Are you interested in Hostinger’s affordable website builder plans? Want to know more about how the company’s website building tools work? Look no further than this Hostinger Website Builder review!
The post Hostinger Website Builder Review: Do You Get Anything of Value? appeared first on Themeisle Blog.
Trying to decide between Gutenberg vs Elementor to build your WordPress site? In this article, we’ll compare these two editors in some key areas to help you understand the key differences so you can make your decision.
The post Gutenberg vs Elementor: Which Page Builder Should You Choose? appeared first on Themeisle Blog.
If you’ve ever found yourself wanting more control over the design of your website, you may want to consider using a theme builder. WordPress theme builders allow you to build every aspect of your website, from headers to footers and everything in between—no need to add complex PHP to your template files. You can easily design and manage all your templates with the right theme builder. In this post, we’ll lay out some of the best WordPress theme builders available for you to use in your next project.
A WordPress theme builder is a tool that gives you complete control over the design of every aspect of your website or theme on the front end. With a theme builder, you can use modules (or blocks) to custom-build your header, footer, and templates without adding custom code to your theme’s PHP files. For example, with our Divi theme builder, you can visually design your entire site from top to bottom on the front end. And you can build new templates and assign them to any part of your site using a drag-and-drop interface.
Theme builders typically allow you to change the look and feel of:
Without a theme builder, you are forced to edit templates and other global elements on the backend using custom code which will require creating a child theme.
In many cases, the most popular WordPress page builders are also theme builders. But this isn’t always the case. Some page builders may only work within a page or post and don’t allow access to the templates created by the theme. This is why choosing a theme builder to build your website is imperative to have maximum control over your website.
In general, website builders are all-in-one platforms (like Wix, Weebly, or Shopify) that provide everything you need to build your website online from the ground up. They are often offered by hosting companies (like Hostinger) or other hosted platforms that may or may not use WordPress. You can get your domain, hosting, website builder, and other tools for eCommerce, marketing, SEO, and more all under one platform. AI website builders can use artificial intelligence to design a website for you.
The main difference (or drawback) of using website builders over WordPress Theme Builders is flexibility. Website builders tend to be much more limited when it comes to customization than using a theme builder on WordPress.
Older classic WordPress themes typically lack support for full site editing and limit your control over certain aspects of your website. But this is not the case anymore. WordPress block themes now support full site editing, allowing users to customize templates in the Site Editor using dynamic theme blocks. For example, the default Twenty Twenty-Three Theme is a block theme with full site editing features, allowing you to build headers, footers, templates, and more.
WordPress Theme Builders take full site editing in WordPress to a new level. The default WordPress block editor may give you control over the design of your entire site, but the options for design and functionality pale in comparison to those of top theme builders. Many theme builders have hundreds of no-code design options for each module and allow you to build pop-ups, mega menus, scroll animations, and more. All without having to use additional plugins or code. Overall, a theme builder makes building your own unique and one-of-a-kind WordPress website an easy task that requires no coding experience.
Our list of the best WordPress theme builders has a theme builder for every niche — blogs, small businesses, eCommerce stores, and more. Even if you are a beginner building a website for the first time, these theme builders can help you create the perfect website from top to bottom.
Divi is our premier WordPress theme builder crafted for those who want maximum control over the design of their entire website. With over 800,000 users, Divi is one of the most popular themes in the World. Out of the box, Divi’s Theme Builder lets you build templates for pages, blog posts, archive pages (including date, category, tag, and author pages), search results, and the 404 page.
Divi has over 40 native modules to add everything you need to your templates. You can also use Divi’s 20+ WooCommerce modules to build unique pages and templates for your online store, including shop, cart, checkout, and my account pages.
Template assignments in Divi’s Theme Builder allow you to get granular with your designs. You can build different headers and footers for different templates. And you can assign or exclude pages you want to inherit your custom template designs. With Divi, the sky is the limit when building a custom WordPress website.
The Divi Theme Builder supports full-site front-end editing. That means your template design elements (Sidebars, headers, menus, footers, etc.) are accessible when using the visual builder on any page or post. You don’t have to jump back and forth to make changes to your header or footer while editing a post.
Divi has 2,000+ free page layouts to jumpstart your designs, as well as premade headers and footers, and other downloadable templates from our blog. You can also find more theme builder products from our marketplace, including the Divi Headers Pack and the Divi Footers Pack.
Theme Builder Sets are a key feature of Divi’s Theme Builder. These allow you to compile your favorite Theme Builder templates and instantly download them onto any Divi website or your Divi Cloud account. Efficiently build websites with complete website templates stored in Divi’s Theme Builder Sets.
Best For:
Divi is one of the best WordPress theme builders that anyone can use, with no coding necessary. Divi melds the flexibility of no-code building with the power of WordPress, giving you the ultimate website-building tool for anyone who wants to build their perfect website on WordPress.
Pricing: $89 per year
Astra is rated one of the most popular WordPress theme builders available. It’s fast, highly customizable, and has a free version available from the WordPress Theme Repository. As a theme builder, Astra has a dedicated header and footer builder. Easily drag-and-drop various elements to craft your perfect header and footer. Astra’s theme builder has live editing, so you can immediately see what you’re building as you build it. WooCommerce pages can also be customized with Astra. There are hundreds of options available for you to edit things like your cart icon, the layout of your product variations (colors, sizes, etc.), and so much more. For WooCommerce, Astra focuses on being mobile responsive from the very beginning, so you can give your customers a beautiful mobile experience as they shop your site. All in all, Astra is one of the fastest and best WordPress theme builders available.
Astra’s checkout page options are a vital feature that should be noted by those looking to build online stores with WooCommerce. In addition to the default WooCommerce checkout process, with Astra, you can have a distraction-free checkout process, a two-step checkout process, and much more. A conversion-ready checkout process can be easily created using Astra as your WordPress theme builder.
Best For:
If you’re looking for a free theme builder that has a premium feel, use Astra. Even at its free version, you can still build custom headers and footers, and if you need more functionality, that is also an option when you upgrade to a paid plan.
Pricing: Free, Paid plans start at $59 per year
OceanWP is a theme builder that is the most generous of the theme builders on our list. It provides a wide array of options you can work with when using the free version of the builder. Quickly turn on or off features for your product pages. Choose from a wide selection of blog post templates you can assign to all your blog posts or a select few. There are multiple pagination styles, editable metadata elements, and more. OceanWP has created a set of bundles that can be used to extend the already feature-rich theme builder further. The Ocean eComm Treasure Box is a premium addon for OceanWP geared toward taking your online store to higher heights. Whether you’re building a blog, an online store, or a simple informational website, get the control needed to make a standout website customized to your specifications with OceanWP.
Building a mega menu for your website is accessible with OceanWP. Use widgets or create templates in the OceanWP library and easily assign them to your menu to create mega menus without the need for programming or shortcodes.
Best For:
OceanWP is the best WordPress theme builder for designers on a budget. Many of OceanWP’s free version features are considered premium options throughout some of the contenders from our list. So if you’re looking to save money as you build your next website, choose to use OceanWP to build your website.
Pricing: Free, Paid plans start at $43 per year
GeneratePress is one of the first block-based theme builders for WordPress. It allows you to build anything your website needs using blocks. From posts to metadata, footers to custom post types, GeneratePress uses blocks to make building your website easy. In addition to a strong focus on block-based building, GeneratePress is a fast, secure, and accessible theme builder. If you want to build a site that looks good and performs well, especially for those who use the internet differently, you should consider building your website with GeneratePress. While you can use code with GeneratePress via their Dynamic Block Elements, you don’t have to if you decide to use one of their stater templates. With over 75 starter sites and the GenerateBlocks plugin, you don’t have to build your website entirely from scratch. For building a solid website that works perfectly with Gutenberg, trust GeneratePress as your theme builder.
Pictured above, you’ll see how GeneartePress uses every aspect of Gutenberg within its theme-building processes. With GeneratePress, you can select dynamic text (like the page title) and insert dynamic images (like a featured image) to create repeatable content elements that you can use throughout your site. This example will use this content block as the template for all blog posts in a particular category.
Best For:
As one of the first block-based theme builders, GeneratePress is on the cutting edge of theme building in the WordPress ecosystem. If you love building with Gutenberg, GeneratePress is one of the best WordPress theme builders for you to use.
