I'm started a new site and have the ability to purchase an HTML5 theme to start with OR the Wordpress HTML5 Version of the same theme. From what I can tell all the features are the same. I'm wondering if anyone knows of any pros or cons to going with either of them. Will the fact that the site is being loaded in Wordpress effect it's load time? Would running one or the other be more secure? Please let me know your thoughts. Thanks.
Wordpress versions will load more slowly because of the database backend, the Javascript calls, and the more fleshed out CSS. Hwoever I think you might want to consider WP for its ease of use and simplicity for plugins and the like. If you're doing a static one or three page site it might make sense to just do the straight HTML 5, but if you're doing a blog or image galleries or that sort of thing I'd stick with Wordpress.
@somacorellc - Thank you, that's very helpful. I am planning on making a larger blog-type/image based website, so I guess Wordpress is the way to go. Is there a way to "fix up" some of the slowness caused by the way Wordpress is laid out, or is that just the nature of the beast?
It's pretty much unavoidable, however keep in mind that when I say "slow" I don't mean that it's unbearable, you know? It's just a bit noticeably slower than pure HTML5 with no database calls. However in Wordpress if you're not using a feature or a JS call you can always clean them up by removing them in the header.php of your site. I only bring up the speed issue because Google is going to start penalizing sites that take a long time to load. Since you only have like 5 seconds to get a user's atention these days it can be a pretty important factor to consider. I would look into some WP Caching plugins as part of my initial setup.