AraLith COS or WordPress: a point-by-point comparison
For teams rebuilding their site and deciding whether to stay on WordPress or move to a platform that keeps everything in one place
Two different ways of building the same thing: WordPress assembles plugins and services you choose yourself, AraLith COS keeps content, SEO and the AI assistant inside a single environment. Below you will find the criteria we use, the point-by-point table and, at the end, the cases where staying on WordPress is the right call. Data verified in September 2026.
In short: who should choose what
WordPress is the right answer when you need to own the code, run a complex ecommerce, or use an integration that already exists as a plugin: it is the most widely used CMS in the world and its ecosystem has no rival. AraLith COS is the right answer when content is the main asset and the problem is not publishing, but governing what gets published: who approves it, which sources it rests on, and how you measure it as it ages.
The difference is not the feature list, which by now looks fairly similar on both sides. It is where the work sits: on WordPress you choose, install and maintain every piece. Here the pieces arrive already connected, in exchange for a more closed perimeter.
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Choose WordPress if
You need to own the code, run an ecommerce with integrations already in place, or use a specific plugin that exists only there.
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Choose AraLith COS if
You publish continuously, in more than one language, and you need to know who approved every text and on which sources.
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Weigh both if
You run a brochure site that barely changes: there the deciding factor is the cost of maintenance, not the feature list.
What actually changes, criterion by criterion
Setup, cost and maintenance
| Criterion | AraLith COS | WordPress and its plugins |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | A single subscription that includes hosting and updates | The CMS is free, then hosting, premium plugins and maintenance: Polylang Pro €99/year, Yoast Premium $118.80/year |
| Maintenance | Carried by the vendor; no third-party plugin library to keep up to date | Carried by you or your agency: 11,334 vulnerabilities in 2025, 91% of them in plugins, with exploits observed within 5 hours of disclosure |
| Multilingual | Included: each language has its own content tree and can be edited without touching the others | Paid plugin; WPML adds around 16 queries per page, Polylang around 4 |
| Code ownership | No: it is a SaaS subscription, you export the content | Yes: GPL licence, your own installation, portable |
| Extension ecosystem | Closed component catalogue: if an integration is missing, it has to be built | Tens of thousands of plugins for any need |
Content, artificial intelligence and measurement
| Criterion | AraLith COS | WordPress and its plugins |
|---|---|---|
| AI-written content | Inside the CMS, bound to an approved knowledge base and to declared claims | Third-party plugins, with no source constraint on what gets generated |
| Human review | Mandatory: on a language that is already published, every AI change starts life as a proposal | Depends on the roles configured: if the connected user can publish, the agent publishes |
| Content losing ground | Native detection on Search Console data, with a recovery plan proposed in chat | No native feature |
| Citations in AI answers | Monitored across AI Overviews, Claude and ChatGPT, including the sources cited instead of yours | Paid plugin: Yoast AI+ costs $358.80/year |
| Structured data | Derived from the page type and from the components actually used | SEO plugin, with fields to fill in by hand |
| AI content marking (EU AI Act, art. 50) | Native on generated images and translated text | Achievable with dedicated plugins |
Prices and security figures verified in September 2026 against the vendors' public sources and the annual Patchstack report.
Where each one wins
Where WordPress wins
- Ecosystem: tens of thousands of plugins, for any niche and any integration.
- Ownership: GPL licence, your own installation, no lock-in to a single vendor.
- Ecommerce: WooCommerce and its chain of extensions have no equivalent here.
- Widely available skills: you can find people who know it anywhere, and that has real value.
- Entry cost: the CMS itself is free; the spending starts later, with plugins and maintenance.
Where AraLith COS wins
- Governance: the AI writes inside a perimeter of approved facts, it does not improvise.
- Review: on a published language nothing goes live on its own, not even through the assistant.
- Multilingual: included, with a content tree per language that can be edited independently.
- Measurement: content decay and citations in AI answers inside the same panel.
- Maintenance: no plugin library to keep updated, updates included in the subscription.
The questions that come up before deciding
No. AraLith COS is a SaaS subscription product: the platform code stays with AraLith. The content you publish is yours, but there is no perpetual licence, no version you can install on your own servers and no source code escrow. If owning the code is a requirement, WordPress is the right answer and we say so upfront.
Yes, if the site exposes its REST API. The wizard brings across pages, posts, titles, basic SEO and images, skips content already imported and never creates duplicates. It does not bring comments, taxonomies, menus, contact forms or cookie banners, it does not translate, and the text arrives as a single block that has to be rebuilt in the editor. If the site does not expose wp-json, the import does not start.
No. On a language that is already published, every change made by the assistant starts life as a proposal awaiting review, with a field-by-field diff against the live version. Approving it records who approved and when. The same applies to writes coming from external agents connected to the platform.
Not for the infrastructure: hosting and updates are included in the subscription and there is no third-party plugin library to keep aligned. What remains is editorial work: keeping the company profile and the knowledge base current, and approving what gets proposed.
It has to be built. The component catalogue is closed and there is no third-party extension marketplace like the WordPress one: that is the flip side of a more controlled surface. If the integration you need already exists as a WordPress plugin and is central to your work, WordPress wins that comparison.
The product is young and we have no verified numbers on customers or average results to show: we prefer to say so. The catalogue of page structures exists and is documented, but it is being validated right now, on live projects. AraLith has been building software since 2007: that is the experience behind it, while the maturity of this specific product is still being built.
Bring us the site you run today
We will work out together what it costs to keep it running and what would change by governing it from a single environment. If staying where you are is the better call, we will tell you.
