Elementor Review: Is It The Very Best WordPress Page Builder? – Elementor Hello Theme Blog
Attempting to decide if Elementor is the right page Builder for your WordPress website? In this hands-on Elementor review, we’ll help you understand:
- How Elementor can benefit you
- Who ought to use Elementor
- The special features that help Elementor stand out from the competition
- Whether you need to use the complimentary version or open up your wallet for the premium variation
Elementor Hello Theme Blog
We have actually developed Astra, among the most popular themes for Elementor, in addition to a popular add-on for Elementor, so you can most likely guess that we’re fans of Elementor. Let’s get that out of the way – this is a favorable Elementor evaluation. Elementor Hello Theme Blog.
Get Started with Elementor Pro
Comprehending why we like Elementor and have constructed items in the Elementor environment is more essential than just the truth that we like it – that’s what we’re going to attempt and interact in this evaluation.
By the end of our Elementor evaluation, you should have whatever that you require to make an informed choice about whether or not Elementor is the right tool for your WordPress site.
Elementor Hello Theme Blog
What Does Elementor Offer?
Elementor is a visual, drag-and-drop page Builder. If you’re not acquainted with these terms, this suggests that you can:
- See a preview of precisely what your page will look like to visitors as you’re constructing it.
- Drag and drop various material and style elements to develop the perfect design.
Basically, it changes creating a great-looking, customized web design from something you require to be a developer to do, to something that anybody can do. Elementor Hello Theme Blog.
Elementor is now actively used by over four million WordPress sites, that makes it the most popular WordPress page Builder. It’s likewise preserved an excellent 4.7-star score (out of 5) on over 5,900 evaluations, so the majority of those users are quite pleased with Elementor.
There are a lot of WordPress page home builders that provide a visual, drag-and-drop interface, however, so what makes Elementor stand apart and why is it so effective?
Well, we’ll enter into this in more depth later, however some of Elementor’s standout functions are:
- Great deals of content components – these are the building blocks of your page. They’re what you “drag-and-drop” to make your style.
- Responsive style – most people browse the web on mobile phones, so it is necessary that your styles look terrific on all devices. Elementor’s designs are responsive by default and you get great deals of choices to manage how it works.
- Templates – staring at a blank page is scary! Elementor comes with hundreds of professionally created templates so that you do not need to start from scratch.
- Style alternatives – you get tons of detailed style options to make your design pixel-perfect without turning to customized CSS (though you can do that too).
- Convenience – you get lots of helpful tools like right-click assistance, a fast find tool, and more to assist you build beautiful pages faster.
- Theme Builder – with the Pro variation, you can create your entire WordPress theme using Elementor (though we still recommend matching it with a quality theme).
- Dynamic material – you can consist of vibrant content from customized fields and plugins like ACF, Pods, and Toolset.
- Popup Builder – with the Pro version, you can also develop all kinds of popups utilizing the same visual, drag-and-drop user interface.
- WooCommerce Builder – if you’re building an eCommerce shop, you can develop your WooCommerce store utilizing Elementor and consist of items in your other designs. Elementor Hello Theme Blog.
Who Is Elementor For?
Elementor is for … well, nearly anybody who’s utilizing WordPress.
A digital online marketer might like Elementor for its capability to help them rapidly create landing pages and popups, while a casual user might simply be looking for a method to add some additional style to their blog site posts.
Let’s look at some specific circumstances:
Elementor Hello Theme Blog
The Casual User
If you’re simply a casual user searching for a way to add some design to your article or develop a beautiful homepage, Elementor is perfect for you.
You’ll have the ability to utilize the visual user interface to spin up some great-looking styles without needing any technical knowledge … and you’ll probably be able to do it totally free! More on whether you need to use the free or paid variation later. Elementor Hello Theme Blog.
The Digital Marketer
Elementor is great for digital online marketers and teams because it includes tons of marketing aspects.
The Kind widget in Elementor Pro lets you create all types of lead kinds and link them to popular e-mail marketing services. It also has a Zapier integration, which lets you link to your CRM.
