Discovering the Perfect WordPress Page Builder Plugins for Your Site, In this article, we delve into the realm of page builder plugins for WordPress to identify the ultimate choice for your website.
Over the past decade, the WordPress page builder industry has experienced significant growth. Today, most page builders offer a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface and the ability to customize various aspects of your theme.
Our exploration will encompass a thorough examination of each plugin’s key features, advantages, disadvantages, and pricing structures.
Let’s get started.
Elementor Pro
Elementor Pro is a powerful and popular page builder plugin for WordPress that offers advanced features and functionality for creating professional and visually stunning websites. It is a premium version of the free Elementor plugin and includes additional tools and options to take your website design to the next level.
With Elementor Pro, you can enjoy an intuitive drag-and-drop editor that allows you to design and customize your website pages in real-time. It provides a wide range of pre-designed templates, blocks, and widgets that you can easily customize and arrange according to your needs.
One of the standout features of Elementor Pro is the Theme Builder, which allows you to create custom headers, footers, and other dynamic templates that can be applied to different sections of your website.
Elementor Pro also offers advanced design options, such as the ability to add custom CSS, motion effects, and dynamic content based on user roles or conditions. It seamlessly integrates with popular WordPress plugins and tools, allowing you to extend the functionality of your website.
Key Features of Elementor Pro include:
- Theme Builder: Elementor Pro allows users to design custom headers, footers, archive pages, single post templates, and other theme elements using a visual interface. This enables complete control over the design of different sections of a website.
- Pop-Up Builder: With Elementor Pro, you can create attractive pop-ups and modal windows to engage visitors and display targeted messages or offers. The pop-up builder offers customizable templates and advanced targeting options.
- Form Builder: Elementor Pro includes a built-in form builder with various field options and styling settings. It integrates seamlessly with popular email marketing services, allowing you to collect leads and automate email campaigns.
- WooCommerce Builder: Elementor Pro extends its functionality to WooCommerce by providing dedicated widgets and templates for creating product pages, shop layouts, and custom product grids. This enhances the visual appeal and user experience of online stores.
- Dynamic Content: The Pro version of Elementor offers dynamic content capabilities, allowing you to display dynamic content from custom fields, post metadata, or external sources. This feature is especially useful for creating dynamic and personalized websites.
- Advanced Design Options: Elementor Pro provides advanced design options, including custom CSS, motion effects, hover effects, and shape dividers. These features enable users to add interactivity and visual interest to their website designs.
Elementor Pro offers three pricing plans:
- Personal Plan: Priced at $49 per year, the Personal Plan includes access to Elementor Pro for one website and one year of support and updates.
- Plus Plan: Priced at $99 per year, the Plus Plan offers access to Elementor Pro for three websites, along with one year of support and updates.
- Expert Plan: Priced at $199 per year, the Expert Plan provides access to Elementor Pro for 1,000 websites, along with one year of support and updates.
Elementor Pro’s pricing plans include one year of updates and customer support. They also offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, allowing you to try out the plugin risk-free.
Divi Builder
Divi, developed by Elegant Themes, is a prominent WordPress theme that has become the flagship product of the company. Originally launched in 2013 as a theme, Divi Builder, the powerful drag-and-drop page builder, was introduced as a standalone plugin two years later.
In its early days, Divi had a somewhat cumbersome interface with sections, rows, and columns that could only be accessed from the backend of the WordPress editor. However, over time, Divi has evolved into one of the top-notch drag-and-drop page builder plugins available for WordPress.
Notably, the Divi Builder can still be used as a standalone plugin, providing users with the flexibility to use it with any WordPress theme of their choice.
Key Features of Divi Builder include:
- Visual Page Building: Divi Builder provides a frontend visual editor that allows users to design their websites in real-time. You can easily drag and drop elements, adjust settings, and see the changes instantly, without needing to switch between the editor and preview modes.
- Pre-designed Layouts and Templates: Divi Builder offers a vast collection of pre-designed layouts and templates that can be easily imported and customized. These layouts cover various industries and website types, making it easier to get started with your design.
- Responsive Editing: Divi Builder ensures that your website is fully responsive and looks great on all devices. You can customize the appearance of different elements specifically for desktop, tablet, and mobile views, providing a seamless user experience.
