20+ Best Drag and Drop Page Builder WordPress Plugins
As web building platforms evolve to include those who aren’t necessarily well-versed in the world of code, drag and drop page builders lead the way in allowing folks to forget about having to stare at a dull text WordPress editor in order to make websites come to life.
A drag and drop page builder completes two tasks:
- it enables you to actually see what you are creating while you create it, and
- it cuts down on the time it takes to build a website.
Let’s face it: dragging and dropping components is always quicker, and you don’t have to switch back and forth from the back end to the front end of your website to see results.
Drag and drop editors are awesome for beginners and experts who want to speed up their production. Let’s take a look at the best drag and drop page builder WordPress plugins for you to choose from. (You can also check out our guide to drag and drop page building if you’re feeling a little nervous about the whole topic.)
1. WPBakery Page Builder ($46, or Free with Total)
The WPBakery Page Builder plugin is one of the top selling drag and drop plugins on the market. And with good reason, it’s a pretty cool premium plugin. It’s so great that we included it (for free) in our top selling theme Total. With theWPBakery visual page builder you get to choose whether you want to design your website on the front or backend. It also works with any theme you choose to install on your WordPress site, and the over 40+ content elements that the plugin includes are ready to use right out of the box.
Another great feature of this plugin is its flexibility. You can easily add more modules if you know what you’re doing. In fact, we added tons of custom builder elements to our Total WordPress theme using the WPBakery Page Builder, like icon boxes, milestones, post types grids and more. Or you can use one of the hundreds of premium extensions to add on any features you might want or need.
2. Elementor (Free)
Elementor Live Page Builder is an open source front end editor that takes drag and drop page building to the next level. In fact, was the first free page builder with full design capabilities, a unique and super-friendly UI and a speedy and no-lag responding interface that is still much faster than the competition. This advanced drag and drop live page builder gives you instant results, so you don’t have to wait around for changes to take effect. This may seem insignificant at first, but these incremental changes add up, and it won’t be long before Elementor has saved you hours in page building time.
Elementor can be used with any theme and on any page type, so go to town on your homepage, sales pages, blog posts, and more. Elementor’s intuitive layout options enable you to easily change everything from section width and height, to column and content position, as well as padding and margin settings.
Since the launch, many releases and updates have been made. Most inspired by requests from users. One major release was the Template Library, featuring the ability to save pages and sections as templates, and use one of many pre-designed and beautifully made templates, added to the page with one click. The other major release was Mobile Editing, the first toolset to customize any page and make it responsive and beautiful on any device. This is the first time designers can turn a page fully responsive without coding. Mobile Editing has never before capabilities like the ability to set different sizes per device, the ability to reorder columns per device, so you get control over mobile layout, the ability to set different padding, margin and alignments per device, and many other unique features.
Another great feature of Elementor is that all of your third party widgets and plugins are automatically available for you to drag and drop into your pages. In addition, Elementor comes with tons of customizable widgets, 400 unique icons, and over 600 Google Fonts.
The best part? It’s free! And it’s probably the best free page builder on the web.
3. WP Page Builder (Free)
WP Page Builder is an easy option to create your own custom pages. The drag and drop builder is as simple as clicking a button – literally. Just choose the module you’d like to add, edit the options, click and drag to resize, or drag and drop to reorder elements on your page.
Currently WP Page Builder includes over 60 page blocks to choose from. With options for accordions, alerts, icons, feature boxes, pricing tables, video, image hovers and more there’s nothing you can’t build! The plugin also supports up to 6 columns, all fully responsive and mobile ready. When you create a layout you love you can save it to your library to reuse, or use a pre-designed block to speed up your website building. And if you love the plugin, you can upgrade to premium to receive support, updates and awesome layout bundles.
4. Beaver Builder ($99)
The Beaver Builder plugin is a premium drag and drop page builder, but you can also grab the lite version by going to the Plugins panel in your WordPress dashboard. The plugin also comes with a theme if you opt for one of the premium plans, and some plans even give you multi-site capabilities.
But the reason this is one of the best drag and drop page builder plugins is because many themes already come with page builders, but they lock the changes to your theme. What happens if you ever want to change the theme? Beaver Builder is a third-party plugin, so it doesn’t lock your changes to a particular theme or design. You can always change things up without having to start over on your initial designs.
