Category: WordPress | What Say The Experts

34 Common WordPress Errors (+Experts Share How to Fix Them)

by Chris Herbert | Last Updated May 14, 2021

WordPress errors are no joke. They can make your site inaccessible to visitors, create security vulnerabilities, result in a less than desirable user experience and just make you seem plain unprofessional. And they’re also annoyingly common!

If you’re done with the screams of frustration – “WHY WON’T IT JUST WORK” – and tearing your hair out, and the rational part of you has re-taken control and is looking for answers, you’ve come to the right place. We put together this resource to help WordPress users just like you resolve some of the more common WordPress errors that can arise.

But I’m definitely no WordPress expert. So I got in touch with over 30 people that are. They resolve WordPress errors for a living and between them have come across just about every error you could face on your own site. The idea was simple. We asked each of them to talk about an error they have routinely encountered and provide some potential solutions.

The result? A fairly comprehensive rundown of common WP errors and their solutions that can act as your guiding light in a time of need. We hope it helps preserve your sanity!

The Most Common WordPress Errors

Having encountered a range of WordPress errors over the years, I was pretty curious to find out which are the most common. Which errors are WordPress pros coming across most frequently?

So I did what I do best and asked the question as part of our research. Each WP pro that took part in this article was asked to name the 3 most common WordPress errors that they encounter. This data was compiled, sorted and used to put together the chart you can see below.

As you can see, Internal Server Errors and the “White Screen of Death” (is it just me or does the name of this error make you feel like your life is over?!) were by far the most common WordPress errors referenced in this poll.

If you’re a budding developer or someone who relies on WordPress heavily, it may be worth taking note of these errors in particular and learning how you can resolve them. Because it looks as though you’ll definitely be facing them at some point!

An Overview of the WordPress Errors + Problems Covered in This Post

When you see a WordPress error message appear before your eyes, you might feel worried, frustrated or even a little helpless. But whatever your emotion, you want to fix that error as quickly as possible.

Not to worry. Our group of experts has got you covered. Below you can see a quick rundown of all the WordPress errors that you can find solutions for in this article. Find whichever one you’re currently trying to fix, and skip right to the solution.

If there are any WordPress errors that are missing that you’d like to see added to this article, please let us know and we’ll do our best to make it happen!

Other Articles You May Find Useful:

What the Experts Said: Solutions to WordPress Errors Explained

This is where the magic happens. Our experts each talk about a WordPress issue that you might need to fix and equip you with code snippets and pointers to help you end your troubles.

Use the filters below to quickly navigate to a specific WordPress error.

{"filter_mode":"masonry"}

Ilene Johnson

WordPress Developer with more than 10 years of experience

https://ikjweb.com

Exceeds the Maximum Upload Size for this Site
Ideas on How to Solve It – Do ONE of the following to increase the memory limit:

1. Edit the wp-config file and add the following code:
```
define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '256M');
```
2. Edit php.ini file and add the following line of code:
```
memory_limit = 256M ;
```
3. Edit .htaccess file and add the following line of code:”
```
php_value memory_limit 256M
```

Cristina Robinson

Cristina Robinson is a full-stack designer and blogger at The Lovely Geek, a web design studio with a passion for helping companies enhance their online presence.

https://www.thelovelygeek.com

Stuck in Maintenance Mode

– “Whenever we update our themes and plugins, WordPress goes into temporary maintenance mode. Sometimes it gets stuck in maintenance mode rendering us unable to access the backend and frontend of our WordPress site. Luckily it’s a simple fix.
Ideas on How to Solve It – Access your website via FTP and navigate to the root folder to find the .maintenance file. Once you’ve located that file, delete it. Clear your cache and give your browser a quick refresh.

If you find yourself in this situation often, next time try updating your plugins and themes one at a time.”

Arūnas Liuiza

Arūnas is an experienced WordPress plugin developer, who has been using WordPress since version 2.6.3. Currently he is working on Kayak.com content platform architecture. He is a WordPress Core Contributor, WordPress Kaunas Meetup co-organizer, WordCamp, WordSesh, TEDx speaker and co-editor of the Lithuanian WordPress translation.

https://arunas.co

White Screen of Death

– “This is a situation where Your WordPress site just fails to load and gives you an empty white page instead. It can happen only on the frontend, or it can take the WP Admin console as well. It’s one of the most common WordPress errors people come across.

This usually happens when there is a PHP Fatal error somewhere in your website. It can be caused by a badly uploaded file, a bug in a plugin or a theme, or even by a compatibility issue between them. An upgraded PHP version might be to blame as well.

The annoying thing is that it is impossible to know from the blank white screen what is actually wrong. Unless you have some divine powers, I guess. For us common folks, we need to find a way to debug this issue.

