WordPress vs Next.js: The Real 2026 Security Data

The short answer

WordPress itself is rarely the problem — only 6 vulnerabilities were found in WordPress core in 2025, all low-risk. The real exposure is the plugin ecosystem: 91% of the 11,334 new vulnerabilities discovered in 2025 (up 42% from 7,966 in 2024) were in plugins, and the median time from public disclosure to mass exploitation is 5 hours.

How big is the problem, really

WordPress still runs 41.5% of all websites as of mid-2026, which is exactly why plugin vulnerabilities matter at scale: an estimated 13,000 WordPress sites are compromised every day. WordPress plugin vulnerabilities are now disclosed at a rate of 250+ per week, and 43% of them are exploitable without needing any login credentials at all.

Why patching doesn't close the gap in time

23% of disclosed plugin vulnerabilities remain unpatched 30 days after disclosure, and more than half of plugin developers contacted about a vulnerability didn't fix it before the details became public. Combined with a 5-hour median window before mass exploitation starts, the practical result is a persistent gap: even a well-maintained WordPress site running 10-15 plugins is one unpatched dependency away from exposure, through no fault of the site owner's own maintenance discipline.

What a hack actually costs

The average recovery cost for a small business after a WordPress hack is $14,500 — malware removal, emergency developer time, downtime, lost revenue, and the SEO recovery work needed after Google flags a compromised site. That's a real, recurring cost most WordPress pricing conversations don't include.

Why a Next.js-only stack sidesteps this structurally

This isn't a WordPress-is-badly-built argument — it's a plugin-architecture argument. WordPress's extensibility model runs almost entirely on third-party plugins, each one a separate, independently-maintained attack surface. A site built directly in Next.js and React, with no plugin layer at all, has nothing equivalent to patch, because there's no equivalent surface to begin with.

This is exactly why Webstars builds exclusively in Next.js and React — not a stylistic preference, a direct response to where the real WordPress vulnerability data points.