So what can the BeaverBuilder do? Lots! The plugin comes with 20+ page elements (including text, headings, separators, images, galleries, videos, icons, content sliders, contact forms, social links, testimonials, products, maps, recent posts, call to action, buttons and more) that you can insert, drag & drop into place, and edit all with a few clicks of your mouse. You can also drag and drop any widgets you have enabled to create custom sidebars for your pages (a great option, since you might want to show different widgets on your store page vs. your blog).
Oh, and it’s WooCommerce compatible too. This means you can create stunning store pages that are as awesome as your business. You can drag & drop recent products, latest reviews, sale items, all your WooCommerce widgets and more.
The Beaver Builder is also fully responsive to look great on all your devices, can be extended through APIs for custom modules (so you can add niche specific page elements like restaurant menus, staff profiles, property listings or anything else), and the plugin is translation ready. So what’s stopping you? Head over to the demo to try out the BeaverBuilder live – then get a copy for your WordPress site today!
View an in-depth review on the Beaver Builder plugin if you would like to learn more, and remember that this plugin even saves your changes if you decide to stop using Beaver Builder. This isn’t always the case with some page builder plugins.
5. Elegant Themes Divi Builder ($89)
The Elegant Themes Divi Builder offers endless possibilities for creating incredible page designs. Within this intuitive builder, you simply stack rows of columns and add as many elements as you want. The Divi Builder comes with over 40 built-in modules including sliders, counters, and buttons. Every module comes with lots of customization options, including a custom CSS tab should you need to add your own code.
The Divi Builder plugin is included in the Elegant Themes annual membership. For $89 you get to access to all of their plugins and themes – including the top selling Divi theme.
6. Page Builder by SiteOrigin (Free)
The Page Builder plugin is a completely free option that incorporates WordPress widgets to help you build and modify responsive page designs. Since the plugin uses widgets, it is easy for beginners to learn. Besides, it doesn’t do much to change the interface of your WordPress dashboard.
The live editing is wonderful for seeing your changes immediately, and the history tab works well for scrolling back to see all of your changes. So if you make a mistake, you can just go back and do it over again.
7. MotoPress Content Editor ($29)
The MotoPress Content Editor is a page builder WordPress plugin that will make creating, editing and customizing your WordPress posts & pages a breeze. It is a premium plugin, but you can always play around with the demo if you aren’t sure about paying right away. This plugin completely replaces the default WordPress editor so that the default doesn’t get in the way of you dragging and dropping all of your components.
This clever plugin is a content and page editor that integrates with most WordPress themes and replaces the default WordPress editor when installed. This gives you greater control over the look and feel of your posts and pages. Just remember that MotoPress can only customize the content you create while using the plugin (this means that any content you added prior to installing the plugin cannot be edited using MotoPress, and you must use the default WordPress editor instead).
MotoPress includes a number of great page elements (such as buttons, tables, spacing, text boxes and more) that you can use to create custom layouts. Most elements include additional options for margins, alignment, links, color, size and even custom class names (for the developers out there). To add an element simply drag and drop it from the editor bar into place. Then click on the element to make additional tweaks. This awesome front-end editor will make it easier than ever for you to build pages and edit your content.
Other great features include a responsive design, custom post types, WPML compatibility and extension via shortcodes. Plus the plugin include regular updates and full support from the plugin author, so you can be sure its always working perfectly.
8. Themify Builder (Free)
Themify Builder gives you both a back end and front end editor, so you have the flexibility to choose where you want to do your editing. This plugin works with any theme and comes with lots of options for creating the perfect pages for your site. Within the editor, you can easily duplicate modules and rows, and import or export Themify layouts with ease.
The premium version of the plugin is $39 and offers additional useful features such as over 60 predesigned layouts and dozens of animation effects.
9. Nimble Page Builder (Free)
The Nimble Page Builder plugin offers free drag and drop functionality with a powerful layout and fully responsive designs so people can view your website on different devices. You can also conveniently add elements like columns, images, contact forms, parallax effects, tweets and more.
I really like the fact that you can add widgets to any page in your WordPress editor. Simply drag and drop any standard widget in your page editor and you can start editing right away.
10. Live Composer Site Builder (Free)
Live Composer is a front end content creator premium WordPress plugin – which happens to be free now! With this plugin you can quickly create custom content layouts on the front-end of your theme – which means you can see your content as you build it!