Another frustrating thing is it will not happen in every environment. On your local dev server, you would probably see an error right away. And on some poorly set-up production servers as well. It is the well set-up production servers that are the issue – their administrators usually disable display of PHP errors to the visitors. And that is the correct thing to do, since error messages like that can give away valuable information to people who have less than honourable intentions.
Ideas on How to Solve It – There are a couple of ways to debug a situation like this. One is to check PHP error logs on the server. Your server control panel (Plesk, cPanel, etc.) usually has a place to read logs, or if you have good SSH access, they can be found via terminal as well.

If you do not have access to server logs, it is possible to enable the WordPress internal debug log. Go into the wp-config.php file of your WordPress site and add the following lines:
```
define( 'WP_DEBUG', true );
define( 'WP_DEBUG_LOG', 'wp-content/wp-errors.log' );
define( 'WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false );
```
This will tell WordPress to enable the debug log, where to put it, and to not show errors to the visitors.

Now when we have some way of looking at logs, it’s time to find the real culprit. Look for lines with the words ‘Fatal error’ in them – those are the root of your problems. On the same line PHP usually references the offending file, with its full path. From that, you can see what plugin or theme the error is originating from, and, of course, a lot more details about what the particular problem is.

The first solution is to disable the offending plugin or theme. You can do that via SSH/FTP/File manager in your hosting control panel. Just go in and rename the directory. I.e. If `my-cool-plugin` is causing the problem, rename it to `my-cool-plugin-broken` or something like it. This will make the site load, at the very least. Some functionality might be missing (in case of a plugin), or it can revert to the WordPress default theme, twenty-something (in case of a theme), but at least the site is unstuck and loads something. You might need to repeat this several times, if for instance, a new PHP version is causing compatibility issues with several plugins.

The next step is to fix the actual issue. And this depends a lot on what the error log says. You might need to update your plugin or theme, find an alternative one, or fix your own code if the issue is with something that you developed yourself. But that’s a whole other topic!”

Scott Kindred

Scott provides consulting to business executives and leaders of organizations who want a holistic strategy for the success of their online presence.

https://safehouseweb.com

WordPress Website Not Sending Email

– “Your new WordPress site is up and running but you discover that it is not sending email. Most commonly, the problem encountered is that your contact form is not sending its email notifications to you. Other form notifications that you would like to be sent to you, such as a call to action form in a sales funnel, and form entry confirmations sent to your website visitors, can also be impacted by this problem.

The problem usually centers around WordPress’ native email programming that uses the PHP mail() function. This function is increasingly blocked by email service providers like Gmail and Office365; their spam prevention measures. Relying on the native email function often means email that is sent out from your WordPress website may not make it into the recipient’s inbox or even their spam folder.
Ideas on How to Solve It – Use an SMTP Plugin.

I recommend three of the top plugins, each of which facilitates the use of a third-party email service like Mailgun or Sendinblue. The SMPTP plugin bypasses the native WordPress PHP mail() function and routes outbound email using proper authentication. This results in reliable email deliverability.

1.WP Mail SMTP by WPForms. Choose the SMPTP services best suited for your needs:

SMTP.com
Sendinblue SMTP
Mailgun SMTP
SendGrid SMTP
Gmail SMTP
Microsoft SMTP (Outlook.com and Office 365) [Pro]
Amazon SES SMTP [Pro]
Zoho Mail SMTP [Pro]
All other SMTP

2.Mailgun plugin for WordPress. Specific use with the Mailgun SMPTP service.

Mailgun has a free account that lets you send up to 200 emails per day.

3.Sendinblue plugin for WordPress

Up to 300 emails sent per day for free.

Use these great solutions to make sure both you and your website visitors are receiving email from your website.”

Scott Bothel

Scott has been helping small businesses and non-profits build custom WordPress sites in the Seattle area for over a decade.

http://Fourtencreative.com

PHP Version Mismatch

– “As the speed of progress and the age of WordPress start to collide, it is becoming more common to find a mismatch between your WordPress install and the version of PHP being run on your server. It is not uncommon to find older shared hosting configurations still running PHP 5.4, which was released 8 years ago. With the latest versions of WordPress, there will be an alert on the dashboard when your PHP version needs to be updated. Be sure to backup your current environment and run all available WordPress updates for the platform itself, themes, and plugins.
Ideas on How to Solve It – Standard cPanel hosting accounts should provide you with access to changing the PHP version for your account or a specific folder. If you do not have this access, be sure to contact your WordPress hosting provider.

After changing the php version, be sure to refresh your website to see if the notice goes away. It is also possible that you might encounter the white screen of death at this point if you are running an outdated theme or plugin that conflicts with newer versions of PHP. Be sure to follow the troubleshooting steps for that problem next!”

Natalie Famula

Web developer who loves working with WordPress

https://www.girl-dev.com

Connection is Timing Out (504 Error)

– “When you are experiencing a 504 error, there could be a few culprits. This WordPress error occurs when your server does not receive a response quickly when it attempts to load the page.
Ideas on How to Solve It – If you are on a shared hosting plan, you may need to upgrade. This could be a result of another site overloading the server, which is why the connection timed out when trying to access your own site. Contact your hosting provider to see if this is the issue.