- Advanced Design Options: Divi Builder provides advanced design options, such as custom CSS control, animation effects, shape dividers, and background settings. These features give users the freedom to create unique and visually appealing designs.
- Global Elements and Styles: Divi Builder allows you to save elements, sections, and entire layouts as global items. This means any changes made to a global item will be automatically applied across all instances, saving time and effort when making design updates.
- Theme Building: With Divi Builder, you can create custom headers, footers, and other theme elements using its Theme Builder feature. This provides full control over the design and layout of your website’s core components.
Divi Builder is available as part of the Elegant Themes membership, which includes access to the Divi theme, other Elegant Themes products, and regular updates.
The membership offers two pricing options:
- Yearly Access: Priced at $89 per year, the Yearly Access plan provides access to all Elegant Themes products and updates for one year.
- Lifetime Access: Priced at a one-time fee of $249, the Lifetime Access plan offers unlimited access to Elegant Themes products, updates, and support.
Both plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee, allowing users to try Divi Builder and other Elegant Themes products risk-free.
Themify Builder
Similar to Elegant Themes, Themify offers its own page builder integrated into its WordPress themes, allowing users to customize their themes and web pages effortlessly, without requiring any coding skills.
Just like Elegant Themes, Themify recognized the value of their page builder and decided to make it available as a separate plugin, independent of their themes. This means that users can now enjoy the benefits of Themify’s page builder on almost any WordPress theme of their choice.
With this standalone plugin, you can now experience the convenience of using one of the most lightweight and user-friendly WordPress page builder plugins available. All of this comes at an affordable price, making it accessible to a wide range of users.
Themify Builder is a powerful drag-and-drop page builder plugin for WordPress that allows users to create visually stunning and customized website layouts without the need for coding knowledge. It offers a range of features and tools that make it easy to design and customize websites with ease.
Key Features of Themify Builder include:
- Frontend Editing: With Themify Builder, you can edit your website pages directly on the frontend, seeing the changes in real-time. This allows for a seamless and intuitive editing experience.
- Drag-and-Drop Interface: The drag-and-drop functionality of Themify Builder makes it simple to add and arrange elements on your pages. You can easily drag and drop modules, such as text boxes, images, sliders, buttons, and more, to build your desired layout.
- Pre-designed Layouts and Templates: Themify Builder offers a wide selection of pre-designed layouts and templates that you can import and customize for your website. This saves time and provides a starting point for creating visually appealing pages.
- Custom Styling Options: You can customize the appearance of your website with Themify Builder’s extensive styling options. This includes options for fonts, colors, backgrounds, spacing, and more, allowing you to create a unique and personalized design.
- Mobile Responsiveness: Themify Builder ensures that your website is fully responsive and optimized for mobile devices. You can easily customize the appearance of your pages specifically for different screen sizes, ensuring a consistent user experience.
- Integration with Themify Themes: Themify Builder seamlessly integrates with Themify’s own WordPress themes, providing a seamless experience and enhanced compatibility. However, it can also be used with any WordPress theme.
- Add-Ons and Extensions: Themify offers various add-ons and extensions that extend the functionality of Themify Builder. These include features like animation effects, WooCommerce integration, parallax scrolling, and more.
Themify Builder is available as part of the Themify membership, which includes access to all Themify themes and plugins.
The membership offers flexible pricing options:
- Standard Membership: Priced at $89 per year, the Standard Membership grants access to all Themify themes and one year of support and updates.
- Master Club Membership: Priced at $249 per year, the Master Club Membership includes access to all Themify themes, plugins, add-ons, and one year of support and updates.
Both membership plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee, allowing you to try Themify Builder and other products risk-free.
WPBakery
WPBakery, formerly known as Visual Composer, is a popular drag-and-drop page builder plugin for WordPress. It provides a user-friendly interface that allows users to create and customize website layouts without any coding knowledge. WPBakery is known for its versatility and integration with various WordPress themes.
For a long time, WPBakery offered a page building experience that was considered to be less intuitive compared to other page builders in the market. You might be more familiar with its previous name, Visual Composer.
