WordPress or TYPO3? A comparison for companies and what matters when switching

For most company websites, WordPress is the simpler choice: a few editors, one or two languages, plus a blog or a shop. TYPO3 pays off when many editors with tightly defined permissions work on a large, multilingual page tree and a team maintains the system long term. A switch is worth considering above all when a major TYPO3 upgrade is due anyway. Since 30 April 2026, TYPO3 12 no longer receives free updates.

So you can weigh this text properly: I am a WordPress developer. For Fünf Höfe, a shopping arcade in Munich, I moved the website from TYPO3 to WordPress and kept the design. That is also why you will find a section below on when you are better off staying with TYPO3. The examples refer to the German market, where TYPO3 is far more common than elsewhere.

WordPress or TYPO3: the decision in one table

Your situation	Suitable system
Company website with a few editors, a blog, perhaps a shop	WordPress
Many editors, each allowed to edit only their own section	TYPO3, or WordPress with extra roles
Several domains and languages from one installation	Both. TYPO3 does it out of the box, WordPress with Multisite and a language plugin.
Online shop with cart and payment	WordPress with WooCommerce
TYPO3 12 or older, a relaunch is due anyway	Consider moving to WordPress
TYPO3 13 or 14, the team is happy, an agency maintains it	Stay with TYPO3

How widely WordPress and TYPO3 are used

According to W3Techs, WordPress runs 39.4 percent of all websites, or 58.1 percent of the websites whose CMS can be identified. TYPO3 accounts for 0.3 percent of all websites worldwide (as of 9 November 2026). Germany is different: there, TYPO3 is the second most common CMS after WordPress, according to a W3Techs analysis from May 2025.

For your planning, that means you will find far more developers, themes and extensions for WordPress. The pool of TYPO3 service providers is smaller. That does not matter as long as your agency stays. It becomes a problem when you suddenly need someone new.

Why the question comes up now

TYPO3 is released in fixed long-term support (LTS) versions, each maintained for free for around three years. For TYPO3 12, that period ran from 25 April 2023 to 30 April 2026. If you still need security updates, you either book the paid extended support (ELTS), available until 30 April 2030 at the latest, or upgrade to TYPO3 13 (maintained until 2027) or TYPO3 14 (until 2029). That is what the TYPO3 roadmap says.

Many websites lag behind. According to W3Techs, around 80 percent of TYPO3 websites run version 12 or older, and almost a quarter still run version 4. For these sites the next major upgrade is a project of its own, because extensions and templates have to move along. That is exactly when a comparison pays off: you are paying for a bigger project anyway and can decide which system it ends on.

WordPress has no such cycles. New versions arrive continuously, and WordPress installs minor maintenance and security releases automatically by default. How to install the major updates safely is covered in the guide Installing WordPress updates properly.

Editing, permissions and usability

In WordPress, editors work in the block editor. They put texts, images and sections together like building blocks and see almost exactly how the page will look. For permissions, WordPress ships six fixed roles. One of them, the Contributor, may write posts but not publish them. That gives you a simple approval step without an extra plugin: someone writes, an editor reviews and publishes.

TYPO3 goes further. Permissions can be set for individual pages, parts of the page tree, individual fields and even individual languages. An editor at the Austrian branch then sees only her pages and may only change the Austrian version. WordPress can do this too, but only with plugins or custom code, and the finer the permissions, the more maintenance they need.

My view from practice: as long as it is clear who edits what and nobody needs to be kept away from other people's pages, the WordPress roles are enough. When departments must work strictly separated, TYPO3 has a real advantage.

Several languages and domains

In TYPO3, several websites and languages in one installation are part of the design from the start. The site configuration defines the domain, the languages and the URL structure for each website.

WordPress needs add-ons for this. Several websites sharing one installation, plugins and themes run on WordPress Multisite. For languages you add a plugin, for example Polylang, which according to the plugin directory runs on more than 900,000 websites and allows any number of languages, or the paid WPML. Three languages on one domain are set up quickly that way. With ten countries and their own teams, TYPO3 is usually the calmer solution.