Unfortunately, this error could be the result of a hack. Check your firewall logs, and if you suspect any suspicious activity contact your hosting services immediately. They will be able to run a scan and help you troubleshoot.

If you see this error frequently, your WordPress site may not be optimized for performance. First, verify this error is occurring for other users and on other devices. Next, ensure the database is optimized. If the database looks good, then deactivate any plugins one by one to see if one of them is the culprit. The next step is to check that the .htaccess file is set up as expected and nothing has caused any changes here.

If you have a custom theme, take a closer look at your theme files. Identify any opportunities for optimization. This can be a time-consuming process, so try to rule out any simpler causes first.”

Lisa Rees

I am a WordPress whizz who loves working with ambitious and awesome female entrepreneurs. I will bring your business alive in the online world and allow your vision to become a reality. I allow you to go beyond the ordinary and let your ideas really come alive!

https://websitewonderwoman.com

Internal Server Error (500)

– “One of the most common WordPress errors that I get asked to fix is the 500 Internal server error and as it makes your site inaccessible it sends most people into a blind panic! The error doesn’t actually mean anything specific. All it means is that something has gone wrong but it’s not sure what. 80-90% of the time this issue on a WordPress site is due to a plugin conflict, so you’ve probably just added a plugin or done some updates. The good news is that it’s one of the easier-to-fix WordPress errors, but it will require you to have access to your hosting control panel or FTP.
Ideas on How to Solve It – Plugin conflicts are often to blame when it comes to an internal server error. If you are using your hosting’s control panel then you need to navigate to file manager (the instructions are then the same after that for FTP also). Open your site’s main folder (usually public_html) and then open the folder called wp-content. What you need to do now is rename the plugin folder (I normally just put a 1 or off at the end so plugins1 or pluginsoff). Once you have renamed the folder try and reload your website.

If it loads then login and navigate to the plugins page. You will notice all the plugins are unavailable. Go back to your cPanel or FTP and change the name of the plugins folder back to plugins and refresh the plugins page in WordPress.

Now visit your updates page and check to see if you have a load of WordPress updates pending (as if you haven’t updated the site for a very long time plugins can be out of date and not function properly).

You will now need to test each plugin; reactivate them one by one to see which one was the culprit. If you turn one on and get the error 500 again then you know that it’s the plugin causing the issue. You will then need to repeat the above steps with cPanel or FTP but leave that plugin deactivated. It may be that the plugin needs an update or you may need to use an alternative plugin if it’s essential to your site.

If your site doesn’t come back on after turning plugins off also try renaming the theme folder (which would be an error with your theme if it comes back on) or check the .htaccess file in your sites main folder (if you can’t see it you may have to enable hidden files). You may need to check with your web host what needs to be included but if you feel confident enough to change the file, copy and paste everything from the .htaccess file into a text document and replace with:
```
# BEGIN WordPress

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]


# END WordPress
```
Then see if that solves your internal server error. Any additional text in the .htaccess file will probably have been added by plugins so you will need to add it back section by section, noticing if it turns the site back off again.

Another tip to remember when dealing with an internal server error is to always have backups of your site (you can use the Updraft Plus backup plugin, which is free) as if there is an issue you can always roll the site back to when you last noticed it was working. Backups are normally kept for a maximum of two weeks, so I always recommend checking your WordPress site at least once a week for any issues.”

Jithin Mathew

Electronics engineer by profession and WordPress developer by passion. Been developing and helping people with their WordPress issues for the past 10 years. Currently working with Walmart Canada for their Editorial Platform.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jithinmathew/

HTTP Error During Media Upload

– “This is one of the more common WordPress errors you might have faced. The most common cause of this error is the server resources. There might be a couple of reasons for this which I’m going to talk you through below.
Ideas on How to Solve It – If the site has been working fine and then suddenly you find this issue, the most likely cause is running out of disk space on the server. Check your hosting and make sure you have enough space for storing the files on the server. Make sure you have at least 150MB of free space.

Another possible cause might be the image dimensions. Let’s say you are trying to upload a high-resolution image (4500x4500px), you may run into this error. The best solution is to downsize the image and upload the recommended dimensions. (Some themes and plugins require images to be within certain dimensions for ideal outputs)

Another culprit that could trigger this error is the Memory Limit. If you are on a shared hosting or a resource thirsty hosting, the RAM available to process the image might be less than what’s needed. To fix this error, try adding this code to your wp_config.php to increase the php memory limit:
```
define( 'WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '256M' );
```
You can also set this value from your hosting control panel (if enabled), or using .htaccess file by adding the line:
```
php_value memory_limit 256M
```
Or by editing the php.ini or user.ini file by adding / updating the line :
```
memory_limit = 256M
```
With this, we are allotting 256MB of memory for processing the uploads and this should fix it.”