You can likewise utilize the Popup Builder to create opt-in popups and target them anywhere on your website. And if you’re selling service or products, you can use WooCommerce Builder to design your sales pages.
Lastly, the core Elementor plugin itself is likewise an outstanding solution for building WordPress landing pages.
The Website Builder
If you’re developing sites for customers, Elementor is a best (and popular) choice.
You can combine Elementor with a flexible theme like Astra to construct 100% customized client websites without any code needed. You can also utilize Theme Builder when needed, like developing the template for a custom-made post type and including dynamic data from ACF, Pods, or Toolset.
Elementor Hello Theme Blog
Elementor Pricing
Short answer: It’s Free.
The base version of Elementor that is readily available in the WordPress Plugin repository is completely totally free to use. There is also a pro variation with a lot more flexibility and a lot more features.
Check out our article on Elementor Vs. Elementor Pro if you wish to get a detailed evaluation of both.
Elementor is a feature-packed plugin that works for all websites. It is restricted at certain points.
For instance, with Elementor Pro you can customize your header, footer, posts page, single posts page, or item pages. Elementor Hello Theme Blog.
The Elementor base version delivers the bare minimum you require to create and personalize your site. However if you wish to have the flexibility of revamping the whole site, Elementor Pro is the best choice.
With Elementor Pro you can likewise add pop-ups, contact kinds, subscription kinds, global widgets, and custom CSS.
Here is a list of extra features that you get in Elementor Pro:
- 50+ additional widgets
- 300+ premium demonstration imports consisting of imports for header, footer, and pop-ups
- Complete website modification through Theme Builder. This lets you change the header, footer, and posts pages
- WooCommerce Builder for editing item and classification pages in eCommerce sites
- Popup Builder with advanced features like, exit intent, after scroll, and controls to display certain pop-ups on certain pages
- Visual Type Builder that can be integrated with popular e-mail marketing tools
- You can develop global widgets and utilize them site-wide
- Add customized CSS
- Deploy any Elementor widget basically anywhere you desire
Elementor Pro Pricing
Elementor Pro has a 5 tier rates strategy based on the number of licenses you want.
If you are working with a single site then the Important Plan would be best for you. If you are working on several websites, the Advanced plan or above plans would be preferable.
All the strategies include an annual subscription.
How Elementor Works: Visiting the Interface
Let’s see how Elementor deals with this practical section.
Just like any other plugin, you need to install and trigger Elementor through the WordPress repository.
Next, you can either choose to customize Elementor settings or dive straight into designing.
If you are just starting, we recommend utilizing the default settings only. Head over to pages and open one of the pages that you wish to edit.
Click Edit With Elementor to begin editing.
For the sake of this presentation, we set up the Astra theme and imported one of its demo sites constructed with Elementor. Elementor Hello Theme Blog.
Now, let’s go through the Elementor control panel utilizing that demo website.
Here’s what the Elementor dashboard looks like.
Here’s the label of different parts numbered.
- The working area or the main canvas. This is where you modify and revamp your site
- Elementor widgets location
- Elementor settings
- Open Elementor widgets
- International settings
- Modification history
- Switch view (desktop, tablet, mobile).
- Sneak peek modifications.
- Release.
Elementor Structure Hierarchy
If you are completely new to constructing websites, you need to understand the structure of the Elementor page Builder.
Every page constructed with Elementor consists of areas and columns.
Section. A section is basically a row. You can add a background, alter its sizing, and more. Columns and widgets go inside areas.
Column. A column divides a section into various columns. You can then manage each column individually. Elementor Hello Theme Blog.
A page can have any variety of sections in it. Areas include columns and columns include the Elementor widgets.
Here is an illustration showing what the structure in Elementor looks like.
Elementor Hello Theme Blog
How to Design a Page in Elementor from Scratch
When developing a web page, you can either start with a blank screen or import a pre-existing template. In this section, we will cover how you can develop a page from scratch using Elementor. Elementor Hello Theme Blog.
Here’s how you do it:
Step 1: Open a blank page and click “Edit With Elementor”.
Step 2: Click on the “+” button to add a brand-new area.
Step 3: Select an area with a single column or numerous ones depending on your requirements.
