React + HTML or WordPress: which template format to choose
What is inside each download, what you need to run it, who it suits, and when the bundle of both makes sense.
By Sena Studio · Updated · All guides
The short answer
Choose React + HTML if you, a developer or an AI tool will edit the site as code and you want to host it anywhere. Choose WordPress if the site will be run from a WordPress dashboard, by people who edit pages there. The design is the same; how it is edited and hosted is not.
Not every template comes in every format. Each listing shows what is on sale for it today, and the catalogue can show only the WordPress templates or only React + HTML.
What is inside each download
| React + HTML | WordPress | |
|---|---|---|
| The files | The React source, and the same site as plain HTML pages | The theme, a child theme and a core plugin, each its own installable zip |
| Instructions | README, and AI-GUIDE.md: how to edit it with an AI tool, from the first request to publishing | Documentation, which also opens from the theme's own Help screen |
| For AI tools | The files an AI tool reads before it edits: AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, DESIGN.md and the design tokens | No AI guide in this download |
| Sample content | Built into the pages | Demo content to import |
| You need | Node.js to run the React source; any static host for the HTML | WordPress hosting |
React + HTML suits you when
- You, a developer or an AI tool will edit it as code. Each listing names the AI tools it has been tested in, with the date of each test.
- You want to host the site on a static host, with no server or database to maintain.
- You may grow it into a larger React project later.
WordPress suits you when
- Your team already runs WordPress, or wants to edit pages and posts in its dashboard.
- You need WordPress plugins for something the site does.
- You have WordPress hosting, or are happy to pay for it.
Its PHP is licensed under the GPL, as WordPress asks; everything else follows the Standard or Extended licence you buy. See the licence.
Both, as a bundle
Where a template has both formats on sale, its listing offers them together at one price, below buying the two. It suits a studio that builds for clients on both, or a business that wants to keep its options open.
Whichever you choose, the forms in our templates show a confirmation without sending anything until you connect them, and new versions arrive in your library.