Scott Adrian

Lead WordPress engineer with 7 years of WordPress development experience. I've worked for large WordPress based sites for companies such as Warner Bros, Disney and Universal. Most of my work involves enterprise level WordPress programming for high trafficked sites. I also have authored or contributed to 8 plugins currently in the WordPress directory.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-adrian-54921795/

Bad connection to your REST API

– “Error: {“code”:”rest_no_route”,”message”:”No route was found matching the URL and request method”,”data”:{“status”:404}}

Oh no! I spent all this time learning how to use the WP REST API. Felt like I was dominating the website like a boss. Then I engage my respective function and my request returns a 404 error. What!?

Yeah, I’ve been there almost every time I’ve developed a new site. There are a handful of reasons this happens, and the solutions are all pretty simple.

First off why are we using the REST API at all? Why not just stick to our handy WP_AJAX? Stick to what you know works, right?

Great question! I’d sum up the reason to switch to the REST API in these 3 points:
- You don’t need two separate functions for admin/front-end calls.
- WordPress provides a lot of OOTB endpoints so you usually don’t need to make your own.
- Your site data can now be accessed outside of WordPress by other apps/sites!
Ideas on How to Solve It – So back to our error. You got the courage to put your WP_AJAX functions to bed. You registered your rest route or are trying to access core endpoints. You get a 404 error response! Here are some reasons why this happens.

Reason 1:

You’re accessing the rest route OUTSIDE of your website without the proper authentication!

Solution:

This one can get tricky. All outside POST/DELETE calls / Custom rest routes require your headers to include Basic Authorization.

Here’s what that looks like:

Authorization: Basic {base64_encode(username:password)}

You can use an administrator username and password, but I’ve run into issues with this OOTB authorization. When the authorization just doesn’t seem to be working even with the proper header, sometimes I turn to this great plugin:

https://github.com/WP-API/Basic-Auth

Turn it on and the requests magically work. This plugin does require the sites to be on SSL to make sure your calls are safe though, so if you’re not sure where the request is coming from I’d try the next one.

Another great tool, which allows you to not need an actual user account to make the call is:

https://wordpress.org/plugins/application-passwords/

This allows you to register apps for your site instead of using user accounts to make the REST calls. It even allows you to develop a page for outside devs to register an app to use your API.

Authorization can be tricky so I suggest getting Postman to make testing your calls easier.

Reason 2:

Whoops! My path is wrong 🙁

Solution:

We’ve all been there. 3am, can’t stop programming, and now nothing is working. Get some sleep and check your rest route path in the morning.

When it comes to custom rest routes, the path can be complicated to the naked eye. Mainly due to the fact that there are two parts to your path that are defined by you.

Here is an example of a custom rest route I made:
```
register_rest_route('orbemorder/v1', '/area/(?P[a-zA-Z0-9-]+)', [
            'methods'  => 'GET',
            'callback' => [$this, 'getOrbemArea'],
        ]);
```
The namespace is that first parameter, THEN you have the route.

Now you’ll notice all those random characters wrapping the “position” argument. If you have those even slightly off you’re in trouble. My example is looking to receive a “string”.

If you were receiving an “integer” it would look like this:
```
(?Pd+)
```
If I was going to hit my custom rest route the path would look like this:
```
https://${wpThemeURL}/wp-json/orbemorder/v1/area/${position}
```
Where the “wpThemeURL” is your site url and “position” is a string.

You’ll notice “wp-json” in the path. That lets the request know it’s accessing your site’s REST API. The namespace comes first after that, THEN the route is after.

Get your path right and you should be golden.

Reason 3:

You’re using the wrong method!

Solution:

If you’re using a OOTB REST endpoint from WP like /posts/ or /users/ then you need to make sure you’re using the proper request method.

Example:
```
const xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhr.open( "GET", filehref, true );
```
The “GET” is the method. If you’re trying to retrieve some post/user content, “GET” is what you want.

If you’re trying to update any of your site’s data then go for “POST”.

If you want to delete a post/user then use the “DELETE” method.

Now if you’re hitting a custom rest route you always need to use “GET” even if your manipulating/deleting data. This is because the request doesn’t know what your callback function is doing so it doesn’t care. It just knows that you’re using a custom rest route.

Conclusion:

The WordPress REST API is powerful. With Gutenberg around we all need to learn A LOT more Javascript these days. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes and fail over and over. And over and over. We’re programmers, it’s what we do.

It only takes one success to allow you to go get coffee and fail again.”

Juan Pineda

Agile Digital Agency helps companies to stand out from their competition, generating better qualified leads and increasing their sales inquiries.

https://www.agiledigitalagency.com/

Broken Links on Your Website (404 Error)

– “Once your WordPress site has been LIVE for a while, it is not unusual that you discover you have some broken links on it. It’s one of the more common WordPress errors that users face.

Broken links can happen for a variety of reasons. Perhaps you decided to change the format of your permalinks and added the category slug to your posts URL. Or you recategorised your content and some of your posts were moved to a different category. Or you deleted some of your content because you didn’t want to show it anymore. Maybe you had a blog on a subdomain and you moved it to a subfolder on your new website.