Step 4: Drag widgets from the Elementor panel into the columns that you want to.
Once you more than happy with the placement, you can adjust the finer information in the Material, Style, and Advanced Sections.
You can experiment with the choices when learning to discover the ideal designs for you.
How to Design a Pre-Existing Page in Elementor
In some cases you might need to modify a pre-existing page with Elementor. The procedure is not extremely different in this case either. In fact, it is much easier to modify an existing Elementor page than going back to square one.
Here’s how you do it.
To include a new widget, drag it from the sidebar on the left.
To reorganize a widget on the visual sneak peek, you can also use drag and drop. If you wish to modify text, simply click and type on the visual sneak peek:
To create the designs for your widgets, utilize areas and columns.
To tailor a widget, click it. That will open the widget’s settings in the sidebar, which are divided into three tabs:
Utilize a comparable method to customize areas and columns:
As you change an aspect’s settings, you’ll instantly see those changes reviewed the visual preview.
8 Amazing Features That Help Elementor Stand Out
Next, let’s go through some of the important things that help Elementor stand apart from other visual, drag-and-drop page home builders.
1. Hassle-free Modifying Functions for Faster Style
Elementor includes some hassle-free editing functions that help you build styles faster.
Elementor comes with right-click assistance, which most other page home builders don’t offer.
You can right-click on any element to replicate it, copy and paste styles, and more:
It also features a beneficial Navigator view that gives you a purchased list of all the material on your page, separated by areas and columns. You can utilize this to rapidly open the settings for any component on your page. You can likewise rename aspects to make them much easier to discover: Elementor Hello Theme Blog.
And to assist you rapidly navigate between your styles, it likewise includes a Finder tool that lets you jump to anything that you have actually developed with Elementor by looking for it by name:
2. Big Widget Selection for Style Flexibility
Throughout the core plugin and add-ons, Elementor has an absolutely massive choice of widgets, which provides you a ton of versatility when constructing your designs.
It’s not just about the 60+ widgets that include Elementor and Elementor Pro, though, there’s likewise a substantial choice of widgets from third-party designers.
Ultimate Addons for Elementor adds another 36+ new widgets that you can use in your designs, covering everything from kind stylers to hotspots, content toggles, videos, and more.
With many options, you can usually find a widget that does precisely what you want it to.
3. Detailed Style and Positioning Guidelines for Pixel-Perfect Designs
Another location where Elementor beats out a lot of the competition is its design options.
Elementor lets you do all the basics – you can change up colors, fonts, spacing, and so on.
But it likewise includes sophisticated alternatives like:
Forming dividers
Custom-made positioning
Animations, including parallax scrolling, mouse tracking, 3D tilt, and more
Customized CSS for private widgets
Put simply, Elementor offers you more choices to produce a distinct, effective design.
4. Substantial Design Template Choice to Save You Time
If you don’t want to develop your designs from scratch, Elementor comes with a big selection of templates, divided into two categories:
Pages – full-page templates. All you do is customize them to meet your needs. Elementor Hello Theme Blog.
Blocks – design templates for particular parts of a page, like a FAQ. You can mix-and-match them like legos to construct total designs.
As with widgets, you can also find design templates from third-party sources.
If you use the Astra WordPress theme, it comes with stacks of pre-made starter templates constructed with Elementor. Each starter site includes numerous Elementor design templates that you can personalize as required.
5. Versatile Type Widget and Integrations
Above, I discussed Elementor’s widget choice in general. However I believe it deserves singling out a particular widget:
The Type widget.
The Type widget lets you create custom types, complete with as many fields as required. However where this widget gets actually effective, particularly when it comes to marketing applications, is its built-in combinations.
You can hook it as much as popular email marketing services like ActiveCampaign, GetResponse, Mailchimp, and more. There’s also a Webhook alternative that lets you connect to Zapier (and the thousands of apps offered there), along with chat combinations for Slack and Discord.
6. Style Builder With Dynamic Material for Customized WordPress Sites
With Elementor Pro, you acquire the capability to exceed posts and pages and create your entire WordPress theme with Elementor. That is, you can develop:
Headers
Footers
Single templates
Archive templates
For example, you could develop a custom post type and after that use Elementor to create the design template for that post type, rather than tampering style design template files directly.