Pricing: Free, Paid plans start at $59 per year
Elementor is a theme builder that does it all. Headers, footers, blog posts, product pages, pop-ups, and more can all be created with this theme builder. It has over 100 elements, from basic widgets like counters and tabs to more complex elements like price lists and animated headings. These can be used together to create incredible templates for all aspects of your website. Elementor works well in building custom product pages for your WooCommerce websites. Create a custom cart page, add additional content to your purchase summary pages, or even build an off-canvas menu cart without writing a single line of code. If you don’t want to start from scratch, Elementor has an extensive library of pre-built website kits that you can tap into. All this and more can be done without programming and using Elementors simple visual builder.
Elementor is unique among our list because it can function as a separate theme builder. This means it does not depend on a specific theme to function and can work on many available themes. As such, Elementor suggests using their Hello Theme, a bare-bones framework from which you can add everything you need to the theme through Elementor. Hello Elementor is a perfect canvas for you to start building your WordPress website because the theme-building power of Elementor shines through beautifully in this fantastic pairing.
Best For:
Widely compatible with many themes, Elementor is a theme builder that you can use with almost any theme. Many themes available are compatible with Elementor, so if you haven’t decided on your theme yet, choose Elementor to help you build your perfect website.
Pricing: Free, Paid plans start at $59 per year
Beaver Themer is an addon of the popular page builder Beaver Builder. It allows you to extend the Beaver Builder plugin by adding theme-building capabilities to this beloved plugin. With Beaver Themer, creating headers, footers, 404 pages, and more is simple. Its easy-to-use interface makes it quick and easy for anyone to build the perfect website for their business or project. It should be noted that while Beaver Builder can work with almost any WordPress theme, Beaver Themer works best with the Beaver Theme and a small number of popular themes. There are some instances where you may need to use code with Beaver Themer to get the layout you want. However, for most use cases, you can use its drag-and-drop functionality to create beautiful websites.
Beaver Builder’s Themer Parts is a unique feature that differentiates it from other builders on our list. Themer Parts allow you to place elements and pieces of content in various areas of the page outside the content area. Whereas the page builder focuses on the content area, and most theme builders focus on areas outside of the content area, Themer Parts fill in the gaps of both of these locations regarding site-building. There is a long list of parts that Beaver Themer provides for you to add your content and designs, making it easier to ensure that you are building the perfect website for your needs.
Best For:
If you’re already a fan of Beaver Builder, then you’ll also be pleased to have the Beaver Themer in your back pocket to help you fully customize your websites. Consider adding the Beaver Themer product to your web design process and bring full site editing to your next Beaver Builder-led project.
Pricing: $147 per year, in addition to a paid plan for Beaver Builder, which starts at $99 per year
SeedProd is a theme builder that is geared toward those who are working in digital marketing. If you need to build a landing page, create a sales funnel or get a squeeze page off the ground, SeedProd is the theme builder that should be in your toolkit. Each template that SeedProd provides is designed with conversions in mind. Knowing that each template you choose covers some ground regarding sales optimization is helpful for marketers who need to build a slew of landing pages repeatedly. Like other builders on our list, you can create templates for pages and posts with SeedProd. Additionally, you can customize login screens, create 404 pages and use domain mapping to point your landing pages to specific domains without additional WordPress installs. As a marketer, SeedProd is one of the best theme builders you can use when building your online business with WordPress.
As a theme builder geared towards online marketers, SeedProd’s library of templates is outstanding. They have a library of over 150 landing page templates and starter themes, and you can find templates for webinars, thank you pages, login screens, and more. Each template can be customized and assigned to pages, posts, or other custom post types you’ll need as you build your WordPress website.
Best For:
Marketers, entrepreneurs, and those who make money online will love working with SeedProd. As one of the best WordPress theme builders for digital business owners, SeedProd makes building high-converting websites accessible with its powerful theme builder.
Pricing: Paid plans start at $79 per year
Genesis Pro is another blocks-based theme builder. It comes with a library of pre-built sections and custom content blocks that you can add to your theme templates to save you from building your website entirely from scratch. You also can create your blocks and content and build your library of reusable elements. Genesis Pro enhances the WordPress editor through its free additional plugins, Genesis Blocks, and Genesis Custom Blocks. As a theme builder, Genesis Pro differs from many other builders in our list as it requires quite a bit of custom coding to move around features like headers, footers, and sidebars. Coding will be needed when using Genesis Pro. Because of this, Genesis Pro does move faster, is more accessible, and ultimately be as customizable as possible if you are familiar with coding.
Custom Blocks is a powerful feature of Genesis Pro. With this, the ball is in your court to use your imagination to code and design the perfect block for your WordPress website. Mixing visual design and programming, Genesis Pro adequately bridges the gap for those who want the highest level of customization through custom code but also want the support that is working with a visual builder like Gutenberg brings.
Best For:
If you like building with blocks and are comfortable coding, build your entire website with Genesis Pro. For true flexibility, Genesis Pro allows you to custom code blocks and reuse them quickly. It makes building a custom, lightweight WordPress website simple, melding coding and block-building together.
Pricing: Free, $360 per year
Thrive Theme Builder is a theme builder geared toward those in the online marketing space. The theme builder focuses on giving you the tools that you need to build conversion-focused websites. As such, Thrive Theme Builder’s modules for building your website make it easy to craft landing pages, sales funnels, and more. Testimonials, countdown timers, and lead generation forms that integrate with popular marketing tools are all part and parcel of building a website with Thrive Architect. The theme builder is packed with various landing page templates and pre-built sections called Page Blocks and is optimized for getting you leads and closing sales online.
The Thrive Theme Builder Wizard takes the guesswork out of setting up the necessary templates for the various pages, posts, custom post types, and more you’ll use to build your site. Set up your brand colors, choose your typography, create your menu, and much more with only a few clicks. No more is there a need to struggle with building each template for each page or post type on your website. The Thrive Theme Builder Wizard will help you do all this while ensuring your site is up to the best online marketing practices and standards.
Best For:
Digital marketers, agency owners, content creators, and online entrepreneurs will enjoy using Thrive Theme Builder as their theme builder. With an extensive library of templates, a thriving ecosystem of products, and design elements crafted with conversions in mind, using one of the best WordPress theme builders available for digital business owners is the right choice for your next launch.
Pricing: Paid plans start at $599 per year
Brizy is a relatively new theme builder in the WordPress market. It’s different from most theme builders on our list as it comes in a cloud platform and a WordPress plugin. If you’d rather have a managed platform for your theme builder, Brizy can assist you in this department. Like many theme builders, Brizy is a visual, no-code builder. It is powered by a library of elements that you can click and drag to build templates for almost any aspect of your website.
Furthermore, Brizy connects with various marketing tools and email platforms like ActiveCampaign, Drip, and Calendly, to name a few. Brizy also supports the use of custom fields within its content. So pulling dynamic information from tools like ACF, Pods, and Meta Box is welcomed. If you’re looking for a new way to build in WordPress, consider testing Brizy today.
As an agency owner, Brizy has impressive white-label capabilities. Invite unlimited team members and assign roles to staff for easy collaboration between your team and your clients. You can sync content between websites and still have access to the powerful theme builder that makes it easy to build with Brizy. Furthermore, your platform comes packed with SEO tools ensuring you can provide your clients with a unique white glove service.
Best For:
Brizy is a theme builder that is best for those who want to have a hosted and managed WordPress experience. No longer will you need to worry about updates or patches. Brizy allows you to build with WordPress while having the comfort and security of a managed platform.
Pricing: Free, Paid plans start at $60 per year
Oxygen Builder is one of the few theme builders on the market that is genuinely theme agnostic. It does not require a theme at all to work beautifully. It has a library of design assets and elements to build your templates visually. You can use code to get a pixel-perfect design for your website. Write custom CSS, PHP, and Javascript directly in the builder, and see a live result of your code. Oxygen has more breakpoints than any theme builder on our list, so responsive design is a breeze for this builder. Of course, you can set global colors throughout your site and use dynamic data within your templates. Oxygen Builder has a steeper learning curve than other builders on our list. However, if you are unafraid of using code to build your website, consider using Oxygen as your theme builder today.
Composite elements within Oxygen take your visual building to the next level. They allow you to have multiple native Oxygen elements combined to create beautifully feature-rich ways of displaying your content. Additionally, the code for these elements is light and clean, meaning you don’t have to sacrifice beauty for function. Mega menus, section indicators, icon buttons, and more are all composite elements you can find when you use Oxygen as your theme builder.
Best For:
Oxygen Builder is your theme builder if you want complete flexibility over your WordPress website and are familiar and comfortable with coding. Oxygen beautifully meshes coding and visual building as a theme builder, making it one of the best WordPress theme builders for those unafraid to program.