The result of all these changes is that the old URLs don’t work anymore.

This shouldn’t be a problem if those old URLs were not used anywhere else. But, most likely, they are already indexed by search engines, so they may show up on the search results page. Maybe you have shared them on your social media posts, or someone else has put backlinks to that content. It could also be that those pages are linked to from other pages within your own website.

You will agree that it won’t be a great experience for your users to try to access your content and end up on a blank page.

But, how can you identify and fix these problems?
Ideas on How to Solve It – There is a tool that I’m still using after many years called Xenu. This is a free tool that you can download and scan your site for broken links. I think it has not been updated for years, but it’s still doing the job and it’s very easy to use. It will help you identify both internal and external broken links.

Another free tool that you can download for a similar purpose is Screaming Frog. This one will do a full audit of your website from a technical SEO perspective. So you will identify not only broken links but many other areas where you can improve your onsite SEO.

If you haven’t configured Google Search Console for your website please do so. Google Search Console will give you a lot of valuable information about your website, including data about several WordPress errors. For broken links, you will find a report of pages showing 404 errors in the coverage section.

Once you know what broken links your website contains, it is time to decide what to do with them.

First, ensure that your WordPress theme has a 404 error page. With this, users will see a friendly message rather than a broken page. You can also offer them alternative links so they can continue their journey on your website. More information about this here.

Second, take your list of broken URLs and consider which pages are still valid but have a different URL. For those, if you have access to the content that contains the old link go and update it. For example, your internal pages and social media posts. It is always better to have clean and up to date URLs.

Then, install a REDIRECTION plugin on your WordPress website and create the redirections. For this, you basically add a new entry for each broken page that needs to go to a new URL. So all those users that may click on the old URL via Google or 3rd party websites will end up on your new page.

Lastly, if you removed pages that are still indexed by search engines, you can submit a removal request. You can do this via “Google Search Console” for Google or via “Bing Webmaster Tools” for Bing.

Fixing broken links will help you deliver a better user experience to your visitors. And it will also be beneficial for your SEO.”

Sarah Strait

Hi! I'm a WP designer and owner of Nautilus Web Design, a full-service tech marketing agency. I live and breathe web design and love learning new design tactics.

https://www.nautiluswebdesign.com/

“Your Connection Is Not Private” SSL Issues

– “Internet users are increasingly concerned about safety and security as they’re browsing, and seeing a warning about an insecure website is sure to turn them away. Don’t miss out on potential business opportunities just because they can’t (or won’t) access your site. If you notice this error, or someone brings it to your attention, it’s not the end of the world but is something you should pay prompt attention to.

Information between the site’s server and the visitor’s browser is transferred via Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which by itself isn’t secure. In order to protect the data transferred, such as login or payment information, a certificate known as Secure Socket Layer (SSL) is added to the site. When a site is secured, it’s usually denoted with a tiny padlock and https:// at the beginning of the url, which stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS).

However, when the visitor’s browser is unable to validate the SSL certificate tied to the website, a notification will pop up to anyone trying to access the site to warn them that it may not be safe. This is what the notification looks like on Google Chrome.

The error message will be slightly different on other browsers, but the overall message is the same to site visitors: NOPE. So, how do you fix this error? Luckily, it’s pretty simple if you know where to look.
Ideas on How to Solve It – If you know you have an SSL certificate installed on your site, first check to see if it’s still valid and has not expired. You can check the status of your certificate, as well as the expiration date, by clicking the padlock next to your url. In the example below, you can see that the certificate is valid.

Clicking on “Certificate” pulls up the details, showing the valid dates and more. If the certificate is, in fact, out of date, you would need to update it or contact your hosting provider for assistance.

View a Clean Version

Honestly, this is just good advice any time something funky happens with a site. First, open the site in an incognito window. By using an incognito window, you force your browser to open the site without cache or cookies. If it works on incognito mode, there’s probably an issue with your browser cache or cookies and clearing it should solve the issue…

Try a Different Browser

If you’ve tried the previous step and are still seeing the error, load the page in another browser. If the site works on that browser, try to uninstall and reinstall the browser showing the security issue.

Check Your Time

As odd as it may seem, your computer’s clock may be causing the issue. If your computer has incorrectly synced the time, it could cause your browser to think that the site’s SSL certificate is invalid or expired. If your time or date isn’t correct, go into your computer’s settings and update it, then check your site again.

Fix Mixed-Content Issues

Even if your site is secure, having insecure content could still cause your browser to treat the entire page as insecure. The most common reason is insecure files hosted on other sites that are linked via a non-secure HTTP link. To find the content that’s not secure, plug your url into www.whynopadlock.com. They’ll then give you a report and highlight files on the page that are throwing an insecure error. Once you’ve found the problem, there are a few ways to fix it:
- If possible, upload the file directly to your site instead of linking to it. (Side note: this also keeps people on your site, so it’s an extra win).
- If that doesn’t work, try to find a secure site to link to for the content.
- If these options don’t work for some reason, you may be able to use the SSL Insecure Content Fixer plugin which does most of the work for you.”

