WordPress is a privilege to work with, the fact that its free, community driven and still getting stronger after 15 years, understates how powerful the aspect of open source code is. In my opinion its a win win for both the developer creating bespoke WordPress websites to the end user changing the content on their homepage.
After 4 years experience building bespoke WordPress themes, WordPress is by far the most intuitive way to build a dynamic website. With a little reading of the theme developer handbook I was able to convert a custom photoshop design for a blog to a genuine interactive WordPress blog in just under a week. The website was relatively simple but the ability to implement something completely custom with very little code and a few plugins, certainly puts your mind at ease. Fast forward 4 years, today I use Roots Sage 9 & ACF Pro to build custom WordPress websites, the process is that streamlined that I can focus more time on more critical tasks like optimisation, to ensure page load times are no longer than 2 seconds.
In conclusion, despite the stigma flying around about WordPress being slow and outdated, I wouldn't discard it just yet. Yes it's built in PHP that's certainly not faster than a React.js SPA but who says you cant leverage both? With the release of the WordPress REST API and a React.js static site generator like GatsbyJS, you're able to have your cake and eat it. Utilising WordPress as a back end to change your content and then triggering a fresh static website build with GatsbyJS, you're uniting the familiarity of WordPress with the power of modern JavaScript. All in all, if you're considering web development as a career or simply want to build your own website, never disregard WordPress.