However, WPBakery has undergone significant changes and improvements in recent years. With a new name, WPBakery has made rapid progress and now offers a live frontend editing experience, similar to other popular page builder plugins available.
This means that you can now enjoy a more streamlined and user-friendly editing process when using WPBakery for building your web pages.
Key Features of WPBakery include:
- Frontend and Backend Editing: WPBakery offers both frontend and backend editing options. You can choose to edit your website directly on the frontend, seeing the changes in real-time, or use the backend editor for a more traditional editing experience.
- Drag-and-Drop Interface: With WPBakery, you can easily build and modify your website by dragging and dropping elements onto the canvas. It provides a wide range of elements, such as text blocks, images, buttons, sliders, and more, that can be customized to suit your design needs.
- Pre-built Layouts and Templates: WPBakery comes with a library of pre-built layouts and templates that you can import and customize. These layouts cover various website types and industries, offering a starting point for your design projects.
- Customization Options: WPBakery provides a plethora of customization options to tweak the appearance and behavior of your website elements. You can adjust settings for fonts, colors, backgrounds, margins, padding, animations, and more, giving you full control over the design.
- Add-Ons and Extensions: WPBakery offers a wide range of add-ons and extensions that expand its functionality. These add-ons allow you to integrate with popular plugins, add advanced elements and features, and enhance the overall capabilities of WPBakery.
- Compatibility with Themes and Plugins: WPBakery is compatible with most WordPress themes and plugins, making it a versatile choice for website builders. It seamlessly integrates with popular themes and provides extensive support for third-party plugins.
WPBakery is available as a premium plugin with two licensing options:
- Regular License: Priced at $64, the regular license allows you to use WPBakery on a single website or project.
- Extended License: Priced at $320, the extended license permits you to use WPBakery on multiple websites or projects for yourself or your clients.
Both license options provide access to all WPBakery features and functionality, including the drag-and-drop page builder, element library, templates, and customization options.
Note: Additionally, WPBakery Page Builder is also available as a bundled plugin with certain premium WordPress themes. In such cases, the cost of the plugin may be included in the theme price.
Brizy
Beaver Builder is a popular WordPress page builder plugins that allows users to create visually appealing and responsive website pages with ease. It provides a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface and a range of powerful features that make it suitable for both beginners and advanced users.
While Brizy may not enjoy the same level of popularity as some of the other WordPress page builder plugins mentioned in this list, it remains a powerful option worth considering.
Brizy offers live frontend editing, theme building capabilities, and all the essential features you would expect from a page builder. It provides a user-friendly interface that allows you to make real-time edits and customizations directly on the front-end of your website.
In addition to the standard features, Brizy also boasts a few unique functionalities that set it apart from the competition. These distinctive features enhance its overall versatility and enable users to create more dynamic and engaging web pages.
Therefore, although it may not be as widely recognized, Brizy offers a solid set of features and a unique touch that makes it a viable choice for those seeking a robust WordPress page builder plugins.
Key Features of Beaver Builder include:
- Frontend Editing: Beaver Builder allows users to edit their pages in real-time on the frontend of their website. You can see the changes you make immediately, which makes the editing process intuitive and efficient.
- Drag-and-Drop Builder: The drag-and-drop functionality of Beaver Builder enables users to easily add, rearrange, and customize elements on their pages. You can choose from a wide selection of modules, such as text boxes, images, buttons, sliders, and more.
- Pre-built Templates: Beaver Builder offers a library of professionally designed templates that users can choose from. These templates cover various page types and layouts, providing a quick and convenient starting point for your website design.
- Mobile Responsiveness: Beaver Builder ensures that the pages you create are fully responsive and optimized for different screen sizes. You can customize the appearance of your pages specifically for desktop, tablet, and mobile devices, ensuring a seamless user experience.
- Theme Compatibility: Beaver Builder is compatible with most WordPress themes, allowing you to use it with your existing theme or choose from a range of compatible themes available in the market.
- Third-Party Integrations: Beaver Builder integrates with popular WordPress plugins, such as WooCommerce for creating online stores and Gravity Forms for form creation. This allows you to extend the functionality of your website and integrate it with other tools and services.
