Whilst WordPress offers its own native page building functionality in the form of “Blocks”, it is nowhere near as powerful or flexible as the 3rd party page builders that can be installed as a plug-in.
The two most popular page builders are Elementor and Visual Composer not to be confused with WP Bakery Visual Composer/Page Builder that comes with many themes!!
What is a WordPress Page Builder?
In order to create a page in WordPress you need to either be able to code, use “Blocks”, or use a plug-in that does away with coding, allowing you to use pre-built elements together with drag-and-drop, page formatting, styling, etc.
The basic building blocks of WordPress are WordPress core, themes, and plug-ins. Elementor, Visual Composer, and WP Bakery plug-ins allow you to create elements within the plug-ins from a library of modules such as Text boxes, buttons, headers, video player, sliders, etc.
Why do Themes have Page Builders?
To make life easier for users, themes either provide their own proprietary page builders (not a good idea – see below why), or an integrated 3rd party plug-in such as Elementor, WP Bakery, or Visual Composer.
This allows users to create a new page layout, or edit existing layouts, using pre-build elements and use a simple drag-and-drop process, instead of learning to code.
We recommend you avoid themes with their own native page builders, as you are exposed to the fortunes of the theme author. This means if the theme author stops supporting the theme, you are also losing the support of your page builder.
What are the pros and cons of Elementor?
The pros of Elementor are:
- Free lifetime upgrades for the basic theme integrated version
- Fair library of prebuilt elements in the free version
- Easy Drag-and-Drop
- Easy Copy-and-Paste elements (within the page, or to another page)
- Easy upgrade to Premium version
- Additional elements from 3rd party (may require licence from 3rd party)
The Cons of Elementor are:
- Invisible Code – Once you create your page in Elementor, you can no longer see the code. This makes troubleshooting difficult unless you have PHP skills.
- Upgrades – Some upgrades have proven to be troublesome and break pages. As you cannot see the code, you need PHP knowledge to fix it. This is a rare occurrence, but you need to beware that it can happen.
- Premium version is charged annually, and for single sites is relatively expensive, so you need to hope that your developer will offer you a licence from their developer’s multisite version.
- Pricing is in USD only, which means you are exposed to exchange rate fluctuations.
What are the pros and cons of WP Bakery?
The pros of WP Bakery are:
- Good library of prebuilt elements when included in the theme
- Easy Drag-and-Drop
- Visible code (text tab) so you can see the code and spot errors, or copy-and-paste specific parts to another page.
- Easy upgrade to Pro version
- Single Licence for Life
- Upgrades – Once you have a pro-licence, it is a simple single click, and usually works perfectly fine.
The Cons of WP Bakery are:
- No Free upgrades – Themes use WPBakery Page Builder, but none offer the Pro version so you need to purchase licence if you want updates.
- Copying elements between pages is not easy (requires copying code)
- Pricing is in USD only, which means you are exposed to exchange rate fluctuations.
What are the pros and cons of Visual Composer?
The pros of Visual Composer are:
- A larger library of prebuilt elements than Elementor when included in the theme
- Easy Drag-and-Drop
- Visible code (text tab) so you can see the code and spot errors, or copy-and-paste specific parts to another page.
- Easy Point and click for copying elements from one page to another (no coding needed)
- Easy upgrade to Premium version
The Cons of Visual Composer are:
- No Free upgrades – Most themes use WPBakery Page Builder, and not Visual Composer. We now this is confusing. Neither offer free upgrades.
- Upgrades – Once you have a pro-licence, it is a simple single click, and usually works perfectly fine.
- Premium version – Confusion is caused by WPBakery Visual Composer vs Visual Composer. WP Bakery is a single payment upgrade, whilst Visual Composer is an annual payment!! Confused? Yes so are we!! This is a mess, and very misleading, which many people fall for!
- Premium pricing – Single site is relatively expensive, as they appear to have copied and pasted Elementor’s pricing strategy, so you need to hope that your developer will offer a developer’s licence version.
- Pricing is in USD only, which means you are exposed to exchange rate fluctuations.
Which one would we choose?
This is a tough question. We have many website using WP Bakery, Visual Composer, or Elementor, so we are at home using any.
Most themes include WP Bakery, and not Visual Composer, so be very careful when buying a theme. Many advertise “Visual Composer included” but in fact they mean WP Bakery. We like the one-off payment for Pro version of WP Bakery, but copying elements to other pages is not easy, unless you understand code.
We like the breadth of elements that Visual Composer offers as standard, without having to add 3rd party elements. They also play nicely with themes, with very tight integration, making life easy for users.
As Visual Composer are not likely to have a change of heart in licensing policy, despite Elementor eating away at their market share, we would recommend you choose Elementor.
Summary
WP Bakery, Visual Composer and Elementor make creating and editing WordPress pages a breeze. They are both flexible and easy to learn. However, given the licensing issues, we think Elementor has the edge.
If you need help with your WordPress website, why not contact us an let us help with managing your site.