Pricing: Paid plans start at $129
Now that we have our list of the best WordPress theme builders, let’s see how they stack up on price. We’ll also see which ones have a free version you can use today to test their capabilities and see if it’s the right theme builder for your project.
| Theme Builder | Price | Free Option | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🥇 | Divi | $89/yr | ⌠| Visit |
| 🥈 | Astra | $59/yr | âœ”ï¸ | Visit |
| 🥉 | OceanWP | $43/yr | âœ”ï¸ | Visit |
| 4 | GeneratePress | $59/yr | âœ”ï¸ | Visit |
| 5 | Elementor | $59/yr | âœ”ï¸ | Visit |
| 6 | Beaver Builder | $147/yr | ⌠| Visit |
| 7 | SeedProd | $79/yr | ⌠| Visit |
| 8 | Genesis Pro | $360/yr | ⌠| Visit |
| 9 | Thrive Architect | $599/yr | ⌠| Visit |
| 10 | Brizy | $60/yr | ⌠| Visit |
| 11 | Oxygen Builder | $129/yr | ⌠| Visit |
For those who want to build their following website without writing a line of code, Divi is the best choice. As our top selected theme builder, you never have to use code to build a beautiful website wholly customized to your specifications. Astra is a great freemium theme builder that allows you to build beautiful websites while still giving you the option to upgrade to unlock deeper functionality. It’s also one of the most downloaded theme builders from the WordPress repository. Lastly, if you’re on a tight budget but still want the freedom of visual theme building, start your website with OceanWP.
If you feel a theme builder is too much responsibility, consider using a page builder with your favorite WordPress theme. Check out this article on the best page builders for WordPress and see if a page builder may be a better approach for your next project.
Featured Image via Katy Flaty / shutterstock.com
The post 11 Best WordPress Theme Builders in 2023 (For Easy Full Site Editing) appeared first on Elegant Themes Blog.
Are you looking to build a site for your school or for hosting private lessons? While there are many platforms that you can use to get started, you may be wondering which is the best website builder for teachers. To help you out, we’ve put together a list of the best options for educators. By looking at the key features and pricing plans offered by each platform, you should be able to pick the one that best suits your needs and budget.
The post 5 Best Website Builders for Teachers and Schools in 2023 appeared first on Themeisle Blog.
Not everyone has the time, know-how, or budget to build a website. If you just want a simple yet professional site without having to do much work, you may be looking for an alternative solution, such as AI website builders. In this post, we’ll take a closer look at these tools and how to decide if creating a website with them is right for you. We’ll wrap it up by reviewing the best AI website builders on the market today.
The post How AI Website Builders Work (Plus 3 of the Best Ones to Use) appeared first on Themeisle Blog.
Is Elementor not loading on your website? This could be happening due to numerous reasons. In this tutorial, we will help you investigate and find out why Elementor is stuck on the loading screen. You’ll also learn how to get it up and running again.
The post Elementor Not Loading? 8 Ways to Fix It Immediately appeared first on Themeisle Blog.
When it comes to building your website in WordPress, page builders can make your life much easier. Although WordPress has countless themes to get a website up and running quickly, your site’s design and functionality are often hard-coded to the theme and difficult to customize, unless you have coding experience. For those looking for a no-code solution for building a WordPress website without the limitations of a traditional theme, you will want to invest in a page builder.
However, when it comes to page builders, finding the right one can be difficult. The best WordPress page builders will share similarities but their differences can be difficult to see without a little digging. In this post, we’ll explore the differences between each by comparing key features, ease of use, design assets, compatibility, pricing, and more.
Let’s take a look at some of the best WordPress page builders so you can find the right one for you.
WordPress page builders are plugins (or themes) that enable you to build your website pages using a visual drag-and-drop interface on the front end without requiring any coding knowledge.
With page builders, you don’t have to go back and forth from the WordPress editor or refresh your browser constantly while building your site. You can design your website in real-time as it actually appears on the front end. Some page builders also raise the bar with full site editing capabilities, allowing you to design global headers, footers, templates, and more.
As they are a major component of no-code design, most page builders are user-friendly and offer pre-designed templates, layouts, and design components to speed up the design process.
Here are some of the main benefits of using a page builder:
Of course, there are some drawbacks. Because they are packed with features and resources, your site might take a hit on speed and performance which would require extra work to fix. Also, they can be more costly so those with smaller budgets may not be able to benefit from them. And some page builders can be overwhelming to new users because of the number of features and options available. But for most users, these drawbacks are largely outweighed by the powerful design benefits of using a page builder.
When choosing the best page builder, you’re going to find that they offer similar features. But what makes them stand out is the quality and quantity of their features in relation to price. In this list of the best WordPress page builders, we’ll go over the features and pricing of each and how they best fit particular users.
First up is Divi, our very own page builder for WordPress which is a powerful all-in-one solution for designing websites visually. Whether using our theme or plugin, Divi adds an intuitive drag-and-drop page builder to WordPress that allows users to create pages fast in real time with a true WYSIWYG design experience on the front end (or back end) without having to code.
Because we give away new layouts weekly, the builder currently has 2,000+ layouts available directly from the builder and 300+ full website packs allowing users to get a full website design in minutes. There are 200+ design elements (or modules) you can use for any type of content including filterable galleries, blog pages, email opt-ins, menus, and native WooCommerce modules.
Every element can be customized using powerful design options and functionality including hover states, responsive design, transform effects, blend modes, filters, background masks and gradients, sticky elements, scroll animation, display conditions, dynamic content, and so much more.
Divi supports dozens of integrations with popular WordPress for membership, forms, events, email marketing, and other online services. Plus you can control SEO optimization on the visual builder in real time with RankMath integration.
Our Divi Theme Builder gives you full control over the design of your entire website from top to bottom. Create global headers, footers, and templates for blog posts, archive pages, WooCommerce pages, and more.
For $89/yr (or $249 lifetime), our paid membership includes everything, with no hidden fees or upgrades needed. You get the Divi builder (theme and plugin), plus additional premium plugins including Bloom (for email opt-in popups and lead generation) and Monarch (for social media sharing site-wide), and more.
With our Theme Builder, create as many templates as you want and assign them anywhere. You can even import, export, and save entire template sets to your Divi cloud to be used as child themes for other projects. Tons of free templates are available on our blog as well.
Best for:Â Agencies, small businesses, freelancers, or online store owners that need tons of design resources at an affordable price. Divi comes with basically everything you need to build stunning websites, sell products, and grow your business. And you won’t be restricted by licensing fees or additional costs that come with add-ons and upgrades. However, there is no free version. So if you are looking for a freemium plugin and don’t want a robust builder with a ton of features you don’t need, Beaver Builder or Elementor may be a better fit.
Divi Pricing: $89 per year (or $249 lifetime)
Beaver Builder is a popular and versatile page builder plugin built for WordPress. It may not be as advanced as other builders when it comes to design features and resources, but it is a great page builder for beginners looking for a lightweight visual builder with all the essentials. With a focus on simplicity, their drag-and-drop editor focuses on the essentials when it comes to no-code design. And it works with just about any WordPress theme.
Their lite version of the plugin has some basic features to get you familiar with the builder, but you’ll want to get a paid version to experience the true value of the builder.
With a standard plan, you get 30+ advanced modules that you can use to build your website pages. Elements like icon groups, maps, contact forms, and more. Plus, you’ll get access to prebuilt templates to jumpstart your design, though not as many as other builders on our list.
A standard plan also gives you access to the Beaver Themer addon. This gives you full site editing capabilities, allowing you to create layouts for blog archives, custom post types, WooCommerce, and more.
Beaver Builder integrates with several respected WordPress plugins and themes, including WooCommerce and other popular form plugins and LMS plugins.
While the base plan offered gives you a good page builder, you may have to upgrade to be able to build a truly powerful, custom website with the Beaver Builder suite of tools.
A key feature of Beaver Builder is its powerful integrations. An example would be the LifterLMS and BeaverBuilder integration. The integration allows users to create customizable course and lesson layouts using Beaver Builder’s drag-and-drop interface.
Best For:Â Beaver Builder is best for those looking for a lightweight page builder that is easy to use and works with a wide variety of WordPress themes and plugins. It is great for sites that use membership plugins or LMS plugins that use custom post types. However, if you are looking for more design tools and resources, and want theme builder capabilities for a more affordable price, you might consider Divi or Elementor.