Security

Some comparisons count vulnerabilities and make WordPress look bad that way. Such totals say little, because WordPress runs on more than a hundred times as many websites as TYPO3 and has a far larger range of third-party plugins. What matters is the same for both systems: install updates promptly, use only maintained extensions and run a version that still receives security fixes.

Both systems run on PHP. A flaw in PHP itself therefore hits both equally, as PHP2Shell did in October 2026. Neither a WordPress nor a TYPO3 update helps against it, only the PHP update on the server.

What the switch costs

Neither system costs a licence fee. WordPress and TYPO3 are released under the GNU General Public License. You pay for the work around them, for older TYPO3 versions the ELTS fees as well, and for WordPress premium plugins and themes if you need them.

For a migration, four things mainly drive the effort: how many pages and languages move, how many different content types there are (plain pages, news, events, forms), whether the design stays or is redone, and how many old addresses need redirects. What a WordPress website costs overall is covered in What does a WordPress website cost?

Moving from TYPO3 to WordPress

This is how I approach a move from TYPO3 to WordPress:

1. Take stock. I pull every address from the sitemap and Search Console, go through the page tree and list content types, forms, languages and users. Afterwards everything visitors or Google know is on one list.
2. Map the content. Plain pages become pages, news become posts, content elements become blocks. Anything WordPress does not know out of the box, such as events with a date and venue, gets its own content type.
3. Keep the design or redo it. For Fünf Höfe the design stayed, so nothing changed for visitors. That is the calmest route as long as the design still fits.
4. Move the content. Texts, images with alt texts, files, and titles and descriptions all move. With few pages this is done by hand, with many by script.
5. Redirect every old address. TYPO3 builds its addresses differently from WordPress, depending on version and extension for example ending in .html or as index.php?id=42. Every old address gets a 301 redirect to the matching new page, not a blanket redirect to the homepage. According to Google, 301 redirects do not cost any PageRank.
6. Test on a locked copy. The new website first runs behind a password and blocked for search engines. There I check forms, languages, redirects and the mobile view.
7. Switch over and monitor. After go-live I submit the new sitemap in Search Console and watch 404 errors and the positions of the most important pages for several weeks.

When you should stay with TYPO3

• Your website runs TYPO3 13 or 14 and will receive updates for years.
• Many editors work with finely graded permissions, and it works.
• TYPO3 is tightly connected to other systems, such as an intranet, a product database or a customer login.
• An agency maintains your TYPO3 reliably, and you are happy with it.

Then there is no good reason to switch. A migration costs time and money and gains little when the existing system is well maintained.

Planning the switch with me

If your TYPO3 website needs renewing anyway, I handle the move to WordPress: inventory, content migration, redirects and monitoring after go-live. If the design is to be redone as well, see WordPress web design. For ongoing care after the move, there is WordPress support.

Frequently asked questions

Is TYPO3 still up to date?

Yes. TYPO3 is actively developed, and the current long-term version, TYPO3 14, receives updates until 2029 according to the roadmap. Many installations are out of date, though: according to W3Techs, around 80 percent of TYPO3 websites run version 12 or older.

Is WordPress still up to date?

Yes. According to W3Techs, WordPress runs 39.4 percent of all websites, ships new versions continuously and installs minor security releases automatically.

Which CMS is the best?

There is no best CMS, only the right one for the job. For a company website with a few editors, a blog and perhaps a shop, that is usually WordPress. For large multilingual sites where many editors may only edit their own section, it is often TYPO3.

Is TYPO3 more secure than WordPress?

Not in principle. Both are secure as long as updates are installed promptly and the version still receives security fixes. A TYPO3 12 site without ELTS has received none since May 2026.

How long does a move from TYPO3 to WordPress take?

It depends on the number of pages, languages and content types, and on whether the design stays. A small company site moves faster than a site with hundreds of pages in several languages. Once the inventory is done, the effort can be estimated concretely.

Will I lose my Google rankings when I switch?

Not if every old address is redirected with a 301 to the matching new page and the texts, titles and descriptions move with it. Fluctuations in the first weeks are normal. Google says that for medium-sized sites it can take a few weeks or more before the new addresses replace the old ones.