There are lots of page builders available that use only the WordPress editor to create post or page layouts. While this is still a super easy way to build your website by inserting content blocks, wouldn’t it be even easier if you could see your actual content as you add it? With the Live Composer you can. Just install the plugin on your WordPress site and start building on the front-end!
The Live Composer comes with over 30 modules you can use to create your page layouts. With options for recent posts, images, portfolio items, WooCommerce products, comments, thumbnails, widgets, sliders and so much more you can create just about any layout you want or need. Plus, since you can see what you’re creating as you build your pages that means less refreshing the page and more time saved.
Other plugin features include responsive options, lots of module options (i.e. colors, fonts, borders, backgrounds, etc), template support, access controls (so only the users you choose can access the composer) and more. Plus there are even interactive tutorials so you can get the hang of the plugin asap and start building your own custom post and page layouts today.
11. FormCraft Drag and Drop Form Builder (Free)
This isn’t exactly a full page builder, but it allows you to create forms using a drag and drop editor. FormCraft lets you quickly put together a stunning form, and you can even manage submissions with ease. Pop-up and inline forms are also included. I should also mention that the plugin creator has included a few tutorials to get you started.
But if you want more features, checkout the premium version of the plugin – it can do much more than its free counterpart. Learn more about the FormCraft Drag & Drop Form Builder plugin here.
12. Thrive Architect Content Builder ($67)
Thrive Content Builder is an intuitive front end editor that allows you to quickly and easily edit your WordPress website. The creators of this plugin are on a mission to take WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editing to the next level. It works on a basic but convenient and intuitive click-to-edit principle. If you want to edit an element, you simply click on it and start editing.
In addition to intuitive front-end editing, Thrive Content Builder also come with lots of other great features, such as call to action (CTA) buttons, a testimonial element, and responsive pricing tables.
13. Page Builder Sandwich (Free)
Page Builder Sandwich is another front end editor that’s super simple to use. The authors pride themselves on having created “pop up-less” front end editing. You simply click on the content you want to edit and start typing. A great feature of this plugin is its vast global shortcode mapping database. From this database, you can easily access shortcodes from hundreds of popular plugins like Jetpack, WooCommerce, and bbPress. To add videos within the builder, you can simply paste a URL or embed code and you’re done.
While the Lite version is free, you can upgrade to the Premium version for $39. This offers a host of additional features, such as enhanced shortcode mapping controls and a carousel slider element.
14. Frontend Builder ($57)
Frontend Builder is another great option if you prefer to do your editing from the front end. With this builder, you create a page in the back end and then activate the builder for that page. You then hop over to the front end and build your page content from there.
Craft your page layout by adding rows and splitting them into multiple columns. You can then drag, drop, and edit your desired page elements to complete your design. Elements, including headings, buttons, forms, and menus, are all customizable within the main interface.
15. Cornerstone Page Builder ($39)
Cornerstone Page Builder is a front end editor that can be used with both pages and posts. This clutter-free and intuitive builder will allow you to quickly and easily tailor your content without having to switch between screens. One neat feature of this plugin is the Skeleton Mode which allows you to visualize your page structure (or skeleton) at the click of a button. Cornerstone also comes with a continually updated library of elements, templates, and third-party tools.
16. King Composer (Free)
The free version of King Composer offers a responsive drag and drop back-end editor. Within this intuitive user interface, you can create and organize your content by adding rows, columns, and elements. One great feature that sets this builder apart from much of the competition is that pages built with King Composer will remain intact even if you deactivate or delete the plugin.
If you prefer to work from a front end editor, you can upgrade to King Composer Pro for $29 and gain the ability to build pages from the front or back end.
17. Brix Builder (Free)
Brix Builder is a drag and drop builder that gives you full control over every detail of your page design. Its advanced grid system and intuitive interface enable you to create amazing results. Brix Builder has been designed to be modular and scalable so that it can be extended over time without issue.
This plugin comes with 16 modules, or building blocks, ranging from basic text and images to more advanced features like progress and counter modules. It also includes the Font Awesome library, built-in color palettes, and entrance effects to control how elements appear on scrolling.
