Datawrapper achieves 275% faster page load speed and bulletproof security by moving to Strattic

Static and headless WordPress. In one click.

About Datawrapper

Datawrapper is an online charting tool for users who want to present their data in beautiful charts and maps. Their site and blog attract millions of visits per year. Datawrapper helps some of the world’s biggest teams tell their stories with data, including customers like The New York Times, Wired, Fortune, and more.

The challenge: moving from Hexo to WordPress opened up security & performance issues

Datawrapper had selected Hexo, a static site generator, as the framework for their previous site in order to enjoy the benefits of a fast and secure website. However, the Datawrapper team became frustrated with Hexo’s heavy technical requirements, which were proving to be a constant bottleneck whenever their marketing team needed to update the site.

“Our marketers and other non-technical staff needed to be able to publish a blog post or edit content on the site quickly, without having to write it in markdown language that is a requirement with Hexo,” said Datawrapper’s CEO, David Kokkelink.

“As a result, we decided to move our site over to WordPress, which is much simpler for everyone to use due to its well-known and user-friendly backend interface.”

On the new WordPress site, page load time was much slower than it had been on the previous static site, clocking in at 2.5 to 3 seconds per page. This is an eternity for a user waiting for a page to load, and was unacceptable to Datawrapper.

They were anxious to launch the new site, but did not want to go live with a poorly performing site.

The solution: fast, secure Strattic

Figuring that a static site would solve their issues (like their old Hexo site did), the Datawrapper team spent two days trying to implement an open source solution for converting their WordPress site to static. When they had no success with the open source solution, they decided to explore commercial static WordPress solutions, and gave Strattic a try.

“The onboarding process and site migration to Strattic was very smooth, and it was completely handled by Strattic’s ‘white glove’ service. The Strattic team came across as extremely knowledgeable about WordPress,” David said.

High level of trust

Strattic’s team’s in-depth knowledge of WordPress, combined with the fact that one of the company’s investors is WordPress heavyweight Automattic (the company behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Gravatar, and many other core WordPress tools), gave Datawrapper the confidence to place their site in Strattic’s care.

Extreme performance (and security) improvement

From the day the site went live on Strattic, page load time has consistently been a mere 700-800 ms, a 275% improvement over their WordPress site pre-Strattic.

The site also benefited from a highly secured solution, since Strattic eliminates any potential site attack vectors through the plugins or software vulnerabilities.

“All the other solutions we looked at to solve our WordPress performance problems felt cobbled together, and none of them offered the security benefits Strattic has built-in” David remarked.

“Based on our research, Strattic came across as the most professional, reliable company in this space, with top notch service, and an end-to-end solution. I am happy to say that our impressions were correct, and we are thrilled with the results of having our website hosted on Strattic.”