Behind the Build: The White House
Welcome to WP for ENTERPRISES, where we go behind the scenes of BILLION-DOLLAR WordPress websites.
In today’s issue, we’re going behind-the-build of one of the highest-stakes WordPress migrations in history:
The White House. 🇺🇸
Here’s what you’ll learn in this issue:
- Evolution of WhiteHouse.gov's Website
- Why the White House moved from Drupal to WordPress
- 4 bold strategies that made this switch happen fast
- A peek inside their performance, security, and accessibility setup
🇺🇸 THE DIGITAL FACE OF AMERICA
Let’s be real—there are “big” websites… and then there’s WhiteHouse.gov.
This isn’t just another .gov domain—it’s the public voice of the President. Millions of people visit it for policies, statements, and real-time updates.
And guess what? It runs on WordPress.
Yep, the same platform powering your blog, my agency site, and Fortune 500 companies now powers the U.S. presidency's official digital home.
But that wasn’t always the case.
Back in 2017, the White House made a quiet shift from Drupal to WordPress.
Then in 2021—just six weeks before Inauguration Day—they doubled down with a complete redesign.
Let’s unpack how this massive switch happened—and what enterprise teams can learn from it.
WHAT WAS WRONG WITH THEIR OLD CMS?
From 2009 to 2017, WhiteHouse.gov was running on Drupal. A solid choice at the time. But like many enterprise CMS setups, it came with baggage:
- High Costs: Even though Drupal is open source, the specialized talent, complex modules, and custom hosting added up—$6M annually.
- Clunky Backend: Editors needed technical help just to publish basic content. It slowed down communication.
- Heavy Infrastructure: Drupal demanded more server resources, caching layers, and maintenance overhead.
- Limited Shelf Life: Drupal phases out older versions regularly (like Drupal 7), which meant forced upgrades—or face security risks.
- Slow Publishing: Approvals, dev tickets, and QA cycles turned fast content updates into slow marathons.
The White House needed a platform that was simpler, more flexible, and ready for modern communication speed.
WHY WORDPRESS?
After evaluating options, the team chose WordPress. Both Drupal and WordPress are open-source—but WordPress comes with major advantages:
1. Massive Cost Savings
The switch saved the White House about $3 million per year.
How? Fewer dev bottlenecks, simpler infrastructure, and easier access to affordable talent.
2. Friendly Editorial Experience
WordPress is built for publishers. The admin interface is intuitive.
Editors could create, update, and publish content—without pinging a dev every time.
3. Long-Term Support
Unlike Drupal, WordPress maintains strong backward compatibility.
You’re not forced into costly upgrades. Even 15-year-old sites still work with the latest WordPress updates.
4. Enterprise Performance
WordPress can handle scale. With the right setup—CDNs, caching, optimized queries—it delivers fast, stable experiences for millions.
4 STRATEGIES THAT MADE THIS HIGH-STAKES MIGRATION SUCCESSFUL
The WhiteHouse.gov migration (especially the 2021 refresh) used innovative approaches to meet unprecedented challenges. Here's how they pulled it off:
Strategy #1: Agile, Multi-Team Collaboration
The 2021 Biden administration had just six weeks to completely redesign and rebuild the site for Inauguration Day.
The team assembled experienced WordPress developers from agencies like 10up and Wide Eye Creative, plus government tech volunteers, working in parallel streams with daily check-ins.
This "round-the-clock" development approach—with teams in different time zones handing off work—maintained momentum 24/7 and ensured the site launched precisely at noon on January 20, 2021.
Strategy #2: Multi-Layer Performance Optimization
To ensure lightning-fast performance under heavy traffic, the White House implemented a multi-layered speed strategy:
- WordPress VIP hosting provided containerized, auto-scaling infrastructure.
- Fastly and Akamai CDNs cached pages at edge servers worldwide.
- Server-side caching with Redis/Memcached reduced database load.
- HTTP/2 protocol implementation for faster concurrent connections.
- WebP image optimization and lazy loading for media assets.
- Critical CSS delivery to speed up initial page rendering.
- Front-end optimization kept page payloads lean and scripts minimal.
- Advanced database query optimization reduced server processing time.
The result? The site scores ~95 on Google Lighthouse tests, delivering presidential content at presidential speeds, even during major traffic surges like State of the Union addresses.
Strategy #3: Fortress-Level Security Implementation
Security is non-negotiable for the White House, so they implemented multiple protective layers:
- Custom admin paths with geo-fencing and IP restrictions.
- The REST API was protected behind HTTP authentication.
- Two-factor authentication for all administrative accounts.
- FedRAMP-compliant hosting meeting strict government standards.
- Web Application Firewall with custom rulesets for WordPress.
- Network-level isolation between database and application layers.
By focusing on a secure-by-design approach rather than endless add-ons, the site achieved both security and performance.
Strategy #4: Accessibility-First Design System
The White House site didn't treat accessibility as an afterthought—it made it a core feature with:
- High-contrast toggles and font size controls built into the interface.
- Proper HTML semantics and ARIA attributes throughout.
- Spanish language toggle (restored in 2021) for multilingual access.
- WCAG 2.1 AA compliance and Section 508 requirements built-in.
This focus on accessibility ensured all Americans could access official information regardless of ability.
INSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE'S WORDPRESS TECH STACK
The WhiteHouse.gov migration completely modernized the technical foundation:
FINAL THOUGHTS
This wasn’t just a website migration.
It was a high-profile, high-pressure case study in doing WordPress right.
Key lessons for enterprises:
✅ WordPress is secure enough—even for the U.S. government
✅ Urgency can drive innovation (deadlines cut the fluff)
✅ Accessibility should be foundational, not optional
✅ Performance is about layers, not luck
✅ Open source doesn’t mean compromise
If the White House trusts WordPress with the presidency's digital home, it might just work for your organization too.
By the way—Multidots didn’t do the White House project.
But we’ve helped billion-dollar brands like Pepsico, Ask Media Group, and Howmet Aerospace with similar size and challenges.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
By the way, in the previous issue, I shared "Inside the Tech and Tactics That Powered Ask Media's Billion-Dollar Brand’s Successful Migration".
In this issue, you'll discover:
- Challenges with Ask Media Group’s old CMS setup.
- Why did they choose WordPress?
- 5 key strategies behind their 12-week migration.
- A look inside their new WordPress tech stack.
- Unexpected wins from this large-scale migration.
Anil Gupta
👋 Until next time, Anil | CEO and Co-Founder → Multidots, Multicollab & Dotstore.
P.S. I also write about personal growth and agency growth.
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