Pricing: Starts at $99 per year
The page builder by Elementor is a popular freemium WordPress plugin enjoyed by millions of WordPress users. It has a drag-and-drop user interface that is easy to navigate, making it simple to build custom page layouts without the need for coding. Users can choose from a multitude of design elements when building. And like Divi and Beaver Builder, Elementor provides a real-time preview of your page as you build it.
The free version comes with access to basic widgets and pre-made templates. However, paid versions provide you with 300+ templates that are stunning pro widgets like carousels, table of contents, and Lottie. With all these elements you can build some powerful and stunning pages.
Elementor’s Theme Builder add-on enables full website building, allowing you to create custom headers, footers, archives, and WooCommerce pages. You can also use 100+ full website kits based on its Hello Theme to build your entire website.
Elementor works well with well-known plugins like Wordfence, Smush, Yoast, and WooCommerce. With 20+ WooCommerce widgets, Elementor gives you the power to build your eCommerce pages as you see fit.
When it comes to pricing, Elementor does have a free version that is quite limited compared to the Pro version. The Elementor Pro base package includes all features for $59 per year for one website. However, if you’re looking to build multiple sites, the price can add up quickly.
Elementor has recently extended its products to include an all-in-one, hosted site builder solution (like Squarespace or Webflow) which is great for those looking to manage everything under one roof.
Elementor’s Theme Builder allows you to customize every part of your site including the header, footer, page and post templates, archive templates, and WooCommerce templates without the need for coding. Users can add new site parts, edit existing ones, or delete site parts as needed.
Best For:Â Those who want a try-before-you-buy page builder that has all the features you may need in the paid versions. They have plans that scale from a personal site to a large agency. Although not as robust in design resources, the design elements and layouts available make it a good contender to Divi. But with more costly plans and limited site usage, Divi may be a better option if you are a freelancer or agency building multiple sites.
Pricing: Free, Pro version starts at $59 per year
Oxygen builder is one of the more advanced drag-and-drop WordPress page builders on the market. What sets Oxygen apart from other website builders is its focus on performance, code optimization, and responsiveness. And it is probably one of the only builders that can create and edit Gutenberg blocks using the builder.
Like others on this list, Oxygen offers a real-time visual building experience using pre-made design elements at your fingertips. And it has powerful design features and extendability options that make it one of the best page builders for WordPress. It is The user interface may not be as easy to use for beginners, but it does make it easy for developers to build more unique designs and features.
When compared to other builders, Oxygen’s design library is not as abundant. However, Oxygen’s design sets are well-organized (almost too organized) for adding elements like headers, footers, and sections to your page or template. Giving you total responsive control over your website, you can create beautiful, custom design elements for your site swiftly. It also has a powerful dedicated header builder for creating responsive headers on your site using pre-built header templates.
Oxygen comes with more than 20 highly configurable WooCommerce elements to build your online stores on WordPress. It also works well with plugins like EDD and MemberPress. But it doesn’t have built-in marketing features or integrations like other page builders on the list.
While it is priced on the higher side of other page builders, all plans come with lifetime access to Oxygen with varying offerings for higher-tiered plans.
Oxygen generates clean and streamlined code, without unnecessary bloat. This results in fast-loading pages and high scores on Google PageSpeed & Lighthouse tests. It only loads scripts and styles that are necessary for your design, which helps to optimize website performance. With Oxygen, users can create websites that are both visually impressive and highly optimized for performance.
Best For: Designers or developers who value performance and want the most control over their WordPress websites. The ability to use and edit Gutenberg blocks sets it apart from other builders. It has powerful features but requires more of a learning curve. It doesn’t have as many design elements or resources, but it is highly customizable and is built for performance.
Pricing: From $129 for lifetime
SeedProd is a freemium page builder plugin for WordPress that has over a million users. Like others on our list, it offers a live editing drag-and-drop design experience for building various types of pages or entire themes. It is also one of the best landing page plugins for WordPress.
The builder UI is comparable to Elementor, making it easy to build content using available design elements (or blocks). The free version has much fewer blocks than the 80+ blocks included in the pro version. That said, the blocks are great for displaying static or dynamic content for just about anything you need.
SeedProd comes with plenty of pre-designed templates for landing pages, although not as many as other page builders like Divi. And it provides handy tools for creating coming or maintenance pages as well as marketing tools (like email opt-ins) for creating landing pages optimized for lead generation. You’ll need to upgrade to Plus or Pro plans if you want access to 150+ page templates or the theme builder features.
Like other page builders, SeedProd integrates with popular email marketing providers to help build your email list. And it integrates with WooCommerce (WC) by providing native WC blocks to help built custom WC pages. But you’ll need to upgrade to their highest-paid tier to get WooCommerce support.
Although SeedProd is more affordable than others on our list initially, you may end up significantly more if you want access to free templates, the theme builder, or WooCommerce support.
With Domain Mapping, you can effortlessly create landing pages and direct them to any domain name of your choice without requiring additional WordPress installations. It enables users to associate their unique domain name with their SeedProd landing page, which then redirects visitors to the designated custom domain name. This functionality proves to be advantageous for individuals who prefer to use their custom domain name for their landing pages which is beneficial for higher conversation rates and better SEO.
Best For:Â SeedProd is best for those who want an affordable page builder for creating landing pages for lead generation. If you want to create entire websites using a page builder, SeedProd can do the job, but you will find better and more affordable options on our list.
Pricing: From $79 per year
Visual Composer is a freemium page builder plugin for WordPress with some standout features. Like most builders, it has a drag-and-drop interface for easy visual building. The free version has a limited amount of design elements, options, and pre-made templates. But a premium version unlocks more design options and 500+ design elements and templates that can be accessed through their visual composer hub.
Their hub includes downloadable content elements, templates, blocks, addons, headers, and footers that can be added to your available content when using the builder. You can even grab free stock images and animated GIFs directly from the hub library to use without restrictions.
With premium, you’ll get a theme builder and dynamic content functionality for global, full-site editing. And it includes a built-in popup builder for designing any popup you need with triggers and animation. The builder also has a built-in insights feature for helpful on-page SEO tips while building (even with the free version).
With its addon gallery, integrating with popular WordPress plugins and third-party services is just a few clicks away. Online store owners will benefit from available WooCommerce templates and content elements to build custom pages and templates.
For pricing, all of their premium packages (starting at $49/year for 1 site) include the same amount of features. You’ll just pay extra depending on the number of websites you need.
Its Insights feature is a nice bonus you don’t find in most other builders. It offers real-time SEO page optimization tips on the front end to help you create better SEO content. It works similarly to SEO plugins like Yoast or RankMath although not as powerful.
Best For: Â Visual Composer is best for small businesses, bloggers, or beginners looking for a powerful visual builder with all the necessities at a lower price. The features and design resources aren’t as extensive as other more robust page builders. But it can be a great all-in-one solution for those looking to find everything they need all in one place.
Pricing: Free, Premium plans start at $49 per year for 1 site (or $149 lifetime)
Thrive Architect is a page builder that is one of many Thrive Suite tools offered by TriveThemes. By itself, the page builder includes all the features we love in a page builder including a drag-and-drop interface, extensive design and content elements, and pre-designed landing page templates.
What sets Thrive Architect apart from other page builders is its focus on marketing and lead generation. It includes over 400 stunning conversion-focused templates for you to use to build your content and generate leads.
Their smart landing page templates streamline the design process of high-converting landing pages to be lightning-fast. You can load a template and choose an entire color scheme for your page with a few clicks.
And the design elements are also more conversion based, including things like countdown timers, testimonials, buttons, and lead generation forms. The forms integrate with popular email marketing providers as well.
Thrive Architect offers a comprehensive package of 352 meticulously crafted landing page templates that are 100% geared toward driving conversions. These templates cater to various page types, such as sales pages, opt-in pages, webinar pages, and many more. With Thrive Architect, users can create professional-looking pages in a snap, as the templates are pre-designed and ready to publish.
Best For:Â Thrive Architect is best for those companies, entrepreneurs, or bloggers who want a powerful and lightning-fast solution for creating stunning landing pages built for conversion. If you are looking for more design elements or layouts geared toward building entire websites of all kinds, this may not be the builder for you.
Thrive Architect Pricing: $299 per year
Themify is an intuitive drag-and-drop builder for WordPress that comes as a free standalone plugin, allowing users to experience uncomplicated page building in WordPress. It comes with 40+ professional design elements and 100+ page layouts to choose from.
Themify doesn’t have full site-building capabilities, so you’ll need to rely on their library of themes to support you in that respect.
