Headless React or a WordPress block theme after an AI migration?

Two valid architectures

After converting an AI-built site, teams sometimes ask whether they should keep the React front end and use WordPress only as a headless content source. Both architectures work, but they serve different organisations. Headless suits teams with developers who want full control of the front end. A block theme suits teams where marketers and editors must own pages without developer help.

Costs and complexity

Headless means two systems to host, secure and update: the WordPress back end and the JavaScript front end. Previews, forms, redirects and SEO metadata all need extra work because the standard WordPress features do not apply automatically. A block theme uses one system, and every plugin for SEO, forms and caching works out of the box.

Over three years, the total cost of ownership of headless is usually significantly higher for small and medium sites.

SEO considerations

A headless front end must render HTML on the server to be reliably indexed, including canonicals, hreflang and structured data in the initial response. Many AI-generated React sites originally failed exactly here. A block theme renders full HTML by default, which removes a whole category of indexing risk.

My recommendation

For most businesses migrating from an AI builder, a block theme is the pragmatic choice: faster launch, lower costs and fewer moving parts. Choose headless only when there is a clear product reason and a team that can maintain it. A converter such as Convert2WP produces a block-based result, which is the fastest path to the first option.