A list of my favorite pagebuilders and why. I also include a list of my non-favorites for comparison reasons. I compare them on features, ease-of-use, speed, clean output code, and compatibility. For those who keep asking, I don’t like pagebuilders! This list exists only for people who insist on having one.
Best pagebuilders for WordPress:
- Elementor – the most popular, and powerful free-version. Cutting-edge pagebuilder with all the trendiest gimmicky effects/features. Newbies and non-coders should start here.
- BeaverBuilder – 2nd best, most stable and reliable. Preferred by more serious tech-savvy folks who prefer stability over features. Also nice that many devs like BB.
- LiveCanvas – a great raw HTML/CSS pagebuilder where you can code your site from scratch. Great for devs and coders to handcode things exactly as they like. (my review)
- Oxygen – great for developers wanting really lean pagebuilder experience. Arguably the fastest/leanest pagebuilder. Very aggressive marketing; you may or may not like his personality. I do love that the Oxygen community is full of dev-level users. (my review)
- Zion Builder – I hear more and more good things but haven’t tried for myself. The owner and I couldn’t agree to a timeline. He wanted to give me access but only for a limited time and I couldn’t be bothered to schedule time out for a free review. It’s a hassle I don’t even bother with considering almost all plugins founders out there give me free lifetime access. UPDATE: I hear many people saying this builder is dead and abandoned. Beware before starting on that.
Gutenberg pagebuilders (not quite pagebuilders in the traditional sense, but can do similar things):
- Stackable – most polished UI, looks nicest of all Gutenberg libraries (except maybe Genesis PRO) but still some bugs in everyday use depending on what you do. I like this one.
- Qubely – they were good before, but not anymore IMO. I don’t recommend them.
Pagebuilders I don’t like:
- Brizy – lots of complaints about bugs, unstability, poor UI/UX. But yes, it was toted as another good one, lightweight and less bloated.
- Divi – way bloated, tons of shortcode lock-in. Can’t tell you how much money I’ve made optimizing/converting sites built with DIVI. (I hate AND THANK them every day.)
- Fusion Builder (AVADA) – bloated, one of the worst. You should avoid the theme it comes with as well.
- King Composer – hardly no one uses it and really bad.
- Site Origin – CAN be lean but I think it’s not popular among devs.
- Thrive Architect – not coded well compared to the rest of the market, slow!
- WPBakery – one of the worst!
- Visual Composer – basically a better version of WPBakery but still massively bloated. I hate the giant autoload entries in database.
- Fusion Builder – comes with those super bloated themes like Avada. Get rid of this and the whole theme!
Awesome!
I hate King Composer
Do explain why?
wpbakery?
Definitely hate that one!
Hi, have you ever tried Themify Builder? It was my first WP toy…8 years ago. Now they are still on the market and doing a lot good things with the tool.
I personally have not but glad you found something you like!
Hi, Johnny.
Have you ever tried https://theme.co/pro ?
I think it’s better than the Elementor.
I don’t like it. Already reviewed it.
Can you speak Chinese?
Absolutely not. Also no Mandarin or Cantonese either.
Any thoughts on Zion Builder? https://zionbuilder.io/ the code that it is outputting is pretty lean.
I have yet to try it personally but did hear nice things so far. How did you like it?
I wrote some nonsense. One and the same repeat is turned on, it is immediately clear that in addition to repeating marketing tricks, there were no other thoughts even to look at the builders. We take a normal theme, for example, Woodmart put on Elementore and WP Bakery and see that WP Bakery is 2 times faster than the site. Elementor is just a nerdy thing, hyped up by marketing, like much of what’s written in the post. Everywhere where the brake site there is usually Elementor. Astra Divi and other-omg Wake up guy, there are a lot of really good topics, stop repeating the same thing in hundreds of blogs. Learn to try and experiment.
I wanted to reply but couldn’t understand you. In case you didn’t know…I generally hate pagebuilders. 😉
Hi Johnny, I met your blog a few months ago, I am taking very much into account some of your recommendations. Reading one of the comments, I found something about Zion Builder, I would love you to try the pro version and tell us in detail how it is, I was trying it in its Free version and I loved it. I am a user of Elementor Pro, just for the ease of generating super fast Headers, Footers and Templates. But it is TOO SLOW in many occasions with all the css they put, without forgetting the eicons and others. Having said that, I find much better disposition for the moment of designing, there are still things to improve, but between all my tests, it is the first one in which I could say that I can really use it for some things instead of using Elementor, it is better noticed in some things and it does not have that unnecessary saturation of CSS.
Thanks for your comment. I’m curious about Zion Builder too since so many people keep talking about it but I simply don’t want to pay for the license just to test. After all, I don’t use pagebuilders personally.
Hi Johnny,
Stefan from Zion Builder here. If you’d like, you can test the Zion Builder PRO version ( with some limitations ) here https://demo.zionbuilder.io/?enable-zion-builder
If you have any questions, please let me know.
Best regards,
Stefan
Stefan, I appreciate the demo link but I prefer to test things from a full user-experience POV. The install, the documentation, how it plays with existing themes, how fast it loads on my server, how it affects the overall WordPress experience.
Hi Johnny,
thanks for this post. Do you have any additional input on Gutenberg / Qubley combo?
Do you know, of qubley is coded fast and clean? And do I need to have them update all the time like something as elementor? Or can I just use them without being afraid in two years they will vanish?
I can’t predict the future but Stackable/Qubely will be better in the longrun IMO. Please read my 10 BEST Gutenberg libraries for WordPress.
really? Does Brizy have poor UI / UX design? I’m the exact opposite, Brizy has the best ux / ui design of all the current page builders.
I guess I’ll have to try a recent version.
Hi Johnny,
What will you recommend for building a WooCommerce business if you can’t afford Shopify?
Which page builder will you go for?
None because I hate pagebuilders. They run even slower on WooCommerce. I would prefer sticking with only Gutenberg blocks.
I have already commented here and in the meantime some things have changed. A new Spectra page builder has appeared with capabilities almost like Elementor. It is only as fast as Gutenberg blocks, and each block that is not used can be turned off. It is mostly free.
Hey Johnny loved the candid tone of your post.
I’ve been a long time AVADA (Fusion builder) user and always hated it’s bloatness and slow builder haven’t made the change until now that appsumo is currently running an LTD on Zion Builder and grabbed myself a copy.
So I want to get rid of Avada and fusion builder, what’s a good theme or way to do so with Zion Builder? Btw I’m not a coder, I just know enough to click around with a CMS.
What do you think about UAG blocks. Not the most beautiful blocks on the world but fast as Gutember and a lot of adjustment options.
I use Elementor. It’s easy to use and offers a lot even in the free version. Enough for me.