Who doesn’t love a good battle? We think that when it comes to website building, we’ve found a pretty epic one for you.
In this corner, we have Elementor — the self-proclaimed “king of WordPress page builders” (their words, not ours). And in the other corner is Gutenberg, the new editor that comes pre-installed with WordPress.
Both builders have their strengths and weaknesses and figuring out which one is right for you can be confusing. To help understand what each has to offer, here is a detailed comparison of Elementor and Gutenberg:
What is Elementor?
Elementor is a free and open-source drag and drop page builder plugin for WordPress. It’s built with the idea to make web development easier for everyone, regardless of their coding experience.
It was created by Yoni Luksenberg, who had been developing websites for over 20 years. Finding the web design process slow and inefficient, he wanted to create something that would help people build beautiful websites without the need to write code. Elementor was launched in May 2016 and has grown rapidly since then, becoming one of the most popular WordPress plugins in history.
With Elementor, you can build any type of website: landing pages, online resume/portfolio sites, business websites, and more – all from scratch or using pre-made templates. You can also customize existing themes to achieve the desired results – there are no limitations.
Key Features Of Elementor
Below are the key features of this page builder:
- Drag and Drop Editor
- Over 100 Widgets
- Theme Builder
- Global Editing
- Responsive Editing
- Can Create stunning, playful entrance and exit animation effects
- Has over 90 Website Kits
- Comes with over 300 already-made templates
- You can add custom CSS codes to your design
- It has WooCommerce, popup, form, and landing page builders
- Integrates with numerous SEO plugins
Why Should You Use Elementor?
Easy To Use: With Elementor, you don’t need to learn any coding knowledge to create a beautiful website. The editor is drag-and-drop based and enables you to visually design pages using widgets that can easily be dragged and dropped into place.
You can also just pick a template – there are hundreds of templates available through the plugin – customize them according to your needs and move on with creating new pages or posts for your website!
Impressive Premade Designs And Templates: Elements come with premade designs and templates, which help save time. These designs are well designed and optimized for conversions, which means they’re designed with user actions in mind!
Designing these from scratch would take hours so if this feature isn’t enough reason alone then I don’t know what else would convince someone otherwise!
Real-Time Preview: Elementor has a live preview feature that enables my clients to see the changes made as soon as they happen instead of waiting until everything has been completed before reviewing all at once (which saves us both time!). Also, if something doesn’t look right, we can go back without having to start over again
What is Gutenberg?
Gutenberg (aka “the new content editor in WordPress“) is already part of your life if you are reading this. Whether you’ve used it or not, it’s already a big part of WordPress.
The block page builder is the default editor for all WordPress sites and posts created after its release in 2018 (WordPress 5.0).
The name “Gutenberg” is a reference to Johannes Gutenberg, a scientist who invented the printing press with movable type in the 1450s and changed the way we communicate.
It’s best to think of Gutenberg as the word processor equivalent to MS Word or Google Docs but built exclusively for WordPress sites – replacing the old classic editor that has been in use since 2005.
Key Features of Gutenberg
Below are the key features of this block editor:
- Uses blocks to build content and pages
- No coding is needed to create the blocks
- Designed with modern technology to ensure it’s fast and reliable
- Supports Gallery photos
- Has an image editor that allows you to resize, zoom, and so forth on the editor
Why Should You Use Gutenberg?
Why should you be using Gutenberg? Well, let’s take a look at the benefits of doing so.
- Create Reusable Blocks: The new block editor makes it easy to create reusable content blocks that you can use across multiple posts and pages. This feature will save you time and allow you to ensure a consistent style on your website. Call-to-action boxes, product/price tables, image galleries, etc., are some of the examples of reusable blocks that can be created with the drag-and-drop interface of Gutenberg.
- Advanced widgets and editing tools: Gutenberg comes with numerous widgets that one may place inside columns or other areas of your design. Some include Shortcode, Latest Posts, Categories, Tag Cloud, and Archives. These widgets make it very easy for non-developers to place additional content inside the page layout without having technical knowledge or coding skills.
- Integrates with any third-party plugin and theme: Since Gutenberg is now part of WordPress core, nothing is preventing third parties from adding compatibility with their plugins and themes.
Gutenberg Vs Elementor: Do They Have Any Common Features?
Yes, the two builders have a few features in common. Here are the top 3:
- Individual Editing: Both Elementor and Gutenburg allow you to edit individual blocks (whether it’s a paragraph, image, or otherwise). This feature is significant because it shows that both page builders have taken the time and effort to address this need.
- Custom Layouts: You can create custom layouts with both Elementor and Gutenburg. In other words, if you want your text on the left and an image on the right, you can make that happen easily!
- Compatible with third-party addons: If you want to extend the functionality of either Elementor or Guttenberg, there are plenty of compatible add-ons available online. For example, if you’re looking for some customization features in your forms or galleries with Gutenburg, try Advanced Forms. If you want more control over how your images look with Elementor, try Image Intense.
Elementor Vs Gutenburg: What Are The Differences?
Elementor and Gutenburg are two WordPress page builders that both promise to simplify their user’s website-building experience. They do this by providing drag-and-drop, block-based editors that make designing a site from scratch easier, faster, and more intuitive than using classic HTML editing.
However, both Elementor and Gutenburg have their differences. Here is a comparison of what each has to offer:
Cost
If cost is a factor in your decision, Gutenberg wins this round, hands down. Elementor is a premium plugin that costs $49 to $999 per year, depending on the plan you choose. The free version is severely limited and doesn’t include many of the elements you’ll want to use while building your sites, such as form fields, galleries, or flip boxes.
