Twenty Twenty-Four to Next.js: Clear Out the Plugin Pile on the Way Over

The theme is the smallest part of this site

Twenty Twenty-Four shipped with WordPress 6.4, the Shirley release, on November 7, 2023, and it is still maintained: version 1.6 arrived on August 19, 2026, tested up to WordPress 7.1. It enqueues no front-end stylesheet of its own. Styling comes from theme.json, plus one small per-block file for the button block that loads only when a button appears. Left alone, it is about as light as WordPress gets.

So when a site built on it feels slow or brittle three years later, the theme is rarely the suspect. The weight came afterwards: a form plugin, an SEO plugin, a caching plugin, perhaps a page builder installed for one landing page, a translation plugin, a cookie banner, a backup tool, and a security suite that emails warnings nobody opens. That is why this migration starts with the plugin list rather than the page list. The theme's own strengths and limits are covered in our Twenty Twenty-Four review.

Every plugin on the list was a good idea the day it went in. A migration asks whether it still is.

Sort every plugin into one of four bins

Before a line of the new site is written, each active plugin gets a verdict. Three questions decide it: what job does it do, does any page or visitor depend on that job, and does it hold data worth keeping. The answers put it in one of four bins. Rebuild it into the site. Hand its job to an agent. Export its data and retire it. Or delete it outright.

The delete bin is usually fuller than owners expect. Plugins installed to test an idea, plugins whose feature WordPress later added itself, and plugins that only add a dashboard widget all fall away. Writing down why each one exists is also the cheapest way to see what the WordPress plugin habit has been costing in practice, in speed, in update days and in renewal invoices.

Business, Writer or Portfolio: which site are you now?

Twenty Twenty-Four was designed around three use cases rather than demos. Business is the default. Writer and Portfolio arrive by opening a template in the Site Editor and choosing Replace Template, which swaps in one of the theme's alternate template patterns. Plenty of sites launched as Business, picked up a blog that behaves like Writer, then borrowed a Portfolio layout for case studies. The templates stored in the database record every one of those decisions.

The new build should not carry three personalities. We list each template and template part in use, which use case it came from, and which pages are assigned to it. The theme's custom templates get the same scrutiny: Page no Title, Page with Sidebar, Page with Wide Image and the single post with sidebar. For each, the question is whether it still earns a layout of its own.

• Templates made only to hide a header. This theme needs a separate template to drop the menu from one page, so landing pages often carry private copies of an entire layout. In Next.js that is one option on one layout. If headers vanish where they should not, here is why.
• Sidebars nobody reads. Page with Sidebar was reasonable in 2023. Check the analytics before rebuilding one.
• Child theme edits that never took. Site Editor changes are saved to the database against the parent theme, so a child theme added later does not inherit them. Export the database records, not just the child theme folder.
• A menu stuck in one language. With Polylang, the Navigation block inside templates stays in the default language, a forum report still unresolved. Language routes in the new build end it, along with the mobile menu quirks of the same block.

Carrying Ember, Rust or Onyx across

The theme package ships seven style variation files, Ember, Fossil, Ice, Maelstrom, Mint, Onyx and Rust, alongside the default, although the wordpress.org documentation speaks of nine. Whichever one the site wears, plus every change made in Styles since, sits in a global styles record on top of theme.json. Both are exported and merged into one set of design tokens: colors, font sizes, spacing, the 620px content width and the 1280px wide width.

Fonts follow. The default pairs Cardo for headings with Inter for body text, and the style variations bring Instrument Sans and Jost with them, all bundled locally. All of them move as files and load through next/font, which avoids the late swap that nudges a heading when the real typeface arrives. Then come the small flourishes added as block style variations: the heading with an asterisk, the checkmark list, the arrow details, the nav link with an arrow and pill-shaped terms. Content marks them with style classes, and each becomes a small component or is retired. If the layout has already drifted, this broken-layout guide shows where the conflict usually starts.

The third option

Athena CMS, with AI agents on staff.

Not a theme and not a blank Next.js repo. The content system we put behind every custom site: plain fields, a real preview, every version kept, and AI agents that handle the chores a plugin only nags you about.

• PPicassoImages
• AApolloSite analysis
• AAresCompetitor watch
• PPrometheusContent holes
• AAtlasPage depth and structure
• DDelphiAI search visibility

ZDAOAand 12 more agents. Two come with Athena; the rest are monthly add-ons.