Additional add-ons can be purchased in a bundle that includes features like content restriction, A/B images, bar charts, and more.
The builder interface has unique qualities that make it easier to use than most other page builders. It gives you the ability to add elements using drag-and-drop or by clicking on a section of the page.
Though it is one of the lesser-known page builders, Themify integrates with well-known plugins in the WordPress ecosystem like WooCommerce, Yoast, Mailchimp, and Contact Form 7, to name a few.
From a pricing perspective, Themify is the most cost-effective page builder plugin as it is available for free but the Builder Addon still makes it the cheapest in our list at $39.
The Builder has a collection of 25+ add-on modules that enhance its functionalities. They can be integrated into any Themify theme, offering a comprehensive and versatile solution for website design and development.
Best for: Beginners looking for a quality free page builder without all the bells and whistles. If you’re looking to get started with page builders and WordPress as a whole, but are unimpressed with the features of Gutenberg, Themify strikes a good balance between ease of use and features.
Themify Pricing: Free, Paid add-ons available
Brizy is a WordPress page builder that prides itself on being a cutting-edge builder for “next-gen” websites. The page builder gives you the power to visually edit your WordPress page layouts with 36+ elements, clean code, and mobile optimation built-in.
Brizy provides 100+ layouts built with conversions in mind, similar to builders like Thrive Themes and SeedProd. The functionality of Brizy’s Theme Builder allows for the editing and customization of all sections within the WordPress CMS including archives, posts, pagination, and much more on a granular level.
When it comes to design resources, Brizy provides you with layout packs, landing pages, block kits as well as popup design templates. The icon library is particularly impressive. Brizy is a drag-and-drop builder, but its unique approach to freehand positioning makes it stand out from its competitors. Brizy comes with 14 visual elements that you can utilize in building your WooCommerce store and it works well with popular marketing apps like Converkit, Hubspot, Zapier, and ActiveCampaign.
If you are a designer looking to build a single site for yourself, you’ll find Brizy’s pricing to be on par with others in the marketplace. However, when you consider building for clients, creating multiple sites, and working on more complex websites like membership sites, the cost of Brizy could become a deterrent.
Like Elementor, it also offers an all-in-one solution if you want to go with its cloud-hosted platform.
Brizy’s Web Stories feature enables users to produce mobile-optimized and visually captivating content. Include multimedia elements like images, videos, and animations to enhance the storytelling experience.
Best for: Those who want to build cutting-edge website designs that mimic social media trends and features. Users will love using this no-code visual builder to build a website that looks different from your typical WordPress website.
Brizy Pricing: $49 per year
There is no definitive answer to this question. In truth, the answer is: it depends. Most of the page builders on our list will share the same core features, but what sets them apart is the premium features they offer and their pricing.
| Plugin | Price | Free Option | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🥇 | Divi | $89/year | ⌠| Visit |
| 🥈 | Beaver Builder | $99/year | âœ”ï¸ | Visit |
| 🥉 | Elementor | $59/year | âœ”ï¸ | Visit |
| 4 | Oxygen Builder | $79/year | ⌠| Visit |
| 5 | SeedProd | $299/year | ⌠| Visit |
| 6 | Visual Composer | $59/year | ⌠| Visit |
| 7 | Thrive Architect | $299/year | ⌠| Visit |
| 8 | Themeify | $59/year | âœ”ï¸ | Visit |
| 9 | Brizy | $49/year | âœ”ï¸ | Visit |
| Features | Divi | Beaver Builder | Elementor | Oxygen Builder |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lifetime Plan Available | âœ”ï¸ | ⌠| ⌠| âœ”ï¸ |
| Unlimited Sites per License | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ | ⌠| âœ”ï¸ |
| Full Website Packs | ✔ï¸(200+) | ⌠| ✔ï¸(100+) | ✔ï¸(17+) |
| Pre-made Page Layouts | ✔ï¸(2000+) | ✔ï¸(limited) | ✔ï¸(300+) | ✔ï¸(limited) |
| Scroll and Entrance Animations | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ |
| CSS Transforms | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ |
| Filters & Blend Modes | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ |
| Background Masks & Patterns | âœ”ï¸ | ⌠| ⌠| ⌠|
| Unlimited Background Gradient Colors | âœ”ï¸ | ⌠| ⌠| âœ”ï¸ |
| Global Presets for Design Elements | âœ”ï¸ | ⌠| ⌠| âœ”ï¸ |
| Global Colors for Design Elements | âœ”ï¸ | ⌠| âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ |
| Responsive Settings for Design Elements | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ |
| Hide / Show Element Based on Screen Size | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ |
| Draggable Column Width | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ | ⌠|
| Draggable Margin & Padding | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ |
| Theme Template Builder | âœ”ï¸ | ✔ï¸(add-on) | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ |
| Build Headers & Footers | âœ”ï¸ | ✔ï¸(add-on) | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ |
| Build WooCommerce Pages | âœ”ï¸ | ✔ï¸(add-on) | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ |
| WooCommerce Element Design Modules | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ |
| Styling for WooCommerce Products | âœ”ï¸ | ✔ï¸(add-on) | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ |
| Add Dynamic Content within Templates | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ |
| Advanced Custom Field Integration | âœ”ï¸ | ✔ï¸(add-on) | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ |
| Add Custom CSS to Elements | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ |
| Popup/Modal Builder | ⌠| ⌠| âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ |
| Conditional Logic for Displaying Elements | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ |
| Integrates with WPML | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ | ⌠|
| Integrates with Yoast | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ |
| A/B Split Testing and Tracking for Lead Generation | âœ”ï¸ | ⌠| ⌠| ⌠|
| Email Opt-in Form Module | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ | ⌠|
| Contact Form Module | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ | âœ”ï¸ | ⌠|
| Email Marketing Integrations | ✔ï¸(20) | âœ”ï¸ | ✔ï¸(12) | ⌠|
| Price for All Features | $89/yr (unlimited sites) |
$199/yr (unlimited sites) |
$59/yr (1 site) | $179 lifetime (unlimited sites) |
| Get Divi | Get Beaver Builder | Get Elementor | Get Oxygen Builder |
If you are looking for a powerful page builder with the most design tools and resources for building any kind of website, we think Divi will give you the most bang for your buck. With Divi, you won’t have to upgrade to more costly plans to get the features you want. You get everything Divi offers and more (for unlimited sites) at an affordable price.
If you’re looking for a more lightweight page builder that works great with WordPress and is easy to use, Beaver Builder is a great option. It is great for beginners who want a free visual builder for their WordPress theme. Plus, you can always upgrade for more powerful features with their paid plans.
If you are looking for a freemium page builder for your site with tons of great features, Elementor is a great option. The Hello Theme and free version of the page builder is a great combo for beginners and a premium plan includes all of their powerful features. Paid plans are based on the number of sites, so single-site users will score big with Elementor. But really, any of the page builders on our list could be a good fit. It all depends on what you are looking for.
Want to see more? Check out all our articles featuring the best plugins to use in WordPress.
The post 9 Best WordPress Page Builders in 2023 (No Coding Required) appeared first on Elegant Themes Blog.
If there is a more ubiquitous and well-known name on websites than GoDaddy, then it’s at the top of a very, very short list. GoDaddy has made a name for itself by being the Everything For Everybody web service, from web hosting to domain registration to website selling and now template-based, WYSIWYG website building. In comparison to that, WordPress is also filling that Everything for Everybody niche, but only in terms of website building. To help you decide which builder-centric web software you should use, we’re taking a look at WordPress vs the GoDaddy Website Builder, showing you the head-to-head comparisons of their most important features.
As we said above, both of these platforms do their very best to be everything for everyone. Not by being a one-size-fits-all solution but by having options available for whatever kind of site or service you might need. They handle this in very different ways, however.
WordPress is free, open-source software that you can install on virtually any web host out there. Having evolved from its roots as blogging software, WP is now a full-fledged content management system (CMS). That means that any kind of website that you need to run with WordPress can be run with WordPress. From blogs, news sites, magazines, stores, portfolios, ticket vendors, event booking, and so much more. If you can conceive the site, WordPress has a way to do it.
GoDaddy, on the other hand, isn’t solely based on the website itself but rather the entire suite of services anyone might need. Including the website software itself. Within the GoDaddy platform, you can buy a domain name, purchase hosting, and build your website with their site builder (which also then offers add-ons for functionality and utilities). Whatever particular service a user needs, they can find it at GoDaddy.
But in terms of the site builders themselves, how does WordPress vs GoDaddy go?
