Build questions, plainly answered.

It depends on how you want to live with the site. WordPress with Divi suits you if you want to add pages and features yourself, and want the breadth of the WordPress plugin ecosystem to draw on. A modern JS framework (Astro or Next.js) suits you if speed, security, and low maintenance are the priorities and you want a clean, focused editor. Both are good. They're good for different reasons, and the discovery call works out which fits your project. Neither is the trendy choice or the safe choice; they're two honest answers to different needs.

No. WordPress runs a huge share of the web and remains an excellent platform when it's built well and looked after properly. What's true is that a WordPress site has more moving parts than a modern static site, so it needs proper hosting and active maintenance to stay fast and safe. A neglected WordPress site on cheap hosting is a genuine liability. A well-built, well-maintained one is not.

Modern JS Development builds websites (content-led sites, mostly static, on Astro or Next.js). Custom Development is for projects that aren't really websites: web applications, bespoke tools, custom functionality that no off-the-shelf platform supports. There's a grey area where a content site grows enough server-side logic to shade into application territory, and if your project sits in that zone we'll tell you honestly which pillar it really belongs in.

Yes. For most e-commerce we build on WordPress with WooCommerce: it's mature, well-understood, and handles real catalogues, payments, UK tax, and shipping properly. A small number of products can also be handled on a modern build. The discovery call works out which suits the size and ambition of your shop.

A conversion takes a WordPress site that works and is reasonably current, and rebuilds it on a modern JS framework for speed and security. Nothing is broken; you're upgrading the foundations by choice. A recovery is for a site that's genuinely old, broken, or partly lost: built in dated tools, on an abandoned platform, or missing files. A rough test: if your site works and you want it faster and safer, that's a conversion; if it's dated, unmaintainable, or partly gone, that's a recovery.

Yes. Modernising legacy sites is exactly what our Website Recovery service does: sites built in Dreamweaver, FrontPage, hand-coded HTML, or on platforms no longer supported. We can also recover sites that have been lost entirely, reconstructing them from web archives where the original files are gone. Every recovery starts with an assessment of what can realistically be brought back, before any quote.

Yes, often. Conversions, recoveries, integrations, and many smaller jobs routinely involve sites built by someone else. We'll usually want a proper look at the existing site first, since taking on another developer's work sight-unseen isn't fair to you or to us. Once we've assessed it, we can tell you honestly what's worth doing.

Often, yes. Adding an integration, a booking system, a new section, or a piece of custom functionality to an existing site is common work. As with any inherited site, we'll want to look at how it's built first. If the site is in poor shape, we'll be honest about whether bolting something on is wise, or whether your money is better spent elsewhere.

It means the site is built in a structured, readable, version-controlled way, rather than assembled and patched until it happens to work. It matters because clean code is faster, more secure, easier to fix, and able to be understood by another developer later, including one who isn't us. You can't see code quality the way you can see a design, but you feel it in every update, every fix, and every year the site keeps working.

On WordPress we build with Divi, but with a custom child theme written as proper code underneath, not a stack of page-builder overrides. Divi gives you a familiar way to edit the site after launch; the child theme keeps the build clean and maintainable. On modern JS framework builds there's no page builder at all; the site is assembled from clean, reusable components.

Yes, because performance is part of the build rather than an afterthought. We optimise images, keep the code lean, configure caching properly, and tune for Core Web Vitals. Modern JS framework sites are fast by default, since pages are served as static files. Well-built WordPress sites are fast too; they just need proper hosting and caching to stay that way as they grow.

Always. Every build is mobile-responsive and tested across modern browsers and devices. More than half of most sites' visitors arrive on a phone, so mobile is the starting point of the build, not a box ticked at the end.

Yes, to a degree that depends on the build. WordPress with Divi gives you the most hands-on control: you can edit pages, add sections, and change layouts yourself. A modern JS build with Payload CMS gives you clean control of content (text, images, posts, new entries) while the layout stays as designed. Every build comes with a short training session so you can confidently do the things you'll want to do.

Yes. Your website is yours: the code, the content, the database. If you ever want to move to another developer or another host, we'll hand everything over and help with the move. No lock-in, no holding your site hostage.

It depends on the platform and the scope. As a guide: single-page sites from £350, standard WordPress sites from £550, custom WordPress from £750, modern JS framework sites from £600, WordPress e-commerce from £1,000, and web apps from £2,000. Conversions and recoveries are quoted after an assessment, since no two start from the same place. Every project gets a fixed written quote before any work begins, and the figure agreed is the figure invoiced.

Most full projects run 8 to 12 weeks from first conversation to launch, with the build phase itself typically 3 to 6 weeks of that. Simpler sites are quicker; larger e-commerce or integration-heavy builds take longer. You'll get a realistic timeline in the quote.

Every new build includes a couple of hours of post-launch tweaks for the small things that always surface, and a full year of managed hosting. After that, ongoing care is your call, with no lock-in. Most clients stay on a hosting plan and call on us a few times a year for updates and changes. The Process page covers aftercare in full.

Yes. You get direct access to the maker for as long as you're a client. Beyond the included first year of hosting, ongoing changes and new work are billed honestly: hourly for small jobs, fixed-quoted for larger ones. Either way, you're talking to the person who built the site, not a ticketing system.

Security is built into every BrainWeb build: SSL, secure configuration, hardening appropriate to the platform, and a build done cleanly so there's less to exploit in the first place. Modern JS framework sites have a naturally small attack surface, with no live database or plugin code exposed. WordPress sites are hardened during the build and then kept safe by proper managed hosting, with active updates, monitoring, and backups.

Yes, genuinely. Through 2025 and into 2026, AI tools capable of finding software vulnerabilities at scale have compressed the time between a weakness appearing and it being exploited. This matters most for platforms with large shared codebases, WordPress and its plugin ecosystem being the obvious example. The practical takeaway isn't alarm, it's that proper hosting and maintenance have moved from sensible to genuinely necessary. The Host pillar explains this calmly and in full.

Yes, though that specific job lives in our Host pillar rather than here. Cleaning a compromised site, removing malware, finding how the attacker got in, and getting the site lifted from any blocklist is security work rather than development work. It's covered by our Website Security Rescue service. If your site has been hacked, start there, or just get in touch and we'll point you the right way quickly.