Meet the agentsTake the Athena tour

PPicassoWeekly · ImagesAApolloWeekly · Site analysis

The order of work, from plugin audit to launch day

1. 1

   List the plugins and their jobs

   Every active plugin, what it does, which pages rely on it and what data it holds. This list drives everything after it.

2. 2

   Export the data worth keeping

   Form entries, redirect rules, SEO titles and descriptions, translations, and anything a booking or membership plugin stored, pulled out before plugins are switched off.

3. 3

   Pull templates and styles from the database

   Templates, template parts, the global styles record and navigation menus, exported and screenshotted as the reference for the build.

4. 4

   Prune content with numbers in hand

   Drafts, test pages and orphaned media are dropped. Thin pages with traffic or links are merged and redirected, never simply deleted.

5. 5

   Build each surviving layout once

   One layout per use case that survived the review, using the style variation's tokens, with the block style flourishes as components.

6. 6

   Import content into Athena CMS

   Pages and posts land as structured entries with slugs, categories, featured images and excerpts intact, in every language the site publishes.

7. 7

   Test the redirect map and every form

   Each old URL is requested against the preview build. Each form is submitted and its email confirmed.

8. 8

   Switch over and keep watching

   DNS moves, the old host stays available briefly as a fallback, and Search Console is checked for crawl errors.

Step one is where the schedule is won or lost. A site with eight plugins doing ordinary jobs moves faster than one with a booking system, a membership area and two languages, and the timeline guide explains how each of those adds time. If the blog is the bulk of the site, moving a WordPress blog covers comments, authors and archives.

Prune the content, keep the rankings

Clean-up has a dangerous version. Owners who find three years of tag pages, half-written drafts and a media library full of screenshots are tempted to delete in bulk. Some of those forgotten pages are the ones bringing visitors. So pruning is done with data: Search Console clicks and impressions, backlinks and internal links, page by page, before anything is left behind.

• Pages with traffic or outside links stay at the same address, or redirect to their best replacement.
• Near-duplicate posts are merged into the stronger one, and the weaker address points to it.
• Tag archives holding one or two posts are dropped and redirected to the matching category or the blog index.
• Media files no page uses stay behind, but image URLs that earn search traffic keep working.
• Every surviving page keeps the title and description the SEO plugin stored, so listings do not shift overnight.

The mechanics are in WordPress to Next.js redirects, URL structure and the full checklist for migrating without losing SEO. Images get their own treatment in moving WordPress images. After launch, Atlas keeps watching for orphan and thin pages, so the pile does not quietly grow back.

Or move sideways: when Twenty Twenty-Five is the better next step

A Next.js rebuild is not the only exit. If the site is a brochure or a blog, the plugins are under control and the team likes editing in blocks, switching to Twenty Twenty-Five keeps the same Site Editor model with more patterns and more style variations. That is a theme change, not a rebuild, and our theme migration service handles exactly that job. You keep the plugin upkeep, though, and the same Site Editor habits.

The rebuild earns its cost when the site has a job WordPress keeps making expensive: lead generation where every second of load time counts, a second language that keeps breaking menus, a booking or quoting tool held together by three plugins, or a team worn down by update days. Twenty Twenty-Four vs Next.js weighs the two in full, and the Twenty Twenty-Four speed guide shows how far tuning alone can carry you. For the same move from the newer default, see the Twenty Twenty-Five migration plan.

After the move: fewer settings screens, the same daily edits

The owner of a 6.4-era site usually wanted three things from WordPress: change a price, add a page, post an update. Athena CMS keeps those and drops the rest. Content is plain fields with a real preview and every version kept. There is no plugin screen, no update queue, and no Customizer hidden away behind a block theme waiting to be rediscovered.

The jobs from the agent bin go to agents. Iris handles search titles and social cards. Argus watches links, forms and certificates. Aegis checks for intrusions every day. Harmonia prepares Spanish versions and checks accessibility. Atlas flags pages drifting toward thin or orphaned. Most draft for approval rather than publishing alone. Switching from WordPress describes the first weeks, and our hosting and maintenance plans cover hosting, backups and small edits after launch.

The project runs through our WordPress to Next.js rebuild service, with a fixed quote after a free site audit. What drives the price is laid out separately, and the rest of the migration guides sit under WordPress to Next.js.