How to move a small WordPress site to a simpler builder, and when not to
Plenty of small businesses run WordPress for five pages and a contact form, and spend more time on plugin updates and security warnings than on the site itself. If that's you, it can make sense to move a small WordPress site to a simpler builder. In Anticode there's no WordPress import, so the move is a careful rebuild: plugins audited first, pages rebuilt from the old site's link, posts copied by hand, domain switched last.
First, the plugin audit
Your plugins list decides this. Open it in the WordPress admin and sort each one into three piles. Nothing on a generated Anticode page runs scripts, and there's no plugin system, so each plugin either has an equivalent, can be replaced by a link, or is a reason to stay.
| Plugin does | In Anticode | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Contact form | Built-in contact form with fixed fields (name, email, message), or a custom form with a site function | Covered |
| SEO titles and sitemap | Each site serves its own sitemap.xml and robots.txt | Covered |
| Caching, security hardening, backups | Pages are static with no scripts; the last ten published versions are backed up | Not needed |
| Cookie banner | Analytics are counted without cookies and there are no third-party trackers | Often not needed |
| Simple booking form | Booking calendar with six fixed times a day | Covered if those times suit you |
| WooCommerce with stock and shipping | Buy buttons that open a payment link only | Reason to stay |
| Membership or course logins | No visitor accounts on published sites | Reason to stay |
| Embedded maps, videos, booking widgets | Can't be embedded; link to them instead | Accept the change or stay |
| Multilingual plugin | No multilingual sites | Reason to stay |
If anything lands in the last column and you rely on it, stay on WordPress and put the effort into a managed host that handles updates. That's a legitimate answer.
Export what's yours
- Use WordPress's own export tool to download an XML file of posts and pages. It's your archive, even though nothing reads it in automatically.
- Download your media library: original photos and PDFs.
- List every page address, and mark the ones that get visits or have links from other sites. Your WordPress analytics or Search Console will show these.
- Note every form, who receives it, and any email list it feeds.
Rebuild in order
- Start from the link. Describe the business in a sentence and include the WordPress site's address. The Architect reads linked pages once and summarises them into the brief, then asks up to three questions and shows a plan.
- Trim as you go. Remove pages your audit showed nobody visits. Most small WordPress sites carry a few.
- Bring your own photos from the media library rather than relying on stock images: keep posts or work in a CMS collection whose image field holds their hosted addresses (uploads are used only by app builds).
- Set up a CMS collection for posts. Collections have typed fields (text, rich text, number, date, image), and each entry gets its own page at
/<collection>/<slug>. Add a title, date, body and image field. - Copy posts across by hand. There's no importer, so this is the slow part. Bring over the posts that still get traffic or still say something true; leave the rest in your XML archive.
- Recreate forms. Reconnect where submissions go: email to you, or a connector to Google Sheets, Mailchimp, Kit, HubSpot or another listed tool.
- Read the new legal pages. Anticode writes a Privacy Policy and Terms from what the new site actually does. They're a starting point, not legal advice.
Switch the domain
Publish to the free anticode.dev address first and check every page on a phone. Then, on a paid plan, add your domain; Anticode asks for a CNAME or TXT record and issues the certificate. Change the record at your DNS host at a quiet time. Keep the old WordPress hosting running for a few weeks in case you need to copy something you missed, then cancel it. If your email is hosted with the same company as WordPress, make sure moving the website records doesn't touch the email ones.
Old post addresses are the main loss. Anticode doesn't redirect old page addresses, so if /2021/05/spring-opening had inbound links, those visitors will see a not-found page. Keep important posts at a similar slug in the collection, and update links you control.
Limits
No WordPress import, no plugins, no comments, RSS feed or scheduled posts on CMS collections, no redirects from old addresses, no member areas or WooCommerce-style shop. If you write often and readers subscribe by RSS, a dedicated blogging tool will serve you better. For general migration planning see WordPress alternatives and Anticode vs WordPress.
Questions people ask
Can I import my WordPress posts?
No. Export them from WordPress as an archive, then copy the ones you want to keep into a CMS collection by hand.
Will my search rankings survive the move?
Pages you rebuild with the same content usually recover, but old addresses that change will lose their links, and Anticode doesn't redirect them. Keep slugs close to the originals where you can.
Do I still need security updates?
Not in the WordPress sense: there are no plugins or scripts on the published pages to patch. Keep your account and domain secured with two-factor sign-in.
When should I stay on WordPress?
When you rely on a shop with stock and shipping, member logins, a multilingual site, or plugins nothing here replaces.