Headless CMS or WordPress for a small business site?

The comparison is often framed as old versus new. It is simpler than that: WordPress builds the whole site, and a headless CMS supplies only the words.

Choose WordPress when

• You do not have a website yet, and want one from a theme.
• Nobody on the team writes code, and nobody will.
• You want plugins for shops, forms and bookings in one place.

Choose a headless CMS when

• The site already exists, built by a developer or an agency.
• You want the blog to look exactly like the rest of it.
• You would rather not run, update and secure a second system.

The hidden cost

A WordPress site is software you own: updates, plugins, backups, hosting. That is fine when it is your whole website. Bolted onto an existing site just for a blog, it is a second site to maintain.

A headless blog has no server of yours to patch. Your site asks for posts; the CMS answers.

The short version

If you are starting from nothing, a site builder or WordPress will get you further, faster. If the site is built and you only need the blog, fetch the posts into it.