The first thing most people consider when looking at WordPress vs GoDaddy is how easy they are to use. The steeper the learning curve, the longer it takes to build a site, and the more frustrating it can be to use daily. While WordPress does have a slightly higher learning curve, it’s not enough to penalize it, and the entire head-to-head here seems comparable.
Your first login to your WordPress website can be startling. The left side of your screen has a large menu of options, and the primary dashboard space is full of widgets with information and tools that you may not need now (or ever).
You may take a while It doesn’t take long to learn the software, as most things are laid out relatively intuitively. Posts, Pages, Plugins, etc., are easy to find and understand, but some features, such as Menus and Themes, are hidden away in submenus, and the difference between Settings, Tools, and the Theme Customizer isn’t documented anywhere, which causes headaches for many new users.
The Page and Post editor itself is called Gutenberg. And it utilizes blocks of content (such as an image, gallery, or single paragraph) that you can manipulate individually. These blocks are the basis of site customization in WordPress now, and the themes that you purchase or grab from the WordPress.org theme repository are likely to support them for customization.
Using the editor is very simple once you get used to it. It may take a few Posts or Pages to feel it out. But the gist is that you click a + button that brings up a menu of available blocks. Then you simply add the content and place it in the document where you need it. Each block has a separate options panel you can edit. And you can even set some as global/reusable blocks that can be used to template posts and pages later on.
You can learn more advanced site creation techniques such as taxonomies and custom post types, which do have a very steep learning curve initially. However, they are huge (yet advanced) factors in tweaking your WordPress site to be perfect. They are, though, in no way necessary to use or manage a WordPress site for years.
When looking at GoDaddy Website Builder vs WordPress, it has a very low learning curve. Which is great. But the reason the learning curve is so low is that the amount of customization you get is significantly lower than with WordPress. It lines up even with Wix or Squarespace in that regard.
The GoDaddy Website Builder starts you off with a 3-step introduction to how to use it.
And…it is about that easy. GoDaddy made their website builder for people who want a professional-looking site without needing a professional designer. You can choose from several different themes (really, templates) and then manipulate the elements involved exactly like you can in the WordPress block editor.
When the intro says to click an image or text to edit, it means it. You can either edit the page itself, typing in the front end of the site itself or the sidebar textbox. Whatever is more comfortable for you.
Additionally, you can use the service formerly known as Over (now GoDaddy Studio) to edit photos and add text and other effects directly in the browser.
This integration is fantastic, and if you haven’t tried the mobile app, we highly suggest it for quick image editing.
You also get easy access to site analytics and tracking features under the settings gear, including the cookie warning for GDPR consent, Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, and more.
However, some of them, like Search Engine Optimization (SEO), only offer basic tools (naming the site and including a meta description. To take advantage of the more advanced features, you will pay for them individually as premium access.
 |
 |
|
|---|---|---|
| Ease of Use | The interface take a bit to get used to, but most will be acclimated in a matter of minutes. | 🥇 Winner It’s bare bones, and simple, made for people who don’t want to put a lot of time hand crafting their website. |
| Choose WordPress | Choose GoDaddy |
Setting up an e-commerce shop is a top priority for many website owners. Physical merch and digital goods are one of the major selling points (pun intended) for setting up a website in the first place. But how does WordPress vs GoDaddy’s website builder compare in this commonplace battleground? We think WordPress has a solid advantage here, and GoDaddy can’t quite compete.
WooCommerce is WordPress’s premier e-commerce plugin. Free to download and start selling immediately, WooCommerce is amazingly extensible.
Being based on custom post types, adding products and variations in WooCommerce is as simple as creating a new post or page. The same process applies to everything in WordPress (pretty much).
There is a huge ecosystem of plugins, add-ons, and extensions for WooCommerce to wade through, both free and premium. And while there is a learning curve to perfecting your WooCommerce shop, you can get it off the ground and sell items within just a few hours.
The cost of running a WooCommerce store differs based on what you want, but we have a full rundown of what you can expect. For a fully featured store, stacked to the roof with all the features you could need, you’re running around $1,200 to $1,500 for the first year, with it recurring approximately $500 depending on your suite of extensions and hosting and other miscellaneous costs.
E-commerce using the GoDaddy site builder is a bit different. From the outset, everything about the e-commerce options is premium. You don’t get the free options to launch a store and accept payments from the beginning as with WooCommerce.
For the first year, you can expect to pay $16.99 per month, and after that, it’s $24.99 per mo. That doesn’t quite even out to the base $500 we estimated you’d need for WooCommerce at its most expensive, but that is also only a single extra feature in GoDaddy, each of which you must purchase separately.
|
|
|
|---|---|---|
| E-Commerce | 🥇 Winner WooCommerce makes it simple, cheap, and efficient to create an online store. |
It has less customization features available and is much more expensive. |
| Choose WordPress | Choose GoDaddy |
WordPress has grown into a full CMS over the years, but at its heart, it is still a blogging program. Most features are tied into Posts and Pages. Though you can have an entirely custom, static site that never publishes any content to its feed. The sites you make using the GoDaddy site builder are generally not great at publishing regular content like a blog but rather information for products, brands, individuals, or companies. Both platforms can excel at creating easy, beautiful static pages, but if you want to write articles and post regular updates, WordPress is the clear victor.
It should come as no surprise that WordPress is the clear victor here, either. The software is decades old and designed from the ground up with publishing of all kinds at its heart. The redesign of the post editor (the Gutenberg block editor that we showcased earlier) is a further indication that WP is staying true to its roots, giving you a universal tool to create and publish any kind of content you want, dynamic and updating or static.
The WordPress editor has multiple templates to highlight audio, photos, links, videos, and more. You can use these templates on static Pages as well as Posts. And you can use that same editor to design your site as well as publish new content.
Additionally, themes such as Divi exist to increase the options and functionality of WordPress publishing, giving you the ability to create entire templates for various types of posts or pages, depending on what categories, tags, and other criteria you may set.
WordPress is built around this kind of extensibility and highlights what you can do with publishing on the platform. Whatever kind of publishing features you need, there are plugins for them. You can get editorial calendars, comments on posts, templates, themes, notifications, and more from a wide array of third-party developers.
Regardless of what and how you want to publish, you’re going to be able to do it with WordPress. Because, at the end of the day, that’s what WordPress was built for.
The GoDaddy website builder, on the other hand, was built for creating business sites. Or informational pages. Any site that is going to exist without needing a lot of maintenance after launch. Sites where the owner may come in occasionally to adjust information or add new sections (or delete them later). But not sites where new content is published daily.
You can create a blank page and add any elements you need, such as timers, text blocks, images, and so on. Or you can choose from their pre-designed templates for About pages, Galleries, Contact, Lists, and the storefront itself.
Adding and publishing content is simple and easy. As we showed above, learning and using the software is quite straightforward. The main concern regarding the builder is that it’s not set up to easily create a blog. You can access the blogging dashboard from the menu in the top left, selecting My Blog.
On the next page, you will see that your site isn’t set up for a blog. You have to create a new blog page before any of your content will be visible to the public.
To do so, you must add a new blank page, then add a new blog section from the menu. Then navigate back to the dashboard and click Create Post to start. The editor itself is basic but functional. The elements you can work with are images, dividers, and text. You can categorize and add a featured image, too.
Using the GoDaddy blogging tool to create content isn’t particularly nice. It’s serviceable, and it does what it does without issue. It’s just nothing special. And that’s why it loses in this particular category. It doesn’t do anything noteworthy, but that may be fine for some people. If you need a simple website that displays information and/or sells products, the GoDaddy site builder works pretty well. But if you’re creating regular content for user consumption, it’s just not set up for that.
|
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Publishing | 🥇 Winner WordPress is the go to platform for bloggers and content creators. |
GoDaddy functions primarily as a place to display products or show off your brand rather than for bloggers. |
| Choose WordPress | Choose GoDaddy |
|
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Ease of Use | The interface take a bit to get used to, but most will be acclimated in a matter of minutes. | 🥇 Winner It’s bare bones, and simple, made for people who don’t want to put a lot of time hand crafting their website. |
| E-Commerce | 🥇 Winner WooCommerce makes it simple, cheap, and efficient to create an online store. |
It has less customization features available and is much more expensive. |
| Publishing | 🥇 Winner WordPress is the go to platform for bloggers and content creators. |
GoDaddy functions primarily as a place to display products or show off your brand rather than for bloggers. |
| Choose WordPress | Choose GoDaddy |
The GoDaddy site builder is a pretty nice piece of software, and it works quickly and smoothly. We didn’t run into any issues during the creative process that limited us in any way. But it’s very much not a publishing platform for regularly updated content. You can write updates and blogs and articles, but the feature seems like it was implemented as an afterthought. Creating a static site, however, is painless, and the templates look good enough to use on a public-facing site. Especially after you tweak the options and fine-tune the templates to your liking.
