Hi everyone,
I work as a web manager for a fairly significant company in my city. Over the past two years, I've managed their websites (content, SEO, complete redesigns), targeted advertising, user tracking, newsletter marketing, and overseen online communication, resulting in a 78% growth.
Soon, I'll be relocating, and my boss has reluctantly found a replacement. This guy, older and with more "experience" (in years, not skills), introduces himself as an international web developer with some advertising background. He claims to program in PHP and has managed over 400 sites for a big London web agency.
We've been working together for about two weeks now, but honestly, I can't wrap my head around some things. My work focuses on WordPress development. All the sites I manage use custom themes built from scratch, tailored specifically for the company. This approach gives me maximum control over customization, optimization, and external aspects like user tracking (Meta Pixel integration, advanced conversion tracking with GTM, Conversions API, etc.). I minimize plugin use, preferring to code functionalities myself unless it’s something basic like contact forms. This strategy has always yielded great results, and my boss and clients have been very happy. Whenever a new feature or section was needed, it was ready and perfectly integrated within a day. Long-term, I don't worry about updates and compatibility because everything is meticulously planned from the start: I always use the latest PHP version, and plugins update automatically due to the controlled environment.
Here's the problem (from my perspective). My future replacement is used to working with page builders and pre-made themes, which I DETEST. Despite his resume stating he could code and showing off impressive projects (which I now doubt), I thought involving him in my process would work. My last major task is revamping one of our key websites. I had completed the design, UI/UX study, and content structure analysis. All that was left was creating a few templates.
The starting point was a site with:
- An old WP version
- 35 outdated plugins
- An outdated theme
- PHP stuck at 7.4
Everything would break with the slightest change (thanks to plugins for basic functions like galleries and lightboxes).
I tasked the new guy with creating an important template. What does he do? Installs Elementor and starts building from there. WHY?!?!
If you know how to code, just code the template so we can finish the job! After a week of back-and-forth, it turns out he’s uncomfortable with the custom approach and believes Elementor is the way to go (🤮). He says my method takes too long and requires manual responsiveness adjustments.
What 90% of people don't understand is that while building with page builders + themes + plugins might seem quicker, you lose time ensuring theme-plugin compatibility, plugin-plugin compatibility, Elementor-theme-plugin integration, not to mention PHP and update compatibility issues. Plus, there’s no control over the DOM elements and code (how would you add microdata for rich snippets or implement SEO strategies?).
We discussed, and I explained that given the site's tangled situation, we needed a custom theme to eliminate compatibility issues, reduce plugins, update PHP, and update everything in WP, including plugins. Only a custom theme can achieve this because it's specifically designed for the case, isolating issues.
Nope, no way. In the end, I gave up since I’m leaving, and he’ll be managing the site. I thought it was better to let him follow his path. But every day, I'm disgusted by what we’re doing. We’ve wasted five days because, to make Elementor work, he had to:
- Update PHP and resolve incompatibilities
- Update all plugins and resolve those incompatibilities
- Update WordPress, and again resolve incompatibilities
Yesterday was the fourth day spent tweaking Elementor to create the header and footer, which I found out he copied from Mcstarters without changing the content. The amount of time wasted is staggering, and I still don't see the benefits of this approach over mine.
And guess what? To control the header layout to make it responsive, you have to create three different headers if Elementor's auto-generated mobile layout doesn’t cut it. Even here, I don't see the speed advantage.
Now, he’s adjusting all page dimensions because Elementor wasn’t compatible with the theme, so everything shifted. I had integrated Bootstrap into my custom theme, and this never happened.
Please, tell me who’s right or if I’m just too limited in my vision. I’ve always debated this, and I struggle to see the speed and advantages of this dreaded Elementor.
You are 1000% right.
Ive used Elementor once and never again. Way too bulky and not enough control especially if your client is very particular with everything by the pixel. If you want to use a page builder just use gutenburg blocks and add features to the base wordpress code. No need for website builders on anymore.
The next web developer to work on that site is going to have alot of work todo thats for sure. I would suggest letting the boss know what is happening!
Elementor is great if you don’t know what you’re doing!
There are a lot of people in the marketing field that think they are “developers” because they can create sites using page builders. They’re just kicking the van down the road a bit.
If it’s a site for a company that cares about performance or rankings, they’re eventually going to have to do a lot more work to get an efficient and fast site, even though someone thought using Elementor would be the path of least resistance.
Dude your boss employed isn’t a developer, he’s some micky mouse drag-drop site builder and for sake of efficiency you should talk to your boss about it.
I hate to do it on reddit but from the thread you wrote seems like we have pretty similar workflow, if you are going to need anyone to take on the projects you don’t have time for, let me know I’d be more than happy to send you link to my portfolio site
Bricks has been my favorite builder to date. It hits on so many points.
