Don’t have any web design or CSS knowledge, but would like to build a professional-looking website in no time? Perhaps the best solution would be to use tools for designing sites such as Elementor or Beaver builder.
You see, these two plugins offer powerful pre-built customization features along with an intuitive interface. Consequently, this enables you to create a fully functional website in a record time. But here is the thing; these two platforms are not built equally. For example, Elementor offers a larger selection of widgets and templates than Beaver Builder.
So, in this Elementor vs. Beaver Builder review, we will look at the features of each plugin. You will also find out why we choose the Elementor free and PRO versions.
What is Elementor?
Simply, it is a page builder for WordPress designed to help you create professional web pages even from scratch. The platform was founded in 2016 by Elementor Ltd., an Israeli software company. Since then, it has grown to become one of the leading website builder platforms with millions of users across the world.
Though it is a freemium product, the free version offers you access to over 30 templates and 40 content blocks. This allows you to easily customize your website to match your brand. The best thing about this WordPress plugin is its ease of use. Therefore, even if you are not tech-savvy, you can still use it to quickly create a fully functional website.
Also there are some of the third-party add-ons available in the market.
Features of Elementor
First of all, this is an all-in-one solution plugin for all types of website professionals. Below are its key features and design options that make it stand out as one of the best page builders.
Drag & drop visual editor
As the name implies, this feature allows you to customize your site by dragging and dropping various pre-made widgets. You can move around images, forms, and even buttons. In other words, you don’t need a code.
The best part is that you get to view everything you are doing in real time. Simply put, you can see what your visitors will see before you even publish the updates.
Pre-built templates and stunning widgets
This widely adopted page builder tool takes things a notch higher by providing you with over 100 pre-made templates. So, you don’t need to create your designs from scratch. You just import your favorite pop-up, page, landing page, and block templates and customize them to match your brand.
What’s more? You get at least 30 free widgets to choose from, including galleries, social icons, buttons, and images. You can also install third-party widgets.
Motion and animation effects
Besides its mix of designs, this plugin also offers 37 different built-in animation effects. This enables you to add beautiful animations to your custom website without the need for external libraries.
The best part is that you can choose to animate a specific widget, column, or an entire page. However, worth mentioning is that these animations only come to life when your visitors scroll through the page.
Theme Builder
If you get the Elementor PRO version, you can create your own WordPress theme from scratch. This is thanks to its built-in theme builder. The feature simply helps you build a single page and product, header/footer, search results, and even archive templates.
Global site settings
Here is another outstanding feature of elementor designed to let you manage your site’s elements in one convenient place. Basically, you can control colors, fonts, site identity, theme styles, layout, and typography from one place. You can also add global custom CSS in just one click.
Responsive design
Unlike most page builders, Elementor is built to be responsive by default with a user-friendly interface. This means that your site will automatically adapt to different screen sizes.
What this platform does is that it allows you to design your site for use with up to 7 devices. Even better, it allows you to choose which widgets and sections you would like to show on various devices.
eCommerce and marketing features
You also get a WooCommerce builder to help you create a shop page that offers the ultimate shopping experience. For example, you can customize the checkout page, cart layout, product archives template, and even product page.
As for the marketing features, Elementor enables you to design eye-catching forms and high-converting landing pages. You can also create high-converting pop-ups and subscription forms and add other CRM tools.
What is Beaver Builder?
Similar to Elementor, this is a page builder built to help you design and customize WordPress pages. Simply put, it provides you with various tools for designing sites, including drag and drop visual editor. This enables you to build any type of website, including landing page, blog, and e-commerce.
The best part about this freemium platform is that no coding is needed. Therefore, you can easily create attractive and professional websites in just minutes. However, unlike Elementor, which was founded in 2016, this plugin has been in existence since 2014.
Features of Beaver Builder
Available in free, standard, Pro, and Agency versions, this plugin provides you with a host of features and design options. These include:
Drag & drop live editor
This feature is the reason you don’t need to write any code to create your custom WordPress website. If you want to add a new template or module, you simply drag it to your preferred location.
You can then view the modules to see how they will appear after updating your designs. In addition, you can edit and preview all the changes in real-time.
Custom modules
You will also be pleased to learn that this platform features a set of custom modules and a mix of designs. You can select from heading, HTML, text editor, button photo, sidebar, icon, and audio.
The best part? There are dedicated custom modules for different types of content, including videos, buttons, forms, images, and more. Consequently, this helps you quickly customize your landing pages and layouts.
Over 40 pre-designed templates
This feature comes in handy if you don’t want to build your designs from scratch. The templates are available for both content and landing pages.
What’s more, the platform allows you to save your favorite templates and reuse them later on. Unfortunately, you don’t get many pre-built templates when using the Beaver Builder’s free version.