WordPress, though, is the better platform for publishing content. After all, it’s a content publishing platform. It is a lot more than that, too. Using built-in and third-party tools, you can create any kind of static site you want, complete with landing pages, squeeze pages, special event registration, and more. It takes a little more time to learn WordPress than using the GoDaddy builder, but if you are creating a site that you intend to stick with for the long term, WP is just a stronger platform in nearly every way.
Especially when you consider the quality of page builder plugins and themes that exist. The GoDaddy builder is fine, but some of the builders you can get with WP are phenomenal. If you are already using Godaddy and want to make the switch to WordPress, you’re in luck. It’s easy to move your website from the Godaddy Website Builder to WordPress in 6 simple steps.
One more thing. Are you curious to see how WordPress stacks up against its other biggest competitors? We did the hard work and compared WordPress vs everything else so that you don’t have to! Most recently, we reviewed WordPress vs Duda, and I think you will be interested to see the results.
If you’re looking for specific plugins to help WordPress become even more powerful, we recommend the following:
What have been your experiences with WordPress vs the GoDaddy website builder?
The post WordPress vs GoDaddy Website Builder (2023) — Let’s Compare! appeared first on Elegant Themes Blog.
In terms of WordPress competitors, they don’t come a lot bigger than Wix. Wix has made a name for itself by offering free websites that require absolutely no experience to create. The Wix team has grown its market share a great deal in recent years. WordPress, however, remains the 800-lb gorilla in the room. Because of its open-source approach, it powers well over 1/3 of the internet. Recent releases for WordPress have made the platform much more new-user friendly, so we are going to take you head-to-head with WordPress vs Wix to see which is the real no-fuss website-building platform.
Wix markets itself as “the platform that gives you the freedom to create, design, manage and develop your web presence exactly the way you want.” It is a fully hosted website platform. You use their page builder to make a professional-looking website from pre-designed templates. That means, first of all, that experienced website developers won’t get a lot out of Wix because they don’t get access to the inner workings. But people without that experience flock to Wix. They are drawn to its simplicity and ability to quickly get a good-looking website off the ground.
WordPress, on the other hand, is openly marketed toward “everyone.” Which is a pretty wide demographic. But because it’s the industry leader in market share, the strategy works for them. WordPress started as a blogging platform that has evolved into a full content management system (CMS). Because of that, users of any skill level can start with WordPress. They choose a theme and can start with their website in a flash. New users will find the Gutenberg block editor intuitive for page and post design. Experienced developers can dig into creating their features and designs by creating and coding their custom themes and plugins.
Both website platforms are incredibly easy for new users to jump into. And each has its unique quirks and learning curves.
Users don’t want a lot of roadblocks in their way to creating a website and getting their content in front of people. You may be setting up your first site ever. Or your thousandth. Either way, break down how easy it is to get started with a website on WordPress vs Wix.
WordPress originated as a blogging platform, which is evident in its core features, Posts and Pages. The platform’s simplicity and comprehensibility make it easy to use. Custom Post Types are used by major plugins and features, such as Toolset and WooCommerce, to expand the platform’s capabilities. Understanding the basic publishing workflow is enough for users to learn the platform’s advanced features.
Regrettably, the dashboard and UI haven’t developed as seamlessly as other parts of the platform (e.g., the Gutenberg block editor). The left-hand sidebar can be perplexing and unintuitive for new users. Adding new plugins and themes can lead to clutter and poor navigation, which is expected.
By the time your dashboard gets as cluttered as the one above (which is from a site started in 2013), you will have learned to navigate it and use the features. However, that doesn’t change that the user experience is less-than-stellar.
The main challenge in learning WordPress is discovering the ideal themes and plugins. Thankfully, we can help you with that. We have an exhaustive library of posts to help you choose the best form plugins, some great options for social media integration, popular SEO plugins, as well as WooCommerce and blogging themes to help get you started.
And if you don’t want to sink that time into it and need a website fast, the default themes and core features look nice and work immediately after installation.
Starting with Wix is a bit simpler than WordPress. There are a couple of calls to action on the page prompting you to get started with your free account.
From there, you decide how you want to create the site. You can edit from the ground up using the drag-and-drop page builder. Or you and answer a series of questions about what kind of site you want to have. You might choose eCommerce or blog or portfolio. Whatever you choose, you’re then given a choice of features to include such as forums, contact forms, and email opt-ins. And finally, you choose between 6 different color/font themes and add what pages you want on the site (such as a blog or about me or policies, etc.).
Once you choose these elements, Wix loads your dashboard. The whole process is straightforward. When it’s done, you have a ready-to-publish site (outside of not having your content, of course).
However, that’s when the simplicity and ease of use stop. From there, Wix takes you to your dashboard, which is just as cluttered (if not more so) as WordPress’s. But this one contains so many upsells that navigating to actual features you can use versus features locked behind a paywall is like running an obstacle course.
Nearly every click in their dashboard brings up some kind of upsell. Even pushing your site live brings up a screen-filling modal that makes it seem as though subscribing is how to proceed. Additionally, messages such as “Get Your Site on Google” and “Get Found on Google” are misleading to users, New website owners may not understand how search crawlers work and the site will be indexed regardless. All that feature does is connect the site to Google Search Console. Which is admittedly important for long-term success, whether your site is Wix vs WordPress.
We mention all of this in this section because this is most certainly an ease-of-use issue. The constant upsells are somewhat distracting. They get in the way of easily designing and launching a site, which is the primary focus of Wix’s marketing.
|
 |
|
|---|---|---|
| Ease of Use | 🳠Draw
Dashboard can be a bit difficult when a lot of plugins are installed, but the core elements are easy to understand. |
🳠Draw
Getting started is simple, with step-by-step instructions. That being said, the Wix dashboard is full of upsells and is very convoluted. |
| Choose WordPress | Choose Wix |
Over the past decade, page builders have brought non-designers the ability to create professional-looking websites through templates, drag-and-drop interfaces, and modular elements. Both Wix and WordPress offer these features, and in many ways is the primary way the platforms appeal to new website owners. We take a look at the builders available on both platforms so you know what you’re getting into with either.
In terms of ease-of-use, however, WordPress’s Gutenberg block editor does shine as an intuitive way to write and edit posts, as well as design pages (though page builder plugins such as Elementor, and Beaver Builder, and themes such as Divi offer much more advanced options when you get to need those). You add blocks, use built-in controls and options to place them, and then publish. You don’t even need to adjust CSS to create content with it.
If you want a more powerful approach, most of the top free WordPress themes come with either a built-in page builder or integrated support for third-party builders like Divi. You get to pick and choose which builder works best for you and has exactly the experience you want.
However, the downside to this is that the only one built into WordPress itself is Gutenberg. And you have to research third-party developers to get more advanced ones.
Wix’s customizable website’s core is user-friendly, unlike the dashboard. The design of the builders is aesthetically pleasing. Wix offers a step-by-step builder (Wix ADI) and a drag-and-drop builder. Dev mode (powered by Velo) allows you to add custom javascript for additional functionality, but you’ll need to upgrade your account to use it.
Neither builder is as effective as popular WordPress editors like Gutenberg. However, first-time users will receive a brief tutorial on adding elements, sections, and pages, and managing the business aspects.
The drag-and-drop editor is a superior tool compared to the ADI builder, offering more control over individual elements. With drag-and-drop, you can move elements to any spot without CSS or other elements being affected.
You can swap between elements and pages, and those load a lot faster than the ADI editor. But it still lags in every browser we tried.
Overall, the Wix builder alone is enough to deter anyone who wants an easy, smooth experience. The app just has enough to be a contender for building a solid website that you can use for anything but a quick announcement or placeholder.
|
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Page Builders | 🥇 Winner The Gutenberg Block editor is simple and intuitive. Plus, there are an abundance of third-party choices available. |
While the aesthetics and overall design are nice, that’s where the effectiveness of Wix ends. The builder is laggy, making swapping between elements painfully slow. |
| Choose WordPress | Choose Wix |
It’s easy to spend countless hours tweaking fonts, adjusting plugins, choosing colors, and editing templates. Making sure that your website is perfect for your users is a big part of what being a website owner is about. So we are going to take a look at what WordPress vs Wix offer you in terms of customization and being able to give your users the experience they deserve.