Jenn Gardiner

Hello All! I have been a WordPress Developer for approximately 12 years, and a Web Developer for over 21 years. I love developing custom themes with a beautiful frontend and an easy functioning backend.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-gardiner-52310731/

Critical Error on Website

– “When you come across a page on your website that says: “There has been a critical error on your website. Learn more about debugging in WordPress” it can be aggravating and alarming. Most of the time when this happens there is a very small coding error somewhere in the template for that page. Usually, there is a “:” where there should be a “;” somewhere in the template code or a “,” or quote is missing.
Ideas on How to Solve It – To fix this, you would log into your website backend, and look at that page to see what template it is using. Then go to the template files and scan that template for irregularities.”

Lucas Benvenuto

Lucas Benvenuto is a developer who also ventures into design matters. He has plenty of experience working with WordPress and PHP... and is also a basketball and videogames fan.

https://benvoide.xyz/

WordPress Migration Fails and is Not Working as Expected

– “Have you completed a WordPress migration but your site doesn’t look or is not working as expected? Don’t worry! Below I’m going to provide a series of tips when facing WordPress migration issues and talk about how to solve the most common WordPress errors in this situation.
Ideas on How to Solve It – Remember to create a backup before doing anything and have the official documentation at hand.

– The site does not look right (style) and/or some images are missing: Chances are some files have been lost during the process. Try to use your server file backup if possible, or use the file administrator to access them (remember to compress the files before download). Hosting provider support can help you with this.

– Links do not work/redirect problems: This WordPress error usually occurs due to a discrepancy between the new domain and the old one. To solve it, you can use this wizard; just execute the MySQL obtained in your database. You can also use this other tool in case the database has serialized objects. Remember, file export can be done via phpMyAdmin or using the terminal.

– Only the homepage works: If you have taken the previous step into account and the problem persists, try to refresh the permalinks and regenerate the .htaccess file.

– SSL certificate problems: Maybe your certificate is still pointing to the previous domain. Reinstall it, and configure it again. With the vast majority of hosting providers, they can help you do this via support. If you get mixed content errors in WordPress, it means that some part of your site continues to point to unencrypted domains. It can be a plugin, embedded content, or something else. The browser console can be very helpful to inspect and solve this issue. If you want to learn more, navigate to the following link.

– Other problems: You can run into a wide variety of WordPress errors depending on the characteristics of the new server and the architecture of your site. Some of these include a 500 internal server error, white screen of death, establishing a database connection error, among others. This article covers a wide variety of them and it might also be helpful to visit the official documentation.”

Sherry Holub

Sherry Holub graduated from UCLA School of Art in 1995 and founded JVM Design shortly after. Over the years the agency has evolved to become a trusted partner to clients providing web design, graphic design, and website maintenance. In addition to helping clients, Sherry enjoys gardening, Qi Gong, and cats.

https://jvmediadesign.com

Broken Images in Media Gallery

– “The images on your WordPress website suddenly all appear broken. In a blind panic, you log in and find they’re all broken in the media library as well. What happened? Take a deep breath and try not to freak out. It’s highly likely you’re images are all still perfectly fine in your uploads folder.
Ideas on How to Solve It – The very first thing you want to do is make a note of any recent thing you did on the site as this type of error often happens after something was updated.

Plugin/Theme Updates

Did you install a new plugin? If you haven’t installed a new plugin, did you maybe update a plugin recently (or if you’ve set your site to enable auto updates – was one or more recently updated)? If you know for sure a specific plugin was updated before you noticed the broken images, disable that plugin and check if the images have come back. If they have, that plugin is having a conflict with another plugin or your theme.

In these cases, you can reach out to the plugin developer, or try to find another plugin with the same functionality you need. If you don’t have a specific plugin earmarked to check, you can disable all plugins, then enable them one by one and check the media library after each one is activated. If you don’t find a plugin conflict, that is most likely not the issue and you can move on to trying the next thing.

Side note: you can also do the same thing with themes – install a basic theme such as the default WordPress theme and check the media library again. If that fixes the issue, then it’s most likely an issue with the theme that you will need to contact the theme developer to fix.

.htaccess File

Try opening the URL for one of the broken images in a new browser window. If it doesn’t load, you may have a corrupt or rogue “.htaccess” file. I won’t get into all the ways that can happen, but the fix requires that you have FTP/SFTP access to your hosting server and an FTP program, such as Filezilla. The .htaccess file is typically in the main directory. Rename it htaccess.txt. Clear your browser cache and check again and see if this solved the issue. If it didn’t, also check in the wp-content/uploads and see if there is a hidden .htaccess file there and if you find one, follow the same procedure.

