Publishing

Apex Magazine

A headless WordPress rebuild for a 40-author editorial desk

Industry: Digital publishing
Engagement: WordPress replatform
Team: 4 specialists
Duration: 14 weeks

The problem

Apex ran a decade-old premium WordPress theme with 47 active plugins. Editors fought the page builder daily, and article pages took over five seconds to render on mobile.

47 plugins with overlapping features and three separate page builders
5.4s largest contentful paint on article pages
Editors needed a developer for any new layout
Two unpatched plugins flagged in a security review

Our approach

WordPress · WPGraphQL · Next.js

Plugin and theme audit first

We inventoried every plugin, mapped what each one actually powered and retired 31 of them before writing a line of new code.

Custom Gutenberg block library

Page builders were replaced with a tokenised set of native blocks, so editors compose articles in the core editor with brand-safe patterns.

Headless front end over WPGraphQL

WordPress stayed the editorial home the team already knew, while the public site moved to a statically rendered front end with on-demand revalidation.

Hardening and hosting

Managed hosting, staged deploys, automated core and plugin updates, and a WAF in front of the admin surface.

Timeline

Audit & content model
Weeks 1-3
Plugin audit, custom post type and taxonomy design, block inventory with the editorial team.
Blocks & editorial UX
Weeks 4-8
Custom block library, editor patterns, preview workflow and author training material.
Headless front end
Weeks 9-12
WPGraphQL layer, static rendering, search, archives and structured data for every template.
Migration & launch
Weeks 13-14
Content migration with redirect map, security hardening, phased DNS cutover and handover.

Results

0.9s: Median largest contentful paint on mobile
31: Plugins removed from production
100%: Legacy URLs preserved with redirects
3x: Faster article publishing turnaround

Editors publish without developer involvement
Core Web Vitals pass on every article template
Plugin and core updates ship automatically with staged rollbacks

“They made WordPress feel modern again. Our editors stopped filing tickets and started publishing twice as often.”

Marcus LundEditor in Chief, Apex Magazine

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The problem

Apex ran a decade-old premium WordPress theme with 47 active plugins. Editors fought the page builder daily, and article pages took over five seconds to render on mobile.

47 plugins with overlapping features and three separate page builders
5.4s largest contentful paint on article pages
Editors needed a developer for any new layout
Two unpatched plugins flagged in a security review

Timeline

Audit & content model

Weeks 1-3

Plugin audit, custom post type and taxonomy design, block inventory with the editorial team.

Blocks & editorial UX

Weeks 4-8

Custom block library, editor patterns, preview workflow and author training material.

Headless front end

Weeks 9-12

WPGraphQL layer, static rendering, search, archives and structured data for every template.

Migration & launch

Weeks 13-14

Content migration with redirect map, security hardening, phased DNS cutover and handover.

Results

0.9s

Median largest contentful paint on mobile

Plugins removed from production

100%

Legacy URLs preserved with redirects

Faster article publishing turnaround

Editors publish without developer involvement
Core Web Vitals pass on every article template
Plugin and core updates ship automatically with staged rollbacks

“They made WordPress feel modern again. Our editors stopped filing tickets and started publishing twice as often.”

Marcus LundEditor in Chief, Apex Magazine