Other WordPress customization options outside of page builders and editors come built into the platform. You can add custom CSS to the site through the Theme Customizer, and even dig into the PHP files for your theme right through the back dashboard (though we don’t recommend doing that).
Part of what makes WordPress appealing is the ability to customize and tweak every aspect of your site. You can add plugins for new features, adjust themes, and dig into the code. That being said, with the introduction of full site editing themes, customizations span even further to custom templates, template parts, and block patterns, without having to edit a single line of code.
WordPress primarily relies on themes and plugins for customization, whereas Wix focuses on builder-based customization. WordPress.org offers a vast repository of themes and plugins to choose from for establishing a site’s foundation. Plus, there are countless third-party plugins to extend WordPress’s ability. For example, Divi users benefit from the Divi Marketplace, where they can boost Divi’s already stellar capabilities through plugins and extensions.
Theme developers usually include multiple customization options in their designs, enabling users to control the added elements. Users can extend site functionality by installing plugins, which add custom widgets, post types, scripts, and utilities.
In terms of customization, the options that you get in the builders are what you get with Wix. You can tweak elements and keep them all within the designs that will always make your website look put together and professionally designed. Regarding content, you can add whatever you want. Videos, photos, blogs, whatever.
You can customize layouts and various elements for your eCommerce shops and blogs. In general, the customization options within Wix are comparable to other hosted builders like Squarespace or HubSpot. The intent isn’t to give you full rein, as in WordPress. It is to present you with a series of options that work well together and make an aesthetically pleasing final website.
This is good – because as we mentioned earlier – if you want to add anything else to the website via custom code (such as CSS), then you’re going to have to upgrade your membership.
Not even being able to customize CSS is a major lacking point for a website. This is only a limitation on free accounts, however, and a pretty standard one at that. Even free WordPress.com (which is also a free-to-premium platform like Wix) prevents free users from adjusting CSS for their themes.
|
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Customization | 🥇 Winner
WordPress shines in terms of customization based on the sheer amount of plugins and themes available, as well as the ability to add CSS for ultimate control. |
What you see is basically what you get with Wix. While you can tweak the available elements, adding CSS will cost you additional fees. |
| Choose WordPress | Choose Wix |
Making money by selling something on the internet is many people’s dream. You may want to sell courses or ebooks. Or you might want to have an online space for your in-person shop. Whatever your intent, both WordPress and Wix have quick-and-easy options for setting up shops.
WordPress technically doesn’t have e-commerce built into it. WooCommerce is a separate plugin that you will need to install, but it’s owned and developed by the same company as WordPress, so it might as well be a default e-commerce platform.
When you log into WooCommerce, you have a dashboard that includes full payment reporting, as well as a series of menus to the side with other default features. You get customer details, can create coupons, run reports, send emails to customers, check the status of orders, and so on.
By default, WooCommerce enables PayPal as a payment method. Because PayPal is one of the easiest payment processors available. Even so, PayPal isn’t available in many countries, so you will want more than that. WooCommerce gives you the option for Stripe payments, too, as well as a feature called WooCommerce Payments that the company handles by itself. Plus, there is additional support for other payment processors, too.
Furthermore, while WooCommerce offers an impressive selection of extensions to enhance its functionality, you may require additional plugins for specific features. These plugins are often available for purchase as premium or freemium options. Notably, Yith is a well-regarded company offering some of the best WooCommerce add-ons at both price points.
Fortunately, there are numerous options available for WooCommerce, such as SEO plugins and product image zoom plugins, which can greatly improve your online store. Additionally, for brick-and-mortar stores seeking to integrate their online and in-store inventory management, WooPos is an ideal solution to bridge the gap between the two systems.
Probably the biggest issue with WooCommerce is that the shop itself is not very customizable. You can adjust the layout some, but by and large, the majority of WooCommerce shops and products look eerily similar.
That being said, some premium themes and plugins can be used to create custom product pages. For example, Divi’s Theme Builder can create beautiful product page templates, as well as shop and category page templates with help from Divi’s built-in integration with WooCommerce.
First, we want to point out again that Wix is all about the upsells. The platform has an e-commerce shop built into the builder so you can go in and add products just like any other page. However, if you’re a free user (to whom Wix primarily advertises), you cannot accept online payments at all. So you’re forced to upgrade to a premium plan regardless.
Adding products and using the actual builder is painless. It can be sluggish and slow to respond, but in comparison to WooCommerce, the UI is much easier to use. And nicer to look at.
All of the options and information you need are in a single place, even creating coupon codes or sending emails to customers. This consolidation is a lot more useful than the WordPress way of spreading things out across multiple screens.
The shop is about on par with the WordPress one. You do get more customization options with Wix, but they’re pretty superficial. You can adjust margins and layout and how text appears and sorting, etc., but your store is probably going to be a pretty standard grid. That said, it probably will be with WordPress and WooCommerce, too.
|
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Ecommerce | 🳠Draw
WordPress doesn’t come natively with ecommerce functionality, but there are plugin options available. Woocommerce adds a shop to WordPress, but it’s not the most straightforward to set up. |
🳠Draw
Wix offers the ability to add products in the free version of its software, but if you want to collect payments, you’ll have to upgrade your account. That being said, adding products to the platform is quite simple. |
| Choose WordPress | Choose Wix |
One more thing. Before you make your final decision on your website platform…are you curious to see how WordPress stacks up against its other biggest competitors? We did the hard work and compared WordPress vs everything else so that you don’t have to! Most recently, we reviewed WordPress vs Squarespace, and I think you will be interested to see the results.
WordPress is a stronger platform than Wix in almost every way. While Wix has some nice features, such as a good UI and a cool drag-and-drop editor, we are not impressed with its platform. However, it is a decent service if you’re willing to upgrade your account a few levels.
Wix’s upselling suggests it targets those who want a free website, but its free option is not functional. Many reasons exist to avoid free websites. Wix markets itself as free, but to use the site you build, you must pay a considerable amount.
With WordPress, you do have to handle a lot more of the backend features. Like theme and plugin installation, maintenance, and hosting. But the power and lack of restriction the platform gives are more than worth learning how to do. Feature by feature, WordPress offers a smoother, more stable experience than the Wix platform.
That being said, WordPress has a slightly steeper learning curve to start, but if you intend to keep the website active for more than a month or two, we say go with WordPress over Wix because of its list of possible integrations, features, and customization options.
Here’s a complete breakdown of all the features that both options offer. As you can see, WordPress wins by a wide margin. This is largely due to the fact that there are so many plugins and themes available. Plus, you have more options when it comes to hosting than you do with Wix. WordPress hosts are plentiful, but there are a few such as Cloudways and SiteGround that offer some stand-out features at a very reasonable price.
|
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Ease of Use | 🳠Draw
Dashboard can be a bit difficult when a lot of plugins are installed, but the core elements are easy to understand. |
🳠Draw
Getting started is simple, with step-by-step instructions. That being said, the Wix dashboard is full of upsells and is very convoluted. |
| Page Builders | 🥇 Winner
The Gutenberg Block editor is simple and intuitive. Plus, there are an abundance of third-party choices available. |
While the aesthetics and overall design are nice, that’s where the effectiveness of Wix ends. The builder is laggy, making swapping between elements painfully slow. |
| Customization | 🥇 Winner
WordPress shines in terms of customization based on the sheer amount of plugins and themes available, as well as the ability to add CSS for ultimate control. |
What you see is basically what you get with Wix. While you can tweak the available elements, adding CSS will cost you additional fees. |
| Ecommerce | 🳠Draw
WordPress doesn’t come natively with ecommerce functionality, but there are plugin options available. Woocommerce adds a shop to WordPress, but it’s not the most straightforward to set up. |
🳠Draw
Wix offers the ability to add products in the free version of its software, but if you want to collect payments, you’ll have to upgrade your account. That being said, adding products to the platform is quite simple. |
| Choose WordPress | Choose Wix |
We hope you’ve enjoyed this WordPress vs Wix comparison. Which are you leaning toward now? WordPress or Wix?
The post WordPress vs Wix (2023) — Which is Right for You? appeared first on Elegant Themes Blog.
Divi is one of the most popular website builders out there. That said, the builder has quite a few downsides, too. Fortunately, there are plenty of other high-quality website builders that can make a better Divi alternative for your situation. In this article, we are going to dive into five of them.
The post Divi Alternatives: Best Free & Premium Divi Alternatives in 2022 appeared first on ThemeIsle Blog.