The really powerful thing here is that you have the ability to generate vibrant content from custom fields that you create with plugins like ACF, Toolset, and Pods.
With this vibrant function, you can build really customized websites and harness WordPress’ power as a versatile material management system. Elementor Hello Theme Blog.
Simply one note – while this is definitely a powerful function, there are still some reasons why you might wish to select a flexible Elementor style like Astra even if you decide to use Elementor Theme Builder.
7. WooCommerce Builder for Customized eCommerce Designs
If you’re creating an eCommerce shop, you can likewise use Elementor Theme Builder to your shop content with devoted WooCommerce Builder widgets.
You’ll be able to create both your single product pages and go shopping pages.
To assist you build your designs, you’ll get an array of dedicated WooCommerce widgets for everything from product images to upsells.
In one of our articles, we spoke about how to develop an eCommerce website with Elementor.
8. Popup Builder for Marketing, Usability, and More
Lastly, Elementor Pro can do more than simply posts, pages, and style design – you can likewise utilize it to construct popups with Elementor Popup Builder.
With Popup Builder, you get access to the very same familiar Elementor user interface and all of the widgets.
This opens a great deal of possibilities:
For instance, you might use the Kind widget to create e-mail opt-in popups and link them directly to your email marketing service of choice.
Or, you might use the Login widget to develop a popup login form for your website. Elementor Hello Theme Blog.
When you publish a popup, you’ll get an array of targeting and set off rules to manage precisely where and when your popup appears:
Elementor Hello Theme Blog
Should You Utilize Elementor Free vs Pro?
If you’ve made it this far, there’s a good chance that you believe Elementor is right for your needs.
That leads to the next concern – can you use the complimentary version at WordPress.org or should you purchase Elementor Pro?
This is a crucial choice, so we really wrote a whole post on how to pick in between Elementor free vs Pro.
In general, if you simply wish to design some posts/pages or fundamental landing pages, you can probably manage with the complimentary variation.
With that being said, there’s a great deal of worth in Elementor Pro. It adds:
- 30+ new widgets, consisting of the Kind widget. The Kind widget is especially powerful for marketing pages.
- Style Builder. This lets you develop your whole theme and WooCommerce shop utilizing Elementor.
- Popup Builder. This lets you build popups using Elementor.
- More design templates. While the free version includes some design templates, you need Pro for complete gain access to.
- More design choices. You get access to customized positioning.
Nevertheless, purchasing Elementor Pro is not the only method to extend Elementor.
If you want more flexibility to personalize your style, you do not require to purchase Elementor Pro. Instead, you could use a flexible theme like Astra. Through its lots of Customizer settings, you can adjust Astra to basically any usage, and it’s a lot simpler than trying to create your own theme from scratch. Elementor Hello Theme Blog.
You can develop your header and footer using Astra. Since Astra is built to combine with Elementor, you can still use Elementor to develop the material that goes “in between” your header, footer, and other style aspects.
Astra likewise consists of lots of pre-built site design templates built with Elementor. So you can import an already-finished site using Astra and after that just modify it to match your needs using Elementor.
Or, if you wish to add new widgets for style flexibility, you could purchase an extension like Ultimate Addons for Elementor, which adds 36+ new Elementor widgets.
Get Started with Elementor Pro
Does Elementor Slow Down Your Website?
Now, this has been a question that is recently getting popularity. And rightfully so.
Elementor is a plugin that can be beneficial for including stunning widgets and designs to your site. Its flexible and user friendly functions have actually invited a variety of addon plugins that let you create amazing sites without needing to code.
Nevertheless, if you utilize a lot of plugins or have a lot of animations then it might make your entire website slow.
So the question emerges if Elementor slows your site down even with no of these addons. Elementor Hello Theme Blog.
To discover, we compare two of our starter design template websites. Among them was constructed with Gutenberg and the other with Elementor. Gutenberg is the default editor for WordPress and should have greater speeds in general, but by what degree?
Let’s learn.
