For starters we are only reviewing our top 3 page builder picks which have WYSIWYG live editing capabilities. No back-end editors here. We are only reviewing our experience with it and not a real side-by-side comparison.
We are an agency looking for a solutions that can scale and transfer. This is how we ended up with our page builder of choice.
To keep in mind: we still use robust frameworks to build themes with complex functionality and elaborate designs. But when it comes to building impressive looking “custom design” websites which serve for promotion, online web presence, marketing, leads, funnels or other mainly static pages, page builders are the way to go, and our clients appreciate us for it.
We have given multiple page builders a try and put them through harsh tests, giving each one an equal amount of wear and tear. Approximately 4 months of day-in and day-out.
Our first try was the famous DIVI. We used the DIVI theme version. We absolutely loved how impressive DIVI worked and the amount of editing power it has, but quickly became frustrated with the interface and all the pop-up style editors. They were just intrusive.
Additionally, there was a bit of a learning curve to get things to work the way we wanted it, and trying to code a page became a bit of a cluttered mess, when you don’t know what you are doing.
Once we got the hang of it, we were able to build out a fancy website. But our biggest NO-NO was when we deactivated the theme for another theme. It leaves a huge mess of short-codes everywhere. These means that you get locked in to the plugin, or you have a huge mess to clean up if you or your client ever decides to move to a different theme.
We turned it off and moved on.
Next we tried Oxygen App. It looked really promising, but it kept crashing on us while we were trying to build a sample site. Before you say anything, yes, we started with a fresh new install for Oxygen App and went as far as trying another new install to give it a fair try.
We just had to move on.
We ended up giving Beaver Builder (free edition) a try. It fairly reminded us of DIVI, so it was easy to pick up at this point. We loved the editing power, however the pop-up style editors started becoming annoying and very quick.
You would click somewhere and accidentally edit the wrong thing. Now we accept that this was entirely our fault. But if it happened to us, it would most likely happen to our clients, and that’s who we had in mind for this product.
After building our sample website and happy with the outcome we moved on to try another solution.
That’s when we tried Elementor and quickly became in love with it. Not only did we find it easy to use, but the 2 window live editor solution was amazing for us. We could play around with settings and content on one panel and see it live on the other “live” panel. Exactly what we needed. No pop-ups taking up our views.
What we also liked was that no matter which widget you edit, they all had a similar interface which made it that more quicker to start learning more widgets.
Now we are not saying that Elementor is the one-stop-solution for all websites, but so far in all our projects (aside from the web apps) Elementor has held strong.
It supports builder pages, 404’s, sidebars, headers (and sticky), footers, archive pages, posts, and custom post types. Oh and did we mention, it supports Woocomerce pages as well.
Our favorite feature which we discovered totally by accident is you can not only copy/duplicate elements, but you can also copy and paste its styles. Better yet, you can copy it from on page to another. Wow, that sped things up a lot.
The next best thing: we were able to style our Gravity Forms (with the help of a add-on plugin) and also add and style Yoast breadcrumbs, right our of the box. That also helped speed up development of pages.
I guess you can tell by now, which page builder became our favorite.
Not only were we able to build pages but we now use Elementor to build an entire theme. Our clients love the ease of editing and updating once all is in place.
For an agency that needs to be able to produce products efficiently and in a structured manner, Elementor has been a huge asset. Not only do we get great results in a timely fashion, but training our clients to update their new website is a breeze. Not to mention how easy it is to train a non-developer teammate to use it.
So our clear winner is Elementor. Which is your favorite Page builder and why?