18. Brizy Page Builder (Free)
Brizy is a front end page builder with incredible options, especially for a free plugin. Brizy stages your content instead of forcing you to work on published pages. That way, you can edit your pages from the front end, but they won’t be published until you’re ready for them to go live. Another great feature of Brizy is that there are more than 150 pre-made blocks – so you can quickly design your pages in minutes!
19. Bold Page Builder (Free)
The Bold Page Builder is a drag and drop page builder designed to work great with the default 2016 and 2017 WordPress themes. It’s a quick, easy and free way to build a better niche site starting with one of these free core themes.
The plugin’s intuitive interface is suitable for creating most types of pages. It supports many types of elements including video, masonry grids, images, and rich text. It also supports the Font Awesome icon library, so you can easily customize your pages with any icon.
20. Cornerstone & the Ultimate Elements Bundle
From the makers of X Theme, Cornerstone is an excellent page builder plugin, bringing the building blocks of its flagship theme in WordPress plugin form. Cornerstone is a frontend page builder with options for custom posts and pages. Add buttons, block quotes, maps, skill-bars, sliders, tabs, pricing tables and more.
But it’s made even better when combined with a Cornerstone extension such as the Essential Addons for Cornerstone.
The plugin introduces a variety of new elements, most notably a brand new carousel slider feature. You can populate these carousels with all kinds of content – images, logos, testimonials, team members, blog posts, and even WooCommerce products. Each carousel offers plenty of customization options, too, with a choice of styles, layouts, sizes, and scroll buttons. You can also build a custom color scheme and upload a custom background image for them, giving you a platform to show off your creative flair.
Other modules include an Instagram image grid and, my personal favorite, interactive promos.
21. WordPress Page Builder by AZEXO
WordPress Page Builder by AZEXO is a result of numerous trials and mistakes during WordPress themes development for Themeforest by AZEXO team. They investigated almost all Page Builders available on the market and ready for integration with third-party WordPress themes.
They looked for the ideal builder for users and developers with the following conditions in mind:
- 100% front-end page builder with minimum as possible popups dialogs – so every change of page must be initiated by left or right mouse click directly above object.
- Front-end CSS/HTML/JS of builder must guaranteed do not interfere working of page – zero CSS and JS conflicts for all possible environment.
- Creation of pages with ready-made sections so user can build pages with maximum speed as it possible.
- Full front-end control for almost all CSS styles of every HTML tag – if user need it.
- Front-end Builder performance – not more than 500 millisecond for every action even on big page.
- It is impossible to break page by careless actions – drag and drop for example.
- Minimum as it possible special attributes and classes which need for Front-end Builder working.
- Every section/element/block – implemented via pure HTML without PHP generation (one place for source code) – for easiest as it possible development and customization of section/element/block
- Page Builder must not add any new tags, attributes, classes for it’s internal purposes – only help for user to change HTML which created by developer.
Since AZEXO couldn’t find a product which would satisfy all these conditions simultaneously they decided to create new WordPress Page Builder to use in their themes. They decided to not develop a front-end CSS styles editor but instead made the page builder compatible with a very good available solution on the market for such task – Yellow Pencil.
After the developers integrated this page builder into their WordPress themes development process they were able to increase their speed by about 20-30%. They also never spend their time for CSS/JS conflicts and now they are able to merge new themes into single sections/elements/blocks library which can be combined with each other.
22. Gutenberg (Free)
Built into WordPress 5.0 Gutenberg is an option for newer sites looking for a simple content editor. I probably wouldn’t call this a page builder, but it does include plenty of options for creating posts or simple page layouts. While nowhere near as feature rich as the options above, Gutenberg does offer users blocks for paragraphs, headings, code, media, comments, lists, etc.
Concluding the Best Drag and Drop Page Builder WordPress Plugins
Everyone should be using drag and drop page builder WordPress plugins, because they improve your productivity and save you money in the long-run. If you have any questions about these plugins, drop a line in the comments section below.
Happy to see Live Composer on the list. Thanks for including it 🙂
Hello Tom,
Thanks for sharing this awesome collection of best drag and drop page builder plugins!!!
Beaver Builder is one of my favorite amongst all these plugins.
Keep updating.
Big Page Builder by Site Origin fan. The more I use it the more I understand what a powerful styling tool it is, and it’s free with excellent support. What a deal.
Check out their Vantage theme as well.
Hey Tom,
You should also consider adding our solution, Conductor Plugin, to your list. This website has covered it before here.