Also you may want to try Webflow and avoid WordPress altogether
You’re leaving and being replaced, and you find it tough to find someone who can do the same process at the same level. Instead of looking at how to remove or reduce the dependency on you (or your way of working), you’re getting angry, typing a 750-word essay with **bolded text all around AND THE OCCASIONAL FULL CAPS** on an online forum of absolute strangers, linking your “success statistics” to boost your ego while they’re completely unrelated to the point at hand.
Take a step back, take a breath, and when you’ve calmed down take a second look at your phrasing:
> …with page builders and pre-made themes, which I DETEST.
> …and showing off impressive projects (which I now doubt)
> …Installs Elementor and starts building from there. WHY?!?!
> …Elementor is the way to go (🤮)
> We’ve wasted five days because, to make Elementor work, he had to
> I had …, and this never happened.
It’s clear that you’re biased.
All of your choices, your phrasing, and everything you present lead to only one thing: The only thing you would consider valid, is your own work. You intentionally create the conditions that guarantee others would fail, probably convinced that adds quality to your own work (it doesn’t, it just means you’re ready to unnecessarily sacrifice others and you’re inflexible).
If you were asking this question professionally, as a real thing to solve:
* You would have helped the business reduce the dependence on your work much sooner, since that’s the source of all of your complaints: none of your work is compatible with making edits more accessible to others
* You would’ve decoupled more things so they’re less dependent on your way of working
* You could’ve provided documentation to explain to new (even junior) devs how to use the decoupled units you’ve built as an architecture, and why you made those decisions, so using/changing them would be easier for them
* You would’ve helped make your implementations more accessible, whether by supporting page builders or otherwise (literally zero reason that custom code is incompatible with builders – like you said: it’s custom code, you can make it do whatever you want)
* You would’ve had a conversation w/ the manager/owner of the business to list these concerns explicitly, so the manager can decide where to invest his money (and how much, and when, …)
* Guided by the manager/owner, you and the new guy would’ve professionally and respectfully contributed together to choose a better long-term future that opens more doors for more people, and reduced the cost of development for the business
None of these include “complain on reddit to get your ego stroked”. Almost nothing in this post is productive.
One random redditor said “you’re 1000% correct” and you thank them for their feedback… What feedback exactly? What did they contribute? What changed? Nada, you just felt better about yourself.
> He says my method takes too long and requires manual responsiveness adjustments.
Your post shows that he’s clearly right.
PS: I’m not necessarily recommending Elementor. I have my own opinions on all of that, and I would recommend Bricks if you were to go with any page builder. But your entire process and attitude, from A to Z, seems reductive and destructive to yourself and those around you. I would pay more attention to that than to which page builder my successor is using, if I were you.
PPS: We’re responsible for the environment we create for fellow, and future, developers. The industry is already toxic enough due to businesspeople/abuse, I’ve already seen too many people burn out because of toxic behavior like this. Let’s be better please.
> Plus, there’s no control over the DOM elements and code (how would you add microdata for rich snippets or implement SEO strategies?)
Fyi, you can write fully custom code and add it as a new widget in Elementor, with all the attributes you want. Code it once, reuse infinitely, all references updated when you update the widget. Bricks is just as flexible.
> I’ve always debated this, and I struggle to see the speed and advantages of this dreaded Elementor.
You live in a society, you don’t exist on your own. If you’re not the owner of a website, then at most you’ll just be one of multiple people that’ll have to work on it, so the ideal solution is the one that works best for the whole instead of the solution that only works for you.
Custom code and page builders are fully compatible. You could be opening doors to make editing the website more accessible for everyone, instead of closing doors and burning bridges.
I’m prepared to be downvoted, after all it’s a popular sentiment on /r/Wordpress to blanket hate things that aren’t “purist coding” without grounded reasoning, but you asked for the truth. This is it. If I was the business owner that hired you, I would be investing to move away from your way of working asap, because it’s obvious that it’ll only restrict us as a business going forward, instead of creating more opportunity.
Elementor is really Bad for perfomance in the long term.
Remember than WordPress was originally made for blogging and blogging only but because it’s open source anyone could create themes and plugins. Elementor blew up when it came out because it was simple to use and replaced old builders and it offered a free version that was useable also. The problem is most people give you answers based on their experience and not based on what a client ACTUALLY needs. I know people who work primarily in Elementor and they know what they’re actually doing and usually have no more than 6 – 8 plugins on their site and then there’s everyone else who saw YouTube tutorials: installed Elementor Free, Elementor Add-Ons, Elementor Ultimate this and that, all free plugins and the Astra theme with it and began littering the internet with these sites. To me Elementor is just a tad bit too heavy but I sometimes feel like it gets a bad rap based on the garbage people put out there. It’s a very efficient page builder with an unmatched ecosystem but….the block plugins (Kadence, Generate Blocks, and others) are more than enough in 90 percent of situations to handle your needs. And Bricks is another beast of a builder.
I will get downvoted but you have to look the other way too.
I have worked on countless WordPress sites, mostly custom codes but also using popular themes and builders. Both ways can have a lot of problems.
