Who could imagine creating a full-fledged website within just a few clicks? Such things were a distant dream in the 1990s.
Thanks to the advancement in technology, building and customizing your WordPress website is now easy and fast. You can do all these without coding. Thanks to WordPress drag-and-drop page builders, today you can design the most aesthetic websites and landing pages within a few hours. Using a drag-and-drop page builder, you can add as many elements to your landing page as you want.
While there are many WordPress page builders, Elementor and WPBakery are the most prominent ones in the market. So, here is our comprehensive comparison of both WordPress page builders.
What is Elementor?
Elementor was launched in 2016. Since then, it has constantly grown in popularity because of its user-friendly interface, flexible styling options and full theme building. With over 10 million installations, it is accessible in 50+ languages.
Whether you are a professional website designer striving for perfection or a marketer looking to design a simple yet attractive website quickly, Elementor is a complete package. It has all the elements required for an amazing website.
Elementor has a live mode. By replacing the basic WordPress editor with Elementor, you can create your site live without switching between editing and previewing modes. The prominent page builder has both free and paid versions.
The paid version (known as Elementor Pro) provides you access to some more premium functions of Elementor such as writing custom CSS, form rules customization, ken burns effect, CTA widget, and much more (For a detailed comparison between Elementor and Elementor Pro, click here). It is 100% compatible with almost all WordPress themes.
What is WPBakery?
WPBakery is another easy to use WordPress page builder that does not require any coding or programming knowledge. WPBakery offers content blocks that can be used to design pages. Each content block can be dragged and dropped to design the web page.
In WPBakery, blocks are called content elements. The excellent feature of this page builder is that it provides front-end and back-end editors that are really easy to use.
Through WPBakery live site editor, you can design frontend web pages and the backend web pages can be designed through WordPress admin.
Text blocks, social media buttons, and more than 30-40 content elements are available on WPBakery.
Elementor v/s WPBakery Pros and Cons
Pros of Elementor
- It is easy to use.
- It is beginner-friendly
- Themes are responsive with mobiles, PC, tablets, etc.
- Drag and drop building facility.
- Edit and preview in real-time
- It lets you create custom themes
- It supports integration with third-party applications.
- It allows you to develop attractive pop-ups.
- It provides a free version.
- Features are regularly updated.
Cons of Elementor
- Younger page builder
- The number of templates is limited.
- The pro pricing is high (increasing every other year)
- It restricts adding custom codes and CSS
- The page loading is relatively slow
- It offers very few SEO tools’ deep integrations with a page builder (P.S. Yoast SEO is supported)
Pros of WPBakery
- It provides an excellent SEO feature
- It offers downloadable templates
- You can create a fully customized website.
- You will be allowed to create your own layout.
- It has an intuitive user interface
- It offers responsive design settings.
Cons of WPBakery
- It is quite expensive
- It stores content as a shortcode
- There is no free version to get your hands on
- It does not offer an auto-save feature. So, save the changes every single time
- The number of out-of-box elements is limited
Elementor v/s WPBakery: The Ultimate Comparison
1) Page Builder Elements
Elementor and WPBakery both provide many ready-to-use page builder elements. These elements offer multiple options for design structures. The most vital features are:
- Text, Heading
- Icons, Group Icons
- Row, Columns, Divisions
- Menu, Sidebar
- Tabs
- Testimonial
- Counter, Progress Bar
- Buttons, Call to Action
- Image, Audio, Video, Gallery
Pre-set layouts and ready-to-use elements are also provided with these page builders elements.
Elementor
Approximately 80+ different elements are provided by Elementor. In addition, you get a pricing table, a flip box, animated headlines, and some external WooCommerce features.
WPBakery
WPBakery also offers you more than 80 exciting elements. It also provides a separator, pricing table, animated headlines, flip box, and a few WooCommerce features. Also, it also offers a dual button, button group, and a timeline that handles and stores all your sequential activities.
While comparing Elementor and WPBakery based on page builder elements, both provide more or less 80 different elements. In additional elements, WPBakery relatively offers some extra features and slightly variable elements than Elementor.
2) Pricing and Plans
Elementor and WPBakey both page builders provide a variety of pricing and plans suitable for everyone’s needs. So, let’s see what works best for us.
Elementor
There are various categories in the pricing and plans of Elementor. It offers five pricing plans which are as follows:
- Essential for only 1 website: US $ 49/year
- Hosting included: US $ 89/year
- Expert for 25 websites: US $ 199/year
- Studio for 100 websites: US $ 499/year
- Agency for 1000 websites: US $ 999/year
For the latest pricing of Elemnetor plans and pricing, click here.
Elementor operates on a freemium business model. This website builder offers 1 basic, 1 with free hosting, and 3 pro plugin plans, but you will be able to access more than 80% of the features even without a pro version.
WPBakery
In pricing and plans, WPBakery offers two simple plans. They are as follows:
- Regular: US $ 56 for a single site.
- Extended: US $ 299 for use in a single SaaS application.
WPBakery does not offer many varieties of plans to choose from based on your needs. You can use the regular plan for only 1 website with free updates, premium support, and access to the template library. The extended plan can be used for a single SaaS application with lifetime free updates and premium support. With the extended plan, theme integration is also possible.
On the basis of prices and plans, clearly, Elementor has so many options suitable for everyone’s needs.
3) Customization Options
To make your website more appealing, both Elementor and WPBakery provide various customization options. These customization options offer convenient access to choose the suitable elements for your needs and design. Moreover, they are easy to use and implement.
Elementor
Elementor is one of the best website page builders in the industry. It offers all types of essential elements. Some of the basic features are as follows: background customization, customizing colors and fonts, shape dividers, animators, margins, and paddings.