We’re helping consultants and agencies build pages by aggregating WordPress content – easily and quickly.
Conductor is another awesome page builder 🙂
Hello Tom,
A great compilation for the page builder plugins. All these at one place will really help me to serve my clients better.
Thanks,
Hirak
Great to see Live Composer on your list – often missed out – fantastic plugin for designers like myself who do not code, coupled with brilliant support
These builders are great, but my concern is about the code that it generates. Won’t these generate lot of junk code?
What do you mean by “junk” code?
He means the extra code that hinders and slows googles crawlers. Not good.
If you are using Bootstrap in your project, use WooRockets Page Builder. It uses Bootstrap for it’s grid system and has an option to not include the embedded Bootstrap resources on your site, thereby preventing any excess code from being included (so no duplicate Bootstrap resources are loaded). I use it for this very reason.
Thanks for the tip!
Any comparison of WP page builders should include Thrive Content Builder. It’s really slick, and you can build nice looking pages in minutes. I’ve using it for 3 months now and have been very happy with it.
I am considering Thrive Content Builder too.
Thrive Visual Editor is second to none, please consider reviewing it 🙂
Great article
Hi Tom! Thanks a ton for mentioning Beaver Builder. 🙂
You’re welcome Robby 🙂
What about unyson. its also awesome
Unyson by ThemeFuse is another great drag & drop framework!
Hi Tom,
Live Composer is great. Your articles work as the life blood for my websites. Thumbs up!
Thanks for giving me useful information. I’m really like your words, lots of good reading material. I am actually inspired to improve my sites from your valueable and helpful information. Thanks a lot for this informative post and keep doing the great work.
Hey Guys, there’s a really glaringly obvious missed builder in this post… Layers by Obox
My understanding is that Layers requires additional themes and extensions to function at the same level as the other builders, but you’re right that it is another option 🙂
Not at all! It’s great out the box! It’s installed as a theme and with the built in widgets you can build 90% of layouts. You can extend it with more extensions though if you want ‘fancy’ features.
Layers overview video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRogY6qKBvQ
Thanks for great article. I have been using quite some website builder, most of them are quite confusing since they have some many features. For WordPress, I would love to use something like AIO WP Builder (https://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-wp-builder/) It’s very easy to create a page with that plugin. I would give one vote for AIO WP Builder if you build something on WordPress.
Good recommendation, I try it and found it useful too 🙂 Thks Alex
Nice list! And one more – Unyson (which is free from Themefuse).
thank you, i will try the free ones. i am not a coder but can copy and paste code if EXACT instructions are given. what i’ve found in my quest so far is that plug in conflicts come up which don’t get answered/or there is no solution. so i am hesitant to purchase a pagebuilder, plugins… then it doesn’t do i wanted. i started using WP 3 years ago and only used their canned themes and the most popular plugin. then i wanted a complete horizontal theme and only discovered Siteorigin PageBuilder and their free Vantage theme which worked well for me but had conflicts with some plugins. i want mega menus but none work, Uber or Max Mega Menus. plus there is the most important the theme has to be mobile responsive. i actually like wpexplorer.com your site layout with mega menus is the look i want to achieve. several plugins drop content into a page i’ve made with PageBuilder but no options where adjust location (that’s where i have no ability to code in where i want it).
plus siteorign pagebuilder does not work without out Tinymce. how about the packages you evaluated? and can i assume all other wordpress plugins (like Yoast, cache, photo gallery…) will work with all these pagebuilders?
the best i could make so far is this taiwan-hostel.com/
airekayak.com/ you can see the slider has a white space and i have no idea how to fix that. and i like the Social send buttons towards the bottom. (as opposed to sending someone to my FB youtube. i want a viewer to send my page to all their FB, twitter…) but this plugin i have no control where it is dropped.
and i don’t know how to make a nice footer like wpexplorer.com. i would gladly purchase all products if i knew they would make the look i want and work with the plugins i feel are essential. i feel ibm.com/us-en/ is a simple, horizontal, not cluttered look.
thank you for your evaluations!
ps. why doesn’t official wordpress have a horizontal theme? i thought for sure the 2016 would be but it the same outdated columns!
Have you checked out our Total WordPress Theme? It includes the Visual Composer plugin for free which is probably the most popular builder plugin out there and the theme is very minimal and fast by default then you can tweak it how you want it to look 😉
can i know what is theme you use in this website?