Here are the sites for you to take a look at.
- Gutenberg website from Beginner Templates
- Elementor site from Starter Templates
We hosted both sites on the exact same server and under different directory sites of the same domain and compared their efficiency in GT Metrix.
Here are the outcomes.
As you can see, the performance of the Gutenberg website is much faster than the Elementor site.
In terms of precise loading time, the website made with Elementor took about 5.5 s to load entirely while the site made with Gutenberg took 2.2 s.
If you are optimizing for SEO, you understand how huge of a distinction that is!
In fact, the very same site developed with Beaver Builder likewise carries out somewhat better than the Elementor site.
In terms of totally packed time, it takes a second longer than the Elementor website to load.
Elementor Alternatives
Elementor is an excellent tool, it does not suggest that it is the best tool for you all the time.
If you are constructing a concentrated landing page with the Elementor base version, you may not be able to do it straight without incorporating another contact kind plugin or a payment gateway. Elementor Hello Theme Blog.
In such a case you will require to update to Elementor Pro.
For the SEOs out there, you might wish to consider a lighter plugin that loads quicker without triggering any delays in page loading.
With all these and many other factors in mind, we have produced this list of Elementor alternatives that can assist you out.
Elementor Hello Theme Blog
Gutenberg
Gutenberg is among the most lightweight and fast site contractors since it is WordPress default editor. Gutenburg makes it much easier than ever to create websites with ease.
The blocks include whatever you might expect, consisting of headings and subheadings along with lists of items like images or videos within the content area on each individual site page – all from one simple user interface!
Developing a website in Gutenberg resembles constructing a home utilizing Lego blocks. You organize the blocks in the ideal order to come up with a gorgeous site. Elementor Hello Theme Blog.
In terms of performance. Gutenberg works way much better than any other page Builder. It is enhanced for WordPress users and delivers what it promises. However, it also does not have the different design components that Elementor brings to the table.
If you are someone who prefers efficiency over design, then Gutenberg is the ideal option for you.
Beaver Builder
Beaver Builder is not as flashy or feature-rich compared to Elementor (Elementor Vs Beaver Builder comparison). It does offer a steady and constant experience with its core plugin that only develops individual pieces of content. There is the Beaver Builder Style offered if you desire one too! Elementor Hello Theme Blog.
Beaver Builder is a total page style bundle that supplies you with all the tools and elements to build any kind of site. It has elements such as headings, buttons, maps, sliders, contact forms, testimonials, and more all in one place.
It stands head to head in regards to design and efficiency with Elementor. Nevertheless, Beaver Builder does not have as many addons constructed for itself as Elementor does.
SeedProd
SeedProd is a premium drag-and-drop landing page Builder plugin for WordPress. It has been designed to be as quickly, easy-to-use with website speed in mind.
SeedProd’s smart style system makes reusing blocks of content quick and easy by specifying color schemes which will conserve time when designing brand-new layouts. Elementor Hello Theme Blog.
It has all the blocks and functions you ‘d expect from a powerful page Builder such as opt-in types, social profiles, countdown timers. It also consists of contact pages with a choice to easily redirect visitors on any website map or Google Maps noting for their organization location!
You can use SeedProd’s customized domain mapping feature which will conserve time when handling multiple client landing pages in WordPress while still keeping branding continuity across platforms.
Any Lingering Questions?
As you can see, our company believe that Elementor is one of the very best WordPress page builders out there, which is why we’ve use Astra, among the most popular styles for Elementor, and Ultimate Addons for Elementor, among the most popular Elementor widget collections.
We’re also not alone in our positive Elementor review – over 4 million WordPress sites utilize Elementor and Elementor has an incredible 4.7-star ranking on over 5,900 evaluations.
If you want to experience what Elementor can offer totally free:
Set up the complimentary Astra style to produce a versatile base for your Elementor styles.
Install the free Elementor plugin from WordPress.org and start structure. Elementor Hello Theme Blog.
Then, if you like what you see, think of whether Elementor Pro is right for your requirements.
Is there anything we missed in our Elementor review that would help you make your choice? Leave a remark and we’ll try to help you choose.