- Developer-Friendly Features: Beaver Builder offers features that cater to developers, including custom module development, reusable templates, and the option to save and export layouts for use on other websites.
Beaver Builder offers flexible pricing options based on different licensing plans:
- Standard Plan: The Standard Plan is suitable for individual websites and costs $99 per year. It includes access to all modules, templates, and support for one year.
- Pro Plan: The Pro Plan is ideal for agencies and freelancers working on multiple websites. It costs $199 per year and provides access to Beaver Builder on an unlimited number of websites, along with priority support.
Both plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee, allowing you to try Beaver Builder risk-free. Additionally, there is a free Lite version available with limited features, providing an opportunity to explore and test the plugin before making a purchase.
Thrive Architect
Thrive Architect emerged as one of the initial offerings from Thrive Themes shortly after the company’s establishment in 2013. It quickly gained recognition as one of the pioneering page builder plugins, alongside Elementor, for introducing a frontend live editor that simplified codeless web design.
Thrive Architect is a feature-rich WordPress page builder plugins developed by Thrive Themes. It empowers users to create visually stunning and conversion-focused website designs with ease. Thrive Architect offers a range of customization options and advanced features to help users build professional-looking websites without any coding knowledge.
While other page builders struggled with cumbersome interfaces, Thrive Architect revolutionized the process of creating web pages from scratch, making it accessible even for non-developers. Its user-friendly approach empowered users to design and customize their websites effortlessly.
Even to this day, Thrive Architect remains one of the most straightforward and powerful page builders in the WordPress ecosystem. It has further expanded its offerings with a comprehensive collection of marketing themes and plugins, including the Thrive Theme Builder for website building, Thrive Leads for lead generation, Thrive Optimize for A/B landing page testing, and more.
Thrive Architect, along with its accompanying suite of tools, continues to provide users with a seamless and versatile experience for building visually stunning and high-performing websites without the need for coding expertise.
Key Features of Thrive Architect include:
- Drag-and-Drop Interface: Thrive Architect provides a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface that allows you to effortlessly build and customize your website layouts. Simply drag elements onto the canvas, arrange them as desired, and customize their settings to create the perfect design.
- Pre-designed Templates: Thrive Architect offers a library of professionally designed templates for various page types, including homepage layouts, landing pages, sales pages, and more. These templates serve as a starting point for your designs and can be fully customized to match your brand.
- Conversion-Optimized Elements: Thrive Architect focuses on optimizing your website for conversions. It provides elements such as call-to-action buttons, testimonials, countdown timers, lead generation forms, and more, helping you create high-converting pages.
- Inline Text Editing: With Thrive Architect, you can edit text directly on the page, eliminating the need to go back and forth between the editing interface and preview mode. This streamlines the editing process and allows you to see changes in real-time.
- Advanced Design Options: Thrive Architect offers a wide range of design options to customize your website’s appearance. You can adjust fonts, colors, spacing, borders, shadows, and other visual elements to create a unique and appealing design.
- Mobile Responsiveness: Thrive Architect ensures that your website looks great on all devices. It provides responsive editing options, allowing you to optimize your design for desktop, tablet, and mobile views.
Thrive Architect is available as part of the Thrive Suite membership, which provides access to all Thrive Themes products.
The membership offers two pricing options:
- Thrive Suite (Paid Annually): Priced at $19 per month (billed annually), the Thrive Suite membership includes unlimited access to all Thrive Themes products, updates, and support for a year.
- Thrive Suite (Paid Quarterly): Priced at $30 per month (billed quarterly), this plan offers the same benefits as the annual plan but is billed quarterly.
Both plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee, allowing you to try Thrive Architect and other Thrive Themes products risk-free.
Beaver Builder
Beaver Builder is a popular WordPress page builder plugins that allows users to create visually appealing and responsive website pages with ease. It provides a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface and a range of powerful features that make it suitable for both beginners and advanced users.
Beaver Builder has established itself as a prominent player in the WordPress page builder industry, despite experiencing a relatively slower growth rate compared to plugins like Elementor and Divi Builder.
The core offering of the company revolves around its powerful page builder. However, Beaver Builder goes beyond that and provides additional tools to enhance your website building experience. It offers a dedicated theme that enables you to construct your own website from scratch. Additionally, Beaver Builder provides a theme editor that empowers you to make customizations to various elements of your theme, including the header, footer, and page layouts, among others.