File Permissions on Uploads Folder Were Changed

If the problem persists, it could be that the file permissions on the uploads folder on the hosting server were somehow changed. You’ll need to log back into your FTP program and check out the uploads folder again. Check with your FTP software documentation on where to find the “file permissions” (for a crash course in WordPress file permissions, check this post). You’ll want to make sure the uploads folder and all directories inside of it have the permission of 755. Next make sure all files within the directories are set to 644. Afterwards, check the media library and see if that was the fix.

Uploads Folder Structure

One of the other common WordPress errors I see that will lead to broken or “blank” images in the media gallery is changing the uploads folder structure in the Settings > Media. There is a checkbox at the bottom of that page for “Organize my uploads into month- and year-based folders”. Typically, it’s checked off. If you uncheck that box, all the images previously updated will not show up properly in your media library. You want to keep that the same as it was when you originally set up your site.

This of course is not an exhaustive list of every possible scenario – just the “biggies” when it comes to broken images in the WordPress media library.”

Paul Portelli

I’m a full-stack web developer based on the sunny island of Gozo in Malta, working globally with startups and agencies of all shapes and sizes. I focus on building custom, intuitive, and fast user experiences on desktop, mobile, and more.

https://www.paulportelli.mt

WordPress redirecting to Old URL When an Installation is Migrated to a New Host or a Completely New URL

– “It’s common that when you move a WordPress installation from one host or URL to another, you end up in a situation where visiting the new URL takes you back to the old URL used, even though you are sure that all the files and the database dump have been properly placed and set up.
Ideas on How to Solve It – These are the things you need to be checking.

1. Check Your Options Table: Ensure that both ‘siteurl’ and ‘home’ options are set to the new URL in the WordPress options table. This is usually called ‘wp_options’ but, it’s also quite common for the ‘wp_’ prefix to be replaced with some random characters. In modern WordPress installations, the ‘siteurl’ and ‘home’ options are the very first two options you’ll see when loading the options table with an ‘option_id’ of ‘1’ and ‘2’, respectively. While there, also make sure that both URL values don’t include a trailing ‘/’. This won’t actually affect the redirect but, it’s a good practice to avoid other issues.

2. Check the ‘wp-config.php’ File: The two options mentioned in the first point can be overriden by defining a ‘WP_HOME’ and/or a ‘WP_SITEURL’ constant in the ‘wp-config.php’ file. This below is an example of what you should be looking for:
```
define( 'WP_HOME', 'https://www.yoursite.com' );
define( 'WP_SITEURL', 'https://www.yoursite.com' );
```
If both or any one of these lines of code are present in your wp-config.php file, you can either replace the value assigned or remove the lines altogether so WordPress can take these settings directly from the ‘wp_options’ table.

3. Clear Both Server and Local Browser Cache: If your WordPress installation has plugins installed to manage cache, ensure that such cache is completely cleared. If you cannot manually clear this cache, deactivate the plugin altogether. If you cannot even reach the WordPress backend to deactivate the plugin, you can also log into the server via FTP or access the WordPress installation files through the server’s control panel and rename the plugin’s directory in wp-content/plugins. It is also possible that the Internet Browser on your computer is caching the redirect so, in this case, you can either try to navigate to the new URL using an Incognito or a Private window or use a different Internet Browser altogether. Every modern browser allows you to clear its cache.

4. If All of the Above Fails: If none of the 3 options above work, the issue is most probably happening inside a custom plugin or some other custom code in your active theme. To determine if the source of the issue is a plugin, you can deactivate all plugins installed (as instructed in point number 3). If this doesn’t work, try deactivating the active theme. There are various ways how you can do this, even if you can’t access the admin area of your WordPress website. A simple ‘manually deactivate WordPress theme’ Google search will help.”

Ali Khallad

My name is Ali, a full stack web developer based in Morocco. I create innovative, accessible, and fast solutions for the web. I work with people from all around the world to realize their ideas and bring them value.

https://wpali.com

Redirect loop ( ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS )

– “A redirect loop is when your website continues redirecting back and forth between two pages or more, which results in an infinite loop, thus, a browser error “eg; ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS”. The redirect loop issue usually occurs due to a misconfiguration or wrong implementation of WordPress redirects, either programmatically or using a plugin.
Ideas on How to Solve It – They say that “Understanding the problem is half the solution”. There are a number of different root causes of the redirect loop issue, which also means several different possible solutions. However, if you’re able to narrow down the possible cause, you’ll easily figure out how to fix the issue. This is a list of the steps you’d want to take to determine the problem:

Cache & Cookies:
The first step when testing is to clear both site and browser cache, clear cookies and disable site/host caching.

.htaccess Modifications:
Some modifications to the “.htaccess” file might cause the infinite loop problem. Thus, a regeneration of this file might be enough to fix the issue. Take a back-up of “.htaccess”, remove it and follow these steps to regenerate it:

– Head to “Admin dashboard” -> “Settings” -> “Permalinks” then click “Save changes” without making any actual changes.

