Keep WordPress and run it headless when your editors know it, your content is mostly posts and pages, and the main problem is a slow theme. Move to Strapi when the content is really structured data, when plugin upkeep is what hurts, or when you want the backend in the same JavaScript stack as your new front end.
Both routes end with the same visitor experience: a Next.js or Astro front end reading content over an API. The question is what sits behind that API for the next five years.
What is the difference in architecture?
Headless WordPress keeps the WordPress install you have: PHP, a MySQL or MariaDB database, the admin at /wp-admin, your users and your plugins. You stop using the theme for public pages. The front end reads content from the REST API built into WordPress core, or from WPGraphQL, a GPL plugin that adds a GraphQL schema. WordPress still needs a PHP host, and that host now serves editors and the API rather than visitors.
Strapi replaces that backend. It is a Node.js application with its own admin, running on PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB or SQLite. Content types are defined for your project instead of fitted into posts, pages and custom post types. Your front end and your CMS can share one language, TypeScript, and one set of build tools.
Strapi vs headless WordPress at a glance
| Strapi 5 | Headless WordPress | |
|---|---|---|
| Runtime | Node.js | PHP |
| Database | PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, SQLite | MySQL or MariaDB |
| Content model | Custom types, components, dynamic zones | Posts, pages, custom post types, custom field plugins |
| API | REST per type, GraphQL plugin | Core REST API, WPGraphQL plugin |
| Editor | Strapi Content Manager | Block editor (Gutenberg) and classic screens |
| Ecosystem | Strapi Marketplace | WordPress plugin directory, many theme-only plugins |
| Licence | MIT (Community) | GPL |
| Migration needed | Yes, from WordPress | No, content stays |
How does content modelling compare?
WordPress starts from the blog. Everything is a post of some type, with a title, a body, taxonomies and metadata. Structured fields come from a plugin such as Advanced Custom Fields, and repeatable sections from field groups or blocks. That works well for articles and landing pages. It gets awkward for a product catalogue with variants, a list of offices with opening hours, or documentation with versions, because each one is shoehorned into a post type.
Strapi starts from your data. A product is a collection type with the fields it needs, opening hours are a repeatable component, and page sections are a dynamic zone editors fill in any order. Relations are real database relations. Schemas sit in your repository, so a model change is reviewed like code rather than clicked into a production admin.
The body field is a real difference for migration. Gutenberg stores page content as HTML with block comments in one database column. A headless front end has to parse that HTML or render it as is. Strapi stores structured fields and Blocks rich text as JSON, which a front end maps to components cleanly.
What changes for editors?
With headless WordPress, editors keep the screens they know: the block editor, media library, users and revisions. What they lose is the theme preview. Unless you build a preview route in the new front end, Preview shows nothing useful, and blocks that depend on theme styles look different in the editor than on the site.
With Strapi, editors learn a new admin. It is simpler than WordPress, with a list and a form per content type, draft and publish and roles. Live Preview, Releases and Content History come with Strapi’s paid Growth plan as of October 2026, so on the free plan preview is something we build into the front end.
What happens to your plugins?
Plugins are where headless WordPress projects usually overrun. They split into two groups:
- Data plugins keep working. Custom fields, custom post types, multilingual plugins and redirect managers store data the API can expose, sometimes through a WPGraphQL extension.
- Output plugins stop working. SEO meta tags, forms, sliders, page builders, cookie banners and caching plugins all assume the theme renders the page. Each one needs a replacement in the front end.
With Strapi there is no legacy plugin set. Forms, SEO fields and redirects are built into the model and the front end from the start, using Marketplace plugins or a little custom code. That is more work on day one and less to maintain afterwards.
Hosting, security and upkeep
Headless WordPress still needs WordPress upkeep: PHP versions, core updates, plugin updates and the security exposure of a public /wp-admin. You can hide the admin behind a VPN or an access proxy, since visitors no longer need it. Managed WordPress hosts handle much of this.
Strapi needs Node.js upkeep and major version upgrades, which take planning. The Strapi 4 to 5 change reshaped API responses and backend APIs. It does not carry a plugin directory’s worth of third party PHP. Strapi Cloud runs it for you from $35 per project a month as of October 2026.
What does each cost?
Both cores are free. Strapi’s Community plan is MIT; its self-hosted Growth plan was $45 a month for 3 users as of October 2026, if you want Releases, Content History and Live Preview. WordPress is GPL, and many of the plugins headless setups rely on have free versions with paid tiers.
The real cost drivers:
- Headless WordPress: rebuilding theme output in the new front end, replacing output plugins, building preview, and continuing WordPress maintenance.
- Strapi: designing the model, writing and testing the import, retraining editors, and running a Node service.
If the site is mostly a blog, headless WordPress usually costs less. If you are restructuring content anyway, the migration to Strapi is a cost you pay once.
Migrating from WordPress to Strapi
- Audit content types, custom fields, taxonomies, menus and every URL pattern.
- Design the Strapi model, turning ACF field groups into components and flexible content into dynamic zones.
- Pull content through the WordPress REST API, which returns posts, pages, terms and media with IDs you can map.
- Convert Gutenberg HTML into Blocks or components, and download media into Strapi’s library.
- Rebuild the front end against Strapi, keep slugs, and map every old URL to a 301.
Our WordPress to headless CMS migration page covers this process in more depth, including the SEO checks.
Proof from a WordPress exit
A US-based Series-B fintech came to us with years of custom WordPress plugins, theme overrides and a developer review on every copy change. We moved its content to a headless CMS, Payload in that project, with a Next.js front end, and carried every legacy URL forward. The fintech replatform case study reports a ~65% reduction in time-to-publish and an LCP of 1.4s, down from 4.2s. We would run the same WordPress exit with Strapi as the target; we have not published a Strapi case study yet.
Which one we would pick for whom
- A content team with a large blog and WordPress-trained editors: headless WordPress.
- A company whose content is products, locations or documentation: Strapi.
- A site held together by dozens of plugins: Strapi, because a headless WordPress build still carries that plugin set.
- A short project to speed up an existing site: headless WordPress with static generation.
- A team standardising on TypeScript across front end and backend: Strapi.
For each platform in depth, see our Strapi development services and headless WordPress development pages. For the wider choice, read WordPress vs headless CMS or browse our headless CMS development services. To add engineers to your own team, hire a Strapi developer or hire headless CMS developers who work across both.