With Beaver Builder, you not only have access to a comprehensive page builder, but also the flexibility to create a fully customized website using their theme and efficiently tailor the visual aspects of your site through their theme editor.
Key Features of Beaver Builder include:
- Frontend Editing: Beaver Builder allows users to edit their pages in real-time on the frontend of their website. You can see the changes you make immediately, which makes the editing process intuitive and efficient.
- Drag-and-Drop Builder: The drag-and-drop functionality of Beaver Builder enables users to easily add, rearrange, and customize elements on their pages. You can choose from a wide selection of modules, such as text boxes, images, buttons, sliders, and more.
- Pre-built Templates: Beaver Builder offers a library of professionally designed templates that users can choose from. These templates cover various page types and layouts, providing a quick and convenient starting point for your website design.
- Mobile Responsiveness: Beaver Builder ensures that the pages you create are fully responsive and optimized for different screen sizes. You can customize the appearance of your pages specifically for desktop, tablet, and mobile devices, ensuring a seamless user experience.
- Theme Compatibility: Beaver Builder is compatible with most WordPress themes, allowing you to use it with your existing theme or choose from a range of compatible themes available in the market.
- Third-Party Integrations: Beaver Builder integrates with popular WordPress plugins, such as WooCommerce for creating online stores and Gravity Forms for form creation. This allows you to extend the functionality of your website and integrate it with other tools and services.
- Developer-Friendly Features: Beaver Builder offers features that cater to developers, including custom module development, reusable templates, and the option to save and export layouts for use on other websites.
Beaver Builder offers flexible pricing options based on different licensing plans:
- Standard Plan: The Standard Plan is suitable for individual websites and costs $99 per year. It includes access to all modules, templates, and support for one year.
- Pro Plan: The Pro Plan is ideal for agencies and freelancers working on multiple websites. It costs $199 per year and provides access to Beaver Builder on an unlimited number of websites, along with priority support.
Both plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee, allowing you to try Beaver Builder risk-free. Additionally, there is a free Lite version available with limited features, providing an opportunity to explore and test the plugin before making a purchase.
SeedProd
SeedProd is a popular WordPress plugin that allows users to create professional coming soon, maintenance mode, and landing page templates for their websites. It is designed to help website owners effectively communicate with their audience during the development or maintenance phase of a website.
In 2018, when Awesome Motive, the company behind WPBeginner, OptinMonster, WPForms, and other popular tools, acquired SeedProd, they gave it a complete transformation. It evolved into a robust page and website builder.
Today, SeedProd stands as one of the top WordPress page builders, gaining a growing user base. Despite its expansion into a comprehensive page builder, SeedProd has retained its original maintenance mode features that users are familiar with.
This means that you still have the convenience of using its maintenance mode functionality alongside its powerful website building capabilities.
Key Features of SeedProd include:
- Coming Soon and Maintenance Mode: SeedProd offers pre-designed templates and customization options to create visually appealing and informative coming soon and maintenance mode pages. These pages can provide details about the website launch date, collect email subscribers, and display social media links.
- Landing Page Builder: With SeedProd, users can create attractive landing pages for various purposes, such as lead generation, product launches, event registrations, and more. The drag-and-drop builder and customizable elements make it easy to design landing pages without coding knowledge.
- Email Marketing Integration: SeedProd integrates with popular email marketing services, allowing users to collect email subscribers and build their mailing lists directly from their coming soon or landing pages.
- Countdown Timer: The plugin includes a countdown timer feature that can be added to coming soon or landing pages. This helps create a sense of urgency and anticipation among visitors, encouraging them to take action or return when the website is fully launched.
- Social Sharing: SeedProd enables users to add social media sharing buttons to their coming soon or landing pages. This allows visitors to easily share the page with their network, increasing visibility and generating buzz.
- Responsive Design: SeedProd ensures that the pages created are fully responsive and optimized for different devices and screen sizes. This ensures a seamless user experience across desktop, tablet, and mobile platforms.
