How NerdWallet Scaled with Headless WordPress Hosting
NerdWallet’s story starts like many great digital success stories: with a WordPress blog and a big idea. Fast forward a few years, and they’ve grown into a publicly listed financial advice platform serving millions, still powered by WordPress at its core.
But with scale came complexity.
Managing their sprawling WordPress infrastructure was eating into developer time, bogging down teams who really wanted to focus on building an exceptional headless frontend experience. They needed a change and a partner who truly understood how to deliver enterprise headless WordPress hosting that could keep pace with their ambitions.
That’s where Altis came in.
The tipping point: When DIY enterprise hosting no longer works
As NerdWallet grew, so did the weight of legacy decisions. Custom plugins piled up. Infrastructure became harder to manage. The backend was increasingly fragile, and day-to-day maintenance was slowing everything down.
WordPress has been fundamental to NerdWallet’s growth and remains deeply embedded in its tech DNA, but their developers weren’t just maintaining a blog anymore. They were holding up an entire content engine while also trying to push the frontend forward.
It was time to divide and conquer.
Built for Headless by default
NerdWallet wanted full control of their slick JavaScript frontend but didn’t want to divert resources to the backend. Altis made it easy, with seamless support for decoupled WordPress and a robust API-driven architecture, tailored for enterprise headless WordPress hosting.
Maintenance? Handled.
Our team of WordPress experts took over the heavy lifting: infrastructure, updates, plugin wrangling, and performance optimization. No more patching at 2am.
Bye-bye, tech debt
Altis replaced years of custom plugins with out-of-the-box features that just worked. That meant less time debugging and more time building.
More than a host – a partner
This wasn’t a set-it-and-forget-it deal. We worked side by side with NerdWallet’s engineers to fine-tune their stack and help them scale smarter, not harder.
What changed for NerdWallet?
Frontend freedom, backend confidence
NerdWallet’s developers focused on the frontend, knowing the backend was rock solid and fully managed by a team specialising in enterprise headless WordPress hosting.
Fewer fires, faster releases
With Altis handling the backend, internal teams had more bandwidth to focus on the roadmap, not routine maintenance.
Performance that keeps pace
The new setup was faster, more reliable, and easier to scale, making it easier than ever to deliver a best-in-class experience.
Altis has been an incredible partner in helping us modernize and simplify our WordPress platform. Their enterprise-ready tools fill a real gap in the WordPress ecosystem; layering seamlessly on top of WordPress to transform it from a simple CMS into a content management powerhouse.
By moving to Altis, we’ve replaced years of bespoke, hard-to-maintain solutions with well-supported, standardized capabilities that have reduced our operational complexity and made managing our platform dramatically easier; allowing our team to focus on what matters most: building features that have a meaningful impact on our business.“
Ryan Kanner,
Software Engineering Manager, NerdWallet
The takeaway
NerdWallet didn’t just outsource their enterprise WordPress hosting. They gained a trusted partner who understood their engineering goals, respected their autonomy, and helped them scale without compromise.
With Altis behind the scenes, NerdWallet unlocked the best of both worlds: a lightning-fast headless frontend and a powerful, expertly managed WordPress backend ready for whatever comes next.