Gutenberg comes free with WordPress 5.0 and beyond. If you have an older WordPress site and decide to upgrade to 5.0 now (or in the future), Gutenberg will come along for the ride at no extra cost.
Features
Elementor’s claim to fame has always been its extended features. It lets you do more stuff on your website than Gutenberg does.
Let’s start with the visual editor. Elementor is much easier to use and comes with a ton of templates, sections, and widgets that you can customize however you want.
If you need an e-commerce page, Elementor has it, while Gutenberg doesn’t even have it yet. You can also create detailed columns, rows, headers, footers, and sidebars all from inside Elementor.
User Friendly
Gutenberg is extremely easy to use, and the user interface (UI) has a straightforward layout design.
The UI when using Elementor is even easier. They have created a nice drag-and-drop interface that allows you to build pages on the front end of your website with just a few clicks of the mouse.
Learning Curve
If you have experience with page builders, then learning Gutenberg will be easy. However, if you are a complete newbie, then you might need to watch some video tutorials before getting the hang of it.
On the other hand, if you know nothing about page builders and websites in general, then Elementor is for you. It comes with a lot of pre-built templates that you can install and customize to your heart’s content.
Each builder has its learning curve, but once you learn how to use them, it’s not so hard.
Performance
There is no doubt that Elementor is one of the best page builders in terms of features and customizations. However, with all the features it has, you can expect a lot of code to be loaded on your site. Therefore, it can impact your overall site’s performance.
Gutenberg page builder is part of WordPress core and hence loads fast as compared to Elementor, which has a lot of bloatware packed inside. Page load time plays an important role when it comes to SEO performance and user experience (UX). So if you are looking for blazing fast speed and want to rank higher in search engines then we would recommend going with Gutenberg editor instead of Elementor.
Gutenberg pages perform better than Elementor when tested with tools like Google Page Speed Insights or GTMetrix
Backend and frontend
If you’re new to the world of WordPress, you might not know that there’s more than one way to edit the content on a WordPress website. There are two types of editors: backend and frontend (or live) editors. The type you use is up to you and depends largely on your preferences and comfort with technology.
Gutenberg is a backend editor, which means when you use it, you work directly in the same environment that your website readers will see once your post or page has been published. If you want to move an element around or test out a different font size for part of your text, for example, neither of those changes will be visible to you until after the page has been published.
On the plus side though, if something goes wrong when editing a post or page in Gutenberg (it happens), fixing that problem is easier. Yes—all of your editing work was done in a familiar environment where you can click around easily.
Elementor is both a frontend and backend editor. When using the page builder on a post, page, or draft. It doesn’t matter whether you’re working in backend or frontend mode. You can do any kind of change and edits regardless of the mode you are using.
Theme compatibility
Making sure that the plugin you choose is compatible with your theme is crucial! After all, if it’s not, you won’t be able to use it.
Gutenberg is a default WordPress editor and works with any theme. However, since it doesn’t alter your theme settings and styles or colors, the content you create might not look as fine-tuned as you’d want. So if you want to go beyond the limitations of Gutenberg, you need an Elementor-compatible theme.
Elementor works perfectly with all WordPress themes but does a better job when used with premium themes built specifically for Elementor. If you pick one of these themes (and there are plenty of them), then all the default settings are synced, so there will be no conflicts between them and your website elements created in Elementor.
Editing freedom
What about editing freedom? You are free to modify the content in Gutenberg, but the page layout is off-limits. You can’t edit the editor’s footer, sidebar, header, or any global element. Elementor gives you complete control over all elements on the page.
Elementor is also more flexible when it comes to creating custom templates based on certain types of content. It offers predefined templates for posts and pages, and they can be customized as much as you like
Which One To Choose?
You’ve decided you want to start a blog. You’ve reserved your domain name, picked out a hosting plan, and are ready to roll. Now it’s time to choose the plugin that will give you the creative options you need while keeping things running smoothly on the backend.
If you’re just looking for a tool to create a simple website and don’t want it to be bloated with unnecessary elements (and thus slow), Guttenberg has less excess code than Elementor. Less bloat means faster loading speeds which equal higher search engine rankings.
Maintaining high page load speed is essential for ranking well in search engines, but so is using an appealing design.
So, what if you want more than a basic site?
If so, the chances are that Elementor is going to be your best bet because its interface is easier and faster by far when it comes to building more complicated layouts like sections and columns.
And since we all know how crucial SEO is, you need to design a fast=loading website. Elementor may come at the cost of some less-than-perfectly optimized code (a small price for functionality). However, there are ways around this bloated code, like using bloat-removing plugins such as Assets Cleanup, Perfmatters, and so on.
Conclusion
Both Gutenberg and Elementor are great choices for beginners who don’t have much technical knowledge. They both do their job well, but they both have their strengths and weaknesses. Each is best suited for a specific purpose.
Elementor is best if you want to give your website a fancier look and feel, with plenty of pre-made templates and blocks that you can choose from. It also gives you full editing capabilities of any page.
Gutenberg, on the other hand, makes it easy to add buttons, tables, YouTube embeds, and other similar elements. It builds fast bloat-free pages, and it’s a blessing to you if you’re not familiar with margins and padding.
Therefore, we do not have a clear winner. The best page builder for you will depend on your budget, technical skills, and website design needs.