Pricing for SeedProd is as follows:
- Basic Plan: The Basic Plan is priced at $39 per year and includes features such as unlimited access to all templates, integrations with popular email marketing services, and basic customization options.
- Plus Plan: The Plus Plan is priced at $99 per year and offers additional features like advanced customization options, access to premium templates, and priority customer support.
- Pro Plan: The Pro Plan is priced at $199 per year and provides access to all features, including advanced lead generation features, advanced integrations, and priority customer support.
SeedProd also offers a 14-day money-back guarantee, allowing users to try the plugin risk-free.
Wrap up
Now that the WordPress block editor (Gutenberg) is fully integrated into the WordPress core, you might wonder if you even need a separate page builder plugin for your projects.
While the block editor has been around for a while, it still has limitations compared to page builder plugins, making the decision more challenging.
One scenario where it makes sense to prioritize the block editor over page builders is for blog posts. Since many WordPress sites have a higher number of blog posts compared to pages, using a page builder for all those posts can pose challenges if you decide to switch to a different page builder plugin.
In such cases, if you have hundreds of posts built with a specific page builder and want to transition to a new one, you would need to redesign each post using the new page builder. However, with the block editor being part of the WordPress core, switching to a new page builder plugin will not affect the designs of your existing blog posts. They will remain intact and unaffected by the change.
So, while the block editor may be sufficient for blog posts, page builder plugins offer more flexibility and advanced features for creating and customizing pages on your WordPress site. Consider your specific needs, the number of pages versus blog posts, and the potential impact of switching page builders before making a decision.
WordPress Page Builder Plugins FAQ
What is a WordPress page builder plugins?
A WordPress page builder plugins is a tool that allows users to create and customize web pages visually, without the need for coding or technical knowledge. It provides a drag-and-drop interface, pre-designed templates, and various elements to build and design websites easily.
Why should I use a page builder plugin for WordPress?
Page builder plugins simplify the process of creating and designing websites by providing intuitive visual editors, eliminating the need for coding. They offer flexibility, customization options, and pre-designed templates, allowing users to create unique and professional-looking web pages without technical expertise.
Are page builder plugins compatible with all WordPress themes?
Page builder plugins are typically compatible with most WordPress themes. However, some themes may have specific design limitations or conflicts with certain page builders. It’s advisable to choose a page builder that offers compatibility with your chosen theme or opt for themes specifically designed to work seamlessly with the page builder plugin.
Can I switch between different page builder plugins?
Switching between page builder plugins can be challenging as each plugin has its own structure and formatting. If you switch, you may need to recreate or modify your existing content. It’s recommended to thoroughly research and test different page builders before committing to one, to minimize the need for future transitions.
Are page builder plugins SEO-friendly?
Page builder plugins have evolved to prioritize SEO compatibility. They generate clean code and provide options to optimize web pages for search engines. However, it’s crucial to understand and implement proper SEO practices while using a page builder to ensure your website remains search engine friendly.
Do page builder plugins slow down my website?
While page builder plugins can add additional code and features to your website, their impact on site speed depends on various factors such as plugin optimization, caching, and hosting infrastructure. Choosing a well-optimized and reputable page builder, optimizing images, and implementing caching mechanisms can help mitigate any potential slowdown.
Are page builder plugins suitable for beginners?
Page builder plugins are designed to be user-friendly and accessible to both beginners and experienced users. They provide intuitive interfaces, drag-and-drop functionality, and pre-designed templates, making it easier for beginners to create and customize websites without technical knowledge.
Are there free options for page builder plugins?
Yes, there are free page builder plugins available in the WordPress repository. These plugins offer basic functionality and features for creating web pages. However, premium versions of page builder plugins often provide more advanced features, templates, and dedicated support for enhanced customization and performance.
Can page builder plugins be used for e-commerce websites?
Yes, page builder plugins can be used to create and design web pages for e-commerce websites. Many page builders offer specific elements and integrations for e-commerce platforms, allowing users to build product pages, shopping carts, and checkout processes with ease.
What are the system requirements for using page builder plugins?
The system requirements for page builder plugins generally align with the requirements of WordPress itself. Ensure that your WordPress installation meets the minimum PHP version, memory limits, and other requirements specified by the page builder plugin you intend to use.
