Kirby CMS vs WordPress: The Honest Comparison

WordPress runs on roughly 43 percent of all websites worldwide. Kirby CMS, on the other hand, is barely known. That makes the comparison interesting — because widely used and best suited are not always the same thing.

WordPress and Kirby CMS in Brief

WordPress has been around since 2003 and now powers roughly 43 percent of all websites worldwide. The system is built on a database — a structured data store that the website queries on every page load. Ready-made themes handle the design, and thousands of plugins extend the functionality. For blogs, magazines, and simple business websites, this is a proven path with a large community and many off-the-shelf solutions.

Kirby CMS comes from Munich and takes a different approach. Content is not stored in a database but saved as plain text files directly on the server. There are no pre-built themes and no default layout. Every project is built individually, based on actual requirements. This makes Kirby smaller, more focused, and more controllable than WordPress.

The Advantages of Kirby CMS over WordPress

No Database, Content as Text Files

In Kirby, every page lives as a readable file on the server. That sounds like a technical detail, but it has real consequences day to day.

Backups need no special plugin or database export tool — you copy the project folder and you're done. Version control, meaning tracking who changed what and when, can be set up with Git. Git is a standard tool in software development that every developer already knows and uses.

Particularly interesting for modern setups: text files can be read and structured directly by a language model — an AI system like ChatGPT or Claude. This means content can be created and filled in faster without manual work in the backend. With a classic database architecture, that would be significantly more effort.

No Plugin Chaos, More Security

The most common cause of hacked WordPress sites is outdated or poorly maintained plugins. If you have three plugins for forms, two for SEO, and one for the cookie banner, you are also maintaining six potential attack vectors.

Kirby has no database and therefore no risk of SQL injection. SQL injection is a common attack method where attackers inject malicious code through database queries. That attack surface simply does not exist in Kirby.

The setup stays minimal: only what the project actually needs. This makes maintenance more predictable in the long run and keeps the attack surface small.

Kirby CMS or WordPress: Who Should Consider Switching?

Being fair to both systems without being dishonest is actually straightforward.

WordPress makes sense when a standardized solution is sufficient, when community resources and plugin selection matter, or when there is no budget for custom development. If you already run a well-functioning WordPress site with no urgent problems, there is no need to switch just because Kirby exists.

Kirby CMS is worth considering when the project needs a tailored content structure, when long-term security and easy maintainability matter more than a quick off-the-shelf solution, or when the website needs to grow alongside the business without hitting technical limits at every turn.

In my projects, I typically use Kirby as a so-called headless backend. Headless means: Kirby manages the content in the background while Nuxt builds the visible frontend from it. This combination produces websites that load fast, are individually designed, and can be maintained by editors without any developer knowledge.