You can also write custom CSS to improve the design of a specific element on a webpage. Furthermore, you can even use the external Elementor-compatible plugins to implement customizations on Elementor-powered websites. E.g. Crocoblock plugin
WPBakery
WPBakery also serves you with great basic features which are more or less the same as other page builders in the industry. The fundamental elements provided by WPBakery are colors, shape dividers, custom fonts, feature to customize the background, padding, margins, and some basic animations.
Both the page builders offer a variety of customization options. As such, it depends solely on you as a user to determine which one would serve you best and is the easiest for you to manage.
4) Setting Controls
Keeping your website setting controls in your hands is very important while building any page. Needless to say, every page builder plugin provides some standard-setting controls. With these settings, you will have ample options for designing numerous websites.
Elementor
Elementor offers all sorts of basic setting features. A selection of elements can be used with Elementor at your convenience. It has ready-to-use transition features. In addition, it provides default styling tools. With Elementor, you can also have access to global settings. To know more about it, click here.
WPBakery
WPBakery serves you with a great range of options and unique elements. Moreover, basic settings requirements will give access to some selective setting controls. The software provides inbuilt or defaults styling methods as well as translation settings. It also offers global settings, which are of primary importance.
Elementor and WPBakery both provide a wide range of setting options. In addition, both of them have pretty indistinguishable setting controls. So, you might not encounter a considerable difference even if you choose either of them in the setting options.
5) Editing Options
You always have to edit your website to keep it up to date, the main feature when choosing a page builder is smooth editing options. Most of the plugins offer standard editing options.
However, when it comes to Elementor and WPBakery, Elementor offers a more intuitive user interface. WPBakery can be a bit harder to use at first, but it becomes easier once you get used to it.
Elementor
Elementor provides front-end editing options that are great to edit in real time. Additionally, it has a responsive editor that lets you view the pages as they will be seen on the main page interface and add additional modifications.
WPBakery
Considering front-end editing options, WPBakery is a relatively slow plugin. Furthermore, with WPBakery, you can edit the back end instead of the front end; this is a unique editing feature provided by WPBakery.
It is considered that Elementor has an easy-to-use interface among Elementor and WPBakery. Whereas WPBakery has an unusual back-end editor that few people find easy to use. So, as long as for the decision “Which one provides better editing options?” Elementor serves the purpose better of smooth editing and easy handling.
6) User Interface
While creating a website using page builders, site owners will spend most of their time using page builders. So ideally, you should select a page builder with an intuitive interface that you enjoy using. Let us see where these page builders stand regarding the user interface.
Elementor
In Elementor’s editor, you will notice that all of the elements appear neatly on the left-hand side of your display. In order to use an element, simply drag and drop it into the preview panel. Since the elements are so well placed, you will see the new element right away. In this, you can edit the elements so effortlessly that you simply have to activate the inline editing feature to try some real-time edits and previews. You can easily make all changes this way.
WPBakery
For finding the elements menu in WPBakery, you have to click on the plus icon that appears before the element table. It offers front-end as well as back-end editing options. Unfortunately, WPBakery does not support inline editing. In this, you entirely have to rely on pop up for editing.
Any changes you make either in the front-end or back-end will need to be done using pop-ups. Considering it does not provide inline changes. Doing this back and forth consumes much of your time.
If you are a fan of front-end editing, then Elementor is tailor-made for you. Additionally, you can edit and preview in real time.
7) Styling Options
In the digital world, design plays a vital role. To make your page aesthetically sound you need to style it in an appreciable way. Let us take a look at what these page builders have to offer.
Elementor
There are two types of styling options in Elementor: style and advanced.
- Style: In this, you can adjust color, alignments, and other basic settings.
- Advanced: Here you will have options like animation, margin, padding, borders, responsive design, and z-index settings. Additionally, you can also integrate custom CSS.
WPBakery
The styling options in WPBakery Page Builder are more complex. A variety of backgrounds, borders, margins, and padding can be applied to elements. As you edit a column or row, additional styling options become available. You can edit whole sections or just specific elements in certain tabs. You can activate, alter, and upload the pre-designed templates as you wish. It does not provide many choices to change basic elements.
Elementor offers simple ways to style and enhance your page. Like WPBakery, you don’t have to deal with pop-ups, all the elements are visible on the sidebar. Everything is handy and convenient. Both offer variety of styling options however Elementor is uncomplicated to use for a freshman.
Elementor v/s WPBakery: Our Verdict
By now, you must have enough information about the features that both page builders have to offer. Both Elementor and WPBakery are great website page builders. However, in our opinion and experience, Elementor steals the show with its pricing and plans, user interface, free version availability, and editing options.
The Elementors user interface is so much quicker than WPBakerys that it can save site owners a lot of time. With Elementor, you can get your hands on a fair number of features that are simple to use and accessible. It contains a free version as well, so you can check it out and see if it’s right for you. Besides being available for free, it also offers several great tools for content creation, design, media, marketing, publishing, and social sharing.
Elementor offers the best value for your money, plus it has a robust online community to provide additional support and networking. So, if you are an entrepreneur or solopreneur trying to build a website at the least cost and minimal time, look no further than Elementor!
Bottom Line
Before creating a website, you should first have a blueprint in hand. With that, you will have a clear idea of how it will look. What message will it carry forward? etc.
Still, feeling baffled about the concept of creating a website? Then, you can book a free consultation call with our expert website designers at Eiosys. We will understand your business vision and help you create a best-in-class, visually appealing website. You can get in touch with us at sales@eiosys.com.
