JavaScript | 720 KB | 4 KB |
| Images (compressed) | 1.2 MB | 350 KB (WebP) |
| Fonts | 280 KB | 45 KB (WOFF2 subset) |
| Total home page | 2.6 MB | 430 KB |
Astro loads 6 times less than WordPress on the same content page. This difference is directly responsible for the Lighthouse gaps.
Licence costs over 5 years
| Item | WordPress | Astro |
|---|---|---|
| WP Rocket licence | CHF 50/year × 5 = CHF 250 | - |
| Smush Pro | CHF 60/year × 5 = CHF 300 | - |
| Polylang Pro | CHF 99/year × 5 = CHF 495 | - |
| Yoast Premium | CHF 99/year × 5 = CHF 495 | - |
| Total over 5 years | CHF 1,540 | CHF 0 |
Astro doesn’t need paid plugins: the WordPress licences add up year after year.
Initial development cost
| Item | WordPress | Astro |
|---|---|---|
| Standard site development (15 pages, multilingual, forms) | CHF 8,000 to 15,000 | CHF 10,000 to 18,000 |
| Advanced performance setup | CHF 1,500 to 3,000 | CHF 0 (built in by default) |
| Average total | CHF 11,500 | CHF 14,000 |
Astro is slightly more expensive in initial development: it needs a qualified frontend developer, whereas WordPress only needs someone to install it. But the CHF 2,500 gap pays for itself in under 24 months through lower running costs.
Maintenance cost over 5 years
| Item | WordPress | Astro |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly updates (core, theme, plugins) | 2 to 4 h/month × CHF 100/h = CHF 200/month | 30 to 60 min/month × CHF 100/h = CHF 50/month |
| Security (urgent CVE fixes) | 1 to 3 incidents/year × 2 to 4 h | Almost non-existent |
| Major migration (PHP, WP version) | Every 18 to 24 months, CHF 1,500 to 3,000 | Every 24 to 36 months, CHF 800 to 1,500 |
| 5-year total (estimate) | CHF 13,000 to 18,000 | CHF 4,000 to 6,000 |
WordPress needs 3 to 4 times more maintenance than Astro over 5 years, and this is the most structural gap.
5-year TCO (Total Cost of Ownership)
| Cumulative | WordPress | Astro |
|---|---|---|
| Initial development | 11,500 | 14,000 |
| Licences | 1,540 | 0 |
| Maintenance | 15,000 | 5,000 |
| Redesign after 5 years (likely for WP, optional for Astro) | +12,000 | optional |
| Total | CHF 40,040 | CHF 19,000 |
Over 5 years, Astro is more than 50% cheaper, for a site that is clearly better in performance, security and maintainability.
When WordPress is still preferable
A large editorial community. A site with 10+ regular contributors producing content. WordPress is still the standard in everyday use for editorial workflows. Astro with a headless CMS creates more friction for non-technical editors.
Specific WordPress business plugins. If you depend on a business plugin that only exists on WordPress (e.g. WooCommerce with specific ERP extensions, or a plugin for the healthcare sector), migrating means reinventing the wheel.
A very tight budget. An SME starting out with CHF 5,000 max for a 5-page business website: WordPress is still viable. At CHF 10,000+, Astro is the better option.
Existing in-house skills. If your team knows WordPress and not Astro, the cost of learning can tip the balance.
How to migrate if you decide to make the move
WordPress → Astro migration for a typical corporate site (15 to 30 pages):
- Content export (1 day): extracting WordPress content to Markdown or through the WP REST API
- Astro setup (3 days): configuring Astro + a headless CMS (Sanity, Payload)
- Design (5 to 10 days): carrying over the existing design or a new proposal
- Development (5 to 15 days): Astro components, templates, integrations
- Content migration (2 days): import into the new CMS
- 301 redirects (1 day): all the old WP URLs to the new Astro URLs
- QA and launch (2 days)
Total: 19 to 34 days for CHF 8,000 to 25,000, depending on complexity.
Going further
See our business website service: built with Astro by default.
Request an audit of your current WordPress site: a technical diagnosis and a migration estimate.
Read our article on WordPress and SEO: to understand what is at stake for SEO.
Read our Astro vs Next.js article: to understand how to choose between Astro and Next.js if you are moving away from WordPress.