Everyone loves to say that custom code is perfect and it’s stable but you all leave the most important part out of the equation. The human behind the code. Custom code depends a lot on the person who writes the code, when there is a problem on Elementor, you know where to find it but with a custom theme, custom functions, and custom plugins you never know for sure if the developer did the things how he should have and he probably never got back to update everything he has done. I have worked on dozens of custom sites that can’t be upgraded to PHP 8+ because they break and now you have to fix all the code someone else made years ago and fix line by line.
Don’t get me wrong, I also prefer custom code but you can’t say that you don’t see why someone prefers to use a popular plugin or theme. Those things are constantly updated to ensure that they are secure and will keep working. Your custom code needs someone to do it.
And about your case, your problem was because your site was out of date (you can’t leave it like that) and you have a very bad “Elementor developer”.
Custom sites are generally built to spec, removing all of the non-essential elements of the block editor while implementing custom blocks via JS or ACF.
For a small budget with good hosting, Elementor is a tool that many find to be satisfactory. For larger budget builds, Elementor would be a travesty and, IMO, not worth the cost whereas custom builds will provide exactly what is needed for the site; thereby reducing technical debt.
Some page builders can be fast, but…
Even with a page builder, you’re going to be limited if you don’t understand the loop, the query, CPTs, hooks/actions, etc. and how to use them with your theme.
Understanding these let you get so much more out of WP with or without a page builder, and maybe even lets you reduce the number of plugins you use on a site.
But Elementor is atrocious in terms of speed, size, and continual nagging to purchase AI. It has its own market of add ons which may make it attractive to some. And after you’ve used it a while, you either love it or hate it. I’m in the middle of going from one to the other lol 😆
We have been using elementor for simple sites with no custom needs, and we can optimize SEO with rich snippets and control the DOM with less than 10 plugins.
I am not saying your coworker is right, but it’s definitely possible to get awesome results with Elementor. The strong suit of elementor is being able to design a page faster than with custom code, and the ability for designers that don’t know how to code, to work directly on the website.
So in a team with a few graphists, one developer is enough to support them. It also makes websites cheaper.
Advantages:
Elementor:
You can do both custom development and use a page builder.
Custom Development:
You cannot do both
Let me give you a different perspective. For reference, I started building sites professionally in 1996. I wrote a CMS for a site that had 30 million monthly visitors in 2001. I built a full custom e-commerce site that did high six-figure sales monthly in 2005. I started my own dev agency in 2008. I coded and sold custom lightweight Joomla themes and extensions that got millions of downloads. It’s safe to say that I know my way around coding.
That said, my agency stopped using custom themes 8 years ago. We use Elementor for everything now. Why would a programmer do this? Because it makes way more sense from a business perspective. The sites are a lot easier to manage and maintain, especially at scale. It’s a lot easier for hands-on clients to learn how to manage their own sites. I don’t need to pay devs for maintenance tasks 99% of the time. My devs can do dev stuff instead of wasting time reinventing the wheel for every site.
Since making the move, my margins are higher, and we can maintain a lot more sites with the same number of employees. It’s also a selling point that our clients can take their sites anywhere and find someone to work on it easily should they want to for any reason. We rarely lose clients, but they wouldn’t have to worry about finding someone who can work on their site should they leave.
Custom coding every site is inefficient and costly. You can get 95% of the end result with a good page builder. It’s not worth giving up the efficiency and scalability for that tiny benefit a full custom might give you.
Well, obviously sites that are purpose-built 100% from scratch will be more performant than sites built with Elementor. More performant that sites built *with WordPress* too!
They’ll just also require the site owner to keep the original development team on contract for even the most minor changes. And if they’ve got the budget for that, and the time and resources to file change orders and wait for you to process them then cool! Both you and programmer-only agencies should be working together.
If instead your client wants to take delivery of the site and operate it the way the other 299,000,000 WordPress site owners do, then a page builder approach probably makes more sense.
Don’t get me wrong, ~50% of my income comes from working on existing “orphaned” sites where the original developer has moved on, either due to disagreements, disappearance, or costs. And by-definition I never get clients who are *happy* to leave everything to their agencies and are happy to pay whatever the agencies charge. But I will say that too often the solution to hard-core purpose-built sites is to rebuild them rather than spelunk through their spaghetti of templates and ACF fields. And, too often, the net performance vs. flexibility gained is just a couple of points on Page Speed Metrics.
I want to say I’m actually really sympathetic here, because I’d be pretty alarmed if a new hire at an agency just wanted to use commercial themes and (eww!) Elementor. But the page builder I use started out as an in-house tool for an agency that was building 100+ sites a year and wanted a more efficient way to do it. I don’t believe any other builder, including, incidentally, Gutenberg, was built with that in mind.
I’d say there’s probably a happy medium in there between totally bespoke hand-coded everything, and copycat premium themes and either Elementor (the Win95 of builders) and Gutenberg (the Unix terminal of builders.)
I’m definitely in the “build it yourself camp”, but I don’t know why you care how the new guy approaches it. If you don’t have to maintain it, what difference does it make?