Responsive design
Similar to most Elementor competitors, every design you create with the Beaver Builder will be responsive by default. This means your designs will automatically adjust whether your customers are using a mobile device, desktop, or tablet.
The plugin also supports responsive editing mode. As a result, you can easily make changes for some particular devices only, like font size, modules, and typography.
Theme Builder
This feature allows you to create custom headers and footers, layouts for archive pages, and even search pages. You could also build single templates for any theme, announcement bars, and call-to-action rows.
The theme builder also lets you display your headers and footers on either all or some of the site’s pages. On the flip side, though, the header/footer templates only work with a few themes. This is in contrast to what the Elementor Pro theme builder offers.
Live demo
If you are not sure whether this page builder is for you, you can always test drive it via a live demo. The platform offers a theme demo, theme customizer demo, and page builder demo. You get to try out the different features this plugin has to offer, including its mix of designs and responsiveness.
Elementor Vs Beaver Builder – Why We Choose Elementor?
Both Elementor and Beaver Builder stand out as some of the best easy-to-use page builders. However, elementor appears to be the most widely adopted page builder tool for good reasons. Check them out.
Wide-range of pre-designed templates
One of the reasons we choose Elementor is its huge selection of pre-built templates. Compared to Beaver Builder and most of its competitors, it offers more landing page templates in its free version. For Beaver Builder, you must choose their paid version to get the same templates you would get with Elementor’s free package.
And if you choose Elementor’s PRO version, you get over 300 designer-made templates built to fit various industries. You can get templates for different categories like sports & fitness, technology, blog, health & wellness, eCommerce, and even education.
Built-in theme builder
This feature gives you full control over how you would like to style and structure each page on your site. Surprisingly, both Elementor and Beaver Builder do offer this feature.
However, Beaver Builder offers a theme builder tool as a separate addon. This means you must install it independently, and it will cost you an additional fee of $147 per year. But when it comes to Elementor, you can enjoy this feature even with their free package. Even better, it provides extra support for WooCommerce pages and product pages.
Huge selection of widgets
With Beaver Builder, you only get basic modules, also referred to as widgets, to help you customize your pages. You can only get more widgets if you subscribe to their paid versions.
However, Elementor’s free version provides you with over 30 basic widgets to choose from. This makes it easy to build a professional and good-looking website on a budget. And if you upgrade to the Pro package, you get over 100 widgets and over 20 WooCommerce widgets. Best of all, the platform also supports global widgets that you can save and later reuse on various pages.
Excellent speed and performance
Elementor is available in three different versions, including V 2.9, V 3.0, and V 3.5. Each version is built to provide you with faster performance. However, the V 3.5 version supports faster loading sites than its counterparts.
Overall, the platform incorporates various features to help you optimize your site’s speed and performance. These include SVG & WebP formats that allow you to use images with reduced file sizes. And if using a mobile device, the plugin ensures the background images appear in smaller sizes.
Beginner-friendly interface
While Elementor’s interface does not load as fast as Beaver Builder, it is easier to learn and navigate. First, this is because the platform incorporates a couple of keyboard shortcuts and navigator functions. For example, there is the Ctrl + Z (undo), Ctrl + C (copy), Ctrl + P (paste).
Additionally, the platform features a right-click menu. Because of its user-friendly interface, you can easily find options like delete, copy, duplicate, and more for any element. And to help you quickly navigate between multiple settings and pages, it boasts a finder function. Therefore, you will find its interface more beginner-friendly compared to Beaver Builder.
Various support channels
Elementor claims to offer 24/7 worldwide professional customer support via their specialized agents. But what we really love about the platform is its multiple support channels. For instance, if you want to learn everything about this plugin, you can find the information at their help center.
Additionally, this widely adopted page builder tool offers hundreds of video tutorials. For additional support, you can also join their private Facebook group and connect with like-minded individuals. Also included is 24/7 VIP support on Agency and studio plans via live chat.
Elementor Vs Beaver Builder Overall Page Speed
When it comes to Elementor vs Beaver Builder page speed, the latter is the winner. This is because it is a bit more lightweight than Elementor. But this does not mean that Elementor is slow. It is also relatively fast.
Besides, you can optimize its page speeds by using a lightweight theme, a good host, and reducing image sizes. You could also use Content Delivery Network, advanced-cache mechanism, or minify CSS and Javascript files for better speeds.
Conclusion
Overall, both Elementor and Beaver Builder are excellent page builders. You can use either of them to create stunning WordPress sites and pages in minutes. However, Elementor seems to be the two’s most widely adopted page builder tool. And do you know why?
First, it’s because the platform offers so many customization features and styling options for free. And if you decide to get the PRO version, you will have hundreds of pre-made templates to choose from. Besides, the plugin also boasts an intuitive interface for beginners and professional developers.