Actually it’s a custom theme 🙂 But if you’re in the market we can’t recommend Total enough!
Shame there’s no dates on these comments there probably 5 years old……
Well since the article was published on March 27, 2015 I think it’s safe to say all the comments are from the last 9 months 😉
Well I bought Qards yesterday and found it lacks quite a few things….changing the text colour didn’t work, settings page didn’t work and could not add buttons. Very limited when you actually try to create sites. I got refunded after a full 12 hours of trying to use it. Now I have converted to site origins page maker and it’s behaving very well, and it’s free! They really need a demo site.
Kyla’s logic is undeniable. 🙂
I’m glad that worked for you Mike. Thanks for leaving your feedback!
@Nathan: Super-helpful tip on bulding my first Bootstrap-based free theme! Works like a charm out of the box, doesn´t seem to produce too much “junk code” and is super-easy to use for the enduser. Not to mention that it´s free.
Thanks, Thomas
Thank you very much for this informative content and resources.
I like the KingComposer rather one in this list.
It is fast and easy customize.
Yeah, great list!
Does anyone use (https://wordpress.org/plugins/kingcomposer/) King Composer yet? I saw they released a nice theme based on that builder – Highstand
Hi Tom, We’ve actually come up with a groundbreaking and totally free page builder that is getting a lot of traction from the WP community as the fastest page builder: https://wordpress.org/plugins/elementor/
Thank you for the informations!!
Hi folks, just wanted to raise awareness to KingComposer, a relatively new page builder on the scene.
From a graphic designer’s point of view this plugin is a game changer, allowing me to get on with the designing of client sites whilst not being bogged down with code.
Added benefit that even after I deactivate plugin all my content is still displaying correctly!
KingComposer was added as well! Thanks so much for sharing!
Hey,
you might want to checkout the page builder we’ve created: it’s called Brix, and it’s drag & drop, responsive ready and really puts you in the driver seat when designing your website. Check out more at brixbuilder.com or simply jump to the free demo and try for yourself! brixbuilder.com/brixdemo/demo
You builder looks great – and we added it to the list 🙂
You only need 1. The Best. Elementor.com
That is another great option one!
Is there a wp-plugin regarding site builder where you design and download what you have designed?
You mean like a “theme builder”? There are some out there but I can’t remember off the top of my head. For the most part I don’t recommend this because this method doesn’t really allow for theme updates which are important to fix bugs/security issues. We recommend using a theme as a framework and combine it with a page builder for creating custom pages such as our Total theme 😉
Tom, thank you for including MotoPress!;) really appreciate!
BTW, this page builder also has the free version – MotoPress Content Editor Lite 😉
Here you have listed some popular and best builder wordpress plugin. Thanks a lot for sharing this nice content to me. I am really grateful to you for your great job.
Tailor is another page builder worth considering
Hi Tom,
Great article and thank you for including Page Builder Sandwich! All the best! 😀
please suggest the best one in free & premium categories
There are many free ones on the list (any plugin with the word “free” next to it). We don’t separate them because we’ve listed them in the order of our personal preference.
Hi cacscmacoach,
Brix page builder is now available as free plugin on WordPress.org
Regards
Page Builder Sandwich was listed 14th here. It basically functions like the usual Word processor but for building web pages. Version 4’s on January 2017! 🙂 Would be happy to assist you in it 🙂
i’m the Expert Idiot – i love siteorigin PageBuilder which is started using about 5 years ago because it was “free” and since i found so many of these packages and even the free carts opencart, magento, presta sho, zen cart… i found i needed to purchase plugins for shipping (can’t do flat rate) i saw UPS module was about $60 to $200 (lifetime fee) then. plus other plugs might need. saw clients complaining about getting into magento/others then needed to hire hours pgmrs to fix things. i wanted a site with horizontal layout and the WP standard themes don’t do (which i have no idea why they haven’t done it in 5 years?) do i started using siteorigin PageBuilder which i really love, easy to use, has some bugs i’ve found and other plugins don’t function with it over the years but as the net developed and 55% plus now mobile, siteorign pagebuilder you use the Vantage theme with does NOT have nice mobile menus, you have to pay the 29$ year for that and some other nice functions. which i see now most all these shops are going to annual fees and not lifetime fees for update. i have about 30 plugins per site and if i paid all the premium annual fees you’re talking about $300 to $400 a year. if you’re going commerce you’ll need a UPS/postal shipping plugin too. i think many don’t back up their sites and will eventually lose their sites? i even have some minor problems and my hosts suggests i hire an wordpress developer and i hang up and do a softaculous restore and up in 2 seconds. there’s a lot i crap going on to take care of. for some friends who want commerce i wish shopify or other brand corporate name would have their cart but allow .htaccess and cpanel access. but at $90 a month they have all site and new features added responsibility compared to all the little technical things you have to do to build and maintain the site. if WP every makes their woocommerce system as easy as enabling a plugin with all shipping, payments easy to set up, with a built in horizontal pagebuilder… it will take over the entire world. i’ve had plugin updates that kill the site so you have to have a back up. good luck.
