WordPress is still the best content editor in the world. I keep what works — the admin, the block editor, ACF — and replace the frontend with Next.js. Editors stay happy. Visitors get a fast site.
Headless WordPress is misunderstood. Done badly, it is the worst of both worlds — slow editing, broken previews, no live integration. Done well, it gives editors the admin they already know and visitors a frontend that loads in under two seconds.
I have built headless WordPress for content publishers, agencies, marketing sites, and SaaS docs. The recipe is consistent: keep the WP admin, expose data through WPGraphQL or a custom REST layer, render on Next.js with ISR, wire previews so editors see drafts in real-time, and lock down the WP frontend so it does not double-serve content.
Custom Gutenberg blocks are the secret weapon. Editors get a Figma-feeling editing experience while the frontend stays fully under my control.
I review your post types, ACF field groups, taxonomies, and editorial workflow. The proposal reflects your real content, not a generic template.
ACF + custom post types stay or get refactored. WPGraphQL schema or REST endpoints documented before implementation.
Pages render server-side, revalidate on publish via webhook, preview mode for drafts. Editors see changes within seconds, not minutes.
Old URLs redirect-mapped. Editor training session. ARCHITECTURE.md committed.
$10,000+ for headless rebuilds, $5,000+ for greenfield WP-headless on a content-light site.
5–10 weeks. Faster on greenfield, slower when migrating large existing content.
On the admin side, no — they keep the WP block editor and ACF. On the publish side, yes — the frontend is faster, previews work, and content updates appear live within seconds rather than after a full rebuild.
Most frontend plugins do not survive the move to headless because the frontend is no longer rendered by WordPress. Editor-side plugins (ACF, Yoast, Polylang) work as-is. I will list which plugins translate, which need replacement, and which become irrelevant.
Yoast or RankMath data flows from WP to the Next.js frontend through GraphQL. Server-rendered title, meta, OG, schema. Sitemap and robots generated by Next.js, not WordPress.
Preview mode through Next.js draft mode. Editors click 'Preview' in WP and see the draft rendered by the live frontend, not a stale cache.
WPGraphQL is the default — type-safe queries, fewer round trips, easier to consume in TypeScript. Custom REST endpoints when GraphQL would be overkill or when an existing WP setup already exposes them.
30-minute call, fixed-price proposal in 48 hours. No commitment until you sign.