DIY vs Enterprise: Which Path to Developing a Website Using WordPress is Right For Your Organization?

SUMMARY
DIY or enterprise? Both solutions have merit in WordPress. It just depends on what you’re looking for. DIY site builders enjoy flexibility and freedom without knowing code but may struggle with consistency. Meanwhile, custom enterprise sites mean more stability and structure, though the sometimes lengthy DevOps process that comes with this can be surprising.

Table of Contents

• Do-It-Yourself Is a Well-Trodden Path
• Custom Dev Means UX Best Practices for Enterprise Sites
• Which Is Right For You?

Explore the Full Spectrum of WordPress Sites

You may have already read our blog on the CMS cage match, comparing open-source vs licensed options. If you’ve landed on WordPress, then you’ve likely learned about the robust plugin library, flexible themes, and page builders that have become ubiquitous in the WordPress community. As an agency, we’ve come to learn the various viewpoints and expectations that users have when working in WordPress.

To employ a frequently-used turn of phrase here at Sandstorm: 

YES, WordPress can be completely flexible, allowing an almost no-code solution to building a site, AND that flexibility can become risky because of its lack of guardrails. Access to so many settings can cause an inconsistent user experience, as well as a site that might become hard to maintain in the long term.

To address the flip side of that coin:

YES, you can develop an enterprise-scale website using WordPress with custom post types, complex taxonomies, and a custom theme, AND by employing a more complex, code-reliant version of WordPress, you may sacrifice some of the flexibility that WordPress is known for.

So which solution is best?

Do-It-Yourself Is a Well-Trodden Path

The beauty of WordPress as an open-source CMS is that the world of extendable plugins is at everyone’s fingertips. It’s easy to add a full event calendar, interactive elements such as maps, forms, and quizzes, LMS solutions, and even e-commerce. 

For a no-code solution, administrators can choose from a suite of pre-made templates from sources such as Elegant Themes, Creative Market, ThemeForest, Template Monster, and many others. A theme helps standardize the styling of a site without an administrator needing to code any CSS. Administrators can typically customize the site color palette and fonts to align with their brand standards in the theme settings. More adventurous site builders may be brave enough to edit CSS and PHP directly in the theme files.

Block Editor (formerly Gutenberg) can work in tandem with these pre-made themes and includes a full library of standard blocks, including column settings, headings, text, media, forms, galleries, sliders, etc. This allows for maximum flexibility when building out pages and posts.

As an alternative to Block Editor, you can choose a page builder (Divi, Elementor, and WPBakery are popular options) as your primary content management tool. This can be helpful when you want a more visual interface for editing pages and posts and uses a fairly straightforward drag-and-drop experience.

For maximum flexibility, you may pick to control everything from the header, footer, and navigation to your page content in blocks using a block theme. This option allows for far more control over the layout, styles, and display on pages.

Easy and Accessible to Non-Coders

For individuals and organizations building and managing sites with a small team, these low- to no-code solutions are perfect for giving site administrators a large amount of control over front-end displays, content layouts, and basic styling. Most of what is needed to apply branded styles and maintain content can be done from the WordPress administrator dashboard.

The Challenge of Maintaining Consistency

Page builders and site editors can be so flexible and granular that if a team wanted to apply a global change, there may be so many exceptions that it would take a large amount of effort to find all the tweaks and updates made at the page or even block level to get those updates to apply.

The greatest risk overall is lack of consistency, which frequently makes for a troubling if not outright frustrating user experience. 

Additionally, many of these sites are not managed using a DevOps process, lacking the development and testing environments that allow a team to avoid issues like plugin conflicts or other bugs before pushing changes live. The risk of causing issues or deleting sections/pages accidentally directly on a live site without a controlled way to roll them back increases greatly in these scenarios.

Custom Dev Means UX Best Practices for Enterprise Sites

WordPress can also be a great option when using custom theming for an enterprise-level site, complete with integrations, single sign-on, and other bells and whistles that other open-source platforms like Drupal can handle. Between creating standard templates, Block Editor, custom post types, and the flexibility of Advanced Custom Fields, it is possible to create flexible page layouts and structured, repeatable content all in the same site.

When large organizations choose WordPress as the CMS for their custom design, it’s usually because their existing site is already in WordPress or the staff who maintain the site have some familiarity with the platform. While familiarity can be helpful from a content management perspective, many editors are used to the more DIY flavor of WordPress as outlined above.

Guardrails Mean Beautiful, Consistent Experiences

The guardrails that can be implemented with custom templates and blocks are there to help content editors be choosy about what shows up where, such as:

• Ensuring the correct hover states for the top navigation
• Establishing a pattern for breadcrumbs across the site, since a user can land on any page through Google or AI search
• Limiting the number of teasers for content on the site to create relevant related content
• Designating 1-2 calls to action in a block to help guide users’ choices
• Consistent branding across large sites and the ability to update branding changes seamlessly

There are many other ways to add guardrails. For example, we established some around three common requests we get and now regularly include them in our builds.

Proper DevOps Processes Mean Better Stability

Using a managed DevOps process with WordPress introduces more structure and oversight, but it can cause surprises about the pace and level of effort of feature deployment. Instead of pushing changes directly to a live site, code is reviewed, tested, and deployed through defined environments (such as development and staging) before making it to production. This reduces the risk of introducing bugs, breaking functionality, or compromising security.

While this added rigor may seem like a hurdle compared to quick-turnaround updates, it creates a much more secure and stable foundation. This gives both internal teams and clients the opportunity to QA any features or changes before they hit primetime. In the long run, this minimizes downtime, improves maintainability, and helps ensure that updates are reliable and documented via version control.

Which Is Right For You?

WordPress offers a variety of options for a broad range of uses. It can be hugely flexible or highly structured, depending on what works best for a business or organization. Knowing the spectrum of options can help refine how you decide to work with WordPress - either by going full DIY or choosing something structured and consistent.

If you’re interested in learning more about how an enterprise WordPress can support your organization, send us a message!