Hi. I currently building a marketing company, general advertising, SEO, content, photography, videography and WEB DESIGN. I used to oversee development of ecommerce websites a while ago but do not have advanced skill building and can read some code but cannot write from scratch besides basic HTML I’m quite resourceful in finding snippets online but this is not ideal. I’ve made some websites for clients with WordPress – some using generic themes and adapting information and another with Enfold which I near enough remade from scratch using their page building. I like Enfold, specifically their support, which was helpful for me getting back into things. When integrating Woocommerce I felt I passed what the theme was made for, and a name that kept cropping up when finding solutions was ELEMENTOR where I found a lot of people writing plugins and sharing snippets. I know Elementor isn’t perfect but it appears well supported and I’m wondering, as a solo designer/developer with beginner-intermediate level skill, whether this is actually perhaps the best platform to learn/build on. What’s people’s thoughts on this? For large ecommerce website or similar maybe not, but for small info and ecommerce websites I don’t see an issue. How are people finding Elementor and any recommendations for me?
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If Elementor features are good enough for what you want to do then use Elementor.
I used it recently to revive a site with a small budget that needed cleanup, redesign and user experience improvement.
It got the job done. Not my first choice but it didn’t make sense to code a bespoke theme from scratch in this case.
My advice is try all the ways you can build with WordPress without hurting your pockets and see what you like best.
If I have to make a design without code I will probably go with Elementor.
If code needs to be involved I will try to avoid it because I find it very intrusive and a pain to deal with. Same with any plugin that outputs some html, not all are designed to be compatible with Elementor
Think of the target audience. A theme like Elementor has a lot of designers that build websites, the don’t necessarily ‘code’ themselves. Elementor has been around the longest, so has the most supporting resources.
Something like Bricks Builder has a more mature developer using it, (Not always through, it’s not that simple) and although it is newer to the market and doesn’t have as many resources, has a lot more capabilities inbuilt than Elementor.
Avada is pretty good. Elementor is also good and has more complexity
Avada is pretty good. Elementor is also good and has more complexity
Elementor is cool. It’s also not ideal for site performance (milliseconds count) or SEO. If the client relies on search traffic, don’t use Elementor. If it just needs to look good, then install it & go to town
I agree that some of those old-school [shortcode]-builder themes like Enfold, Avada, and Divi have *very* good support, and some have very good, very user-friendly communities as well.
That said, I hate having to work with those builders because compared to modern ones they’re remarkably slow and clunky.
Enfold is a back-end only page builder, meaning you work with wireframe-like blocks and then have to save and view before you can see what the page will really look like. Since you’re used to that, and have never had the real pleasure of using a great front-end builder like Beaver Builder, or ok front-end builders like Divi, Avada, WPBakery, or Elementor) then you won’t miss anything if you switch to a modern back-end only builder like Bricks (slightly more technical) or Breakdance (less technical.)
Bottom line, don’t stick with Enfold. There are other WordPress authoring tools with great, enthusiastic support. Beaver Builder, Bricks, Breakdance, and Oxygen are all good choices. Elementor is… also a choice.
I think Elementor is a great choice for the level you are building at. I’ve recently been challenging myself with it to clone websites built with other themes and have been getting great results. Those real world clone exercises always reveal where potential weakspots are, but there aren’t many that Elementor can’t handle, maybe with the aid of a few additional plugins.
Are page builders the only choice?
I would prefer one of hybrid with good WOO integration, like Kadence/KadenceBlocks or GeneratePress/GenerateBlocks.
If WordPress is good enough for the White House and NASA then it is good enough.
The White House uses Gutenberg blocks for the entire site.
You should read up on how they created it.
https://10up.com/our-work/white-house/
Try Squarespace or something, page builders are terrible. You’ll have a much easier time getting a well performing website and much less hassle setting up page templates. Added bonus, Google isn’t going to crucify you because a page builder used excessive dom elements.
References: developer for nearly 10 year working on bespoke themes and premade themes using builders.