A good write up.
The list of page builders is quite helpful. Visual Composer is an effective page builder. Has lots of advanced options to create an interactive page.
Building simply a page doesn’t pay much. One need to have a full fledged website builder software like TemplateToaster, known for its flexibility and compatibility with the major CMSs and advanced set of features.
Hey Tom
Nice article. Although, i guess you missed to explain why Visual Composer is better and also, to advise people that using most of these page builders might become challenging when they decide to change to other, since they will get their content full of shortcodes. Well not all, like Elementor. But most this is what happens.
You shouldn’t be using a page builder on tons of pages. Most websites only have a handful of core pages and if you decide to switch plugins you will be re-doing the pages anyway so there is real concern there. And although Elementor doesn’t leave broken shortcodes behind it leaves broken HTML behind which is can actually be much harder to locate and remove. Also using a page builder with shortcodes is much better in terms of flexibility since you can easily tweak the output of any shortcode via custom code (and include filters in the shortcodes/modules), whereas, you can’t do that for a builder like Elementor that dumps html on the page.
The only real concern with page builders is people that use them improperly and create hundreds or thousands of pages with builder and then they want to switch and have to manually update everything. That’s why in our Total theme we have a dynamic template function you can use so you can build 1 page and auto assign it to all the posts in a specific post type (it supports Elementor also).
You covered almost all page builder plugin in this article.
Thank you for sharing.
Hi,
WPBakery Page Builder is definitely one of my favourite Drag & Drop page builders.
I really enjoyed reading the article, thank you for sharing!
Good list but amazed you have not mentioned Elementor Pro, you have just reviewed the free version where the Pro Version takes it to the top of the list. On usability and cost!
We definitely think Elementor Pro is awesome – right up there with WPBakery! But the free version is probably the best free builder we’ve ever had the chance to try, which is why we featured it over the Pro version 🙂
I am not a fan of any WordPress page builders. I’ve just published a blog post detailing 6 reasons why page builders suck.
Would love to get your counter arguments to my points if you have any.
Cheers,
Aidan
To each their own 🙂 I personally think they make designing custom layouts much easier for the average WordPress user. It’s a quick, easy and manageable solution to customize a WordPress site without paying thousands for a bespoke design. Do I think everyone needs to use one? No. Like any WordPress plugin I think page builders have a purpose and a place (just like contact forms, e-commerce solutions, live chat, etc.). For example, our WPExplorer blog doesn’t use a page builder because we simply don’t need all the added features, layouts, modules, etc. But I am using a page builder on a site I’m creating for a real estate agent. The site only has a few pages and it needs to have sliders, testimonials, forms, galleries, etc.
Thanks for a great list of builders. I’d also like to throw an idea to include the Visual Composer Website Builder plugin delivered by the WPBakery team in the list.
It has an easy-to-use drag and drop functionality, tons of elements and templates to enhance any page, auto responsiveness, no shortcodes, and more. The plugin itself comes in a free or premium version and is great both for WordPress beginners and pros. Just check it out 🙂
It’s definitely an option, but in our opinion the original WPBakery Builder (formerly Visual Composer) on Codecanyon is superior 🙂
You have listed almost all the page builders with great detail and explanation. I prefer Elementor free coupled with Pro because it has got almost all the features required for a blog. Also working on Elementor is really easy.
Customizations are really easy with Elementor and it live drag and drop builder is a great asset.However, If I ever get a chance I would certainly like to try out other page builders like WP bakery or Seedprod.