Plugins:

Many plugins force specific redirections, which results in the redirect loop in some cases. To test plugins, disable any redirection plugins and if this didn’t work, disable all plugins one by one and test until all of them are disabled.

HTTPS:

In many cases, the redirect loop is caused when the site keeps redirecting between “http” and “https”, mostly due to the site not having an SSL certificate. To fix this issue you need to first make sure you have a valid SSL certificate, then change your site settings to load over “https”. You can use plugins such as Really Simple SSL to help you force HTTPS.

Third-Party Services:

Reverse-proxy services are another possible cause of an infinite loop. Services such as Cloudflare implement their own SSL, which can cause some conflict with your own implementation.

Finally, to conclude, redirect loops can be tricky to track and solve. The steps above will help you to determine the cause of this error, and in most cases will lead to you resolving the issue. However, sometimes you’ll need to do extra work to get it sorted, but at least you know where to start.”

Ionut Calara

CEO of @stockpackWP. I love well-built things with good UX. When I am not coding, I love spending time with family and friends.

https://stockpack.co

Plugin Cannot Be Deactivated/Breaks the Site After Activation

– “When the site gets broken by a plugin you will see an error message like this one:
Ideas on How to Solve It – You need to have the debugging turned on, otherwise you will not see the errors. So to check what happened you will first need to enable debugging and look at the logs. If you see an error originating from a plugin then you need to disable that plugin.

Since the admin is no longer working, you cannot disable the plugin via the admin.

Luckily the standard plugin activator will not allow you to install/update a plugin if has a fatal error. You will get an error message like this one:

However, if you used a third-party plugin that you manually updated or you used a third party plugin manager you might still find yourself with a broken site.

To fix the issue, you will need to go into your website files via FTP or SSH, and go to the plugins folder under `/yoursiterootfolder/wp-content/plugins`

Once you are there, locate the problematic plugin, and rename the folder by adding a number at the end for example `akismet-2`. This will restore the website and you can go inside the admin section to delete the plugin.”

Mykolas Raižys

I am a freelance front-end developer that specializes in custom WordPress theme development.

https://codeable.io/developers/mykolas-raizys-good-hands/

Uncaught TypeError: $ is not a function” jQuery Error

– “There are times where you may need to add a custom JavaScript snippet to your site. For example, to enable some interaction of some element or enable a third-party service. There are numerous ways to do it, including some snippet plugins.

However, oftentimes the code does not work even after following all the instructions and copy-pasting the code and it results in the following error in your browser console:

Uncaught TypeError: $ is not a function

See, $ is shorthand for jQuery and your code is most likely using that. Thankfully, jQuery is included in WordPress by default, which enables you to use the shorthand. However, to make it work, you need to wrap your code in a correct function.
Ideas on How to Solve It – The way to fix the issue is to wrap it with either one of these functions:
```
(function($) {

//Your Code Here

})( jQuery ); 
```
or…
```
jQuery(document).ready(function( $ ) {
	
//Your Code Here
	
});
```
There is no big difference in terms of which one you use. However, if your code needs to run after the HTML content is loaded on the page, the latter is the better option.”

Giannis Kipouros

I am Giannis and I have worked as a freelance WordPress developer for almost a decade. I love to help people achieve their goals through my work.

https://gianniskipouros.com

Huge Error Log File (debug.log, php_errorlog etc.)

– “The Error logs can be powerful tools at a developer’s disposal. Although many times underestimated, they are the first place you should look when debugging your site or to get an idea of your site’s current health.

In particular, the PHP log file stores valuable information about what might be going wrong with the site. This includes but is not limited to PHP code Warnings, Errors, and Notices.

So if this log file is so helpful, why can it be a problem?

The problem is that sometimes this file can get huge, without the site’s owners noticing. This causes the site to slow down gradually and can even reach a point where it can make the site stop functioning.
Ideas on How to Solve It – I see that my site’s error log is huge! What can I do? If that is the case, do not worry! There are steps that can help you sort this out:
1. First, download a copy of the log file to your computer.
2. Rename the log file on your site, so it instantly stops writing to the huge log file and creates a new one. This will give your site an immediate boost, but it is a temporary fix.
3. Then, you will have to determine what is causing the error log to get so huge. What better place to start looking for the causes than the log file itself? Open it using an editor* and look at the newest entries. They should help you determine what is causing them and try to fix it.
4. Most of the times, the causes of log file entries are outdated themes and plugins. Updating them should help fix most of the issues and avoid any new log file entries.
5. After fixing all WordPress errors that cause the log file entries, it might be a good idea to disable the log file from the production site. Of course, you can re-enable it when debugging is needed. To disable the log file, you add the following to the wp-config.php file in your site’s root directory:
```
define('WP_DEBUG_LOG', false);
```
* Note: The log files can be very big, and text editors might not be able to open them. If that is the case, there are applications specifically for this job. The one I use is free and is called Glogg.”

Milan Petrovic

I have been working with WordPress since 2007, started my WordPress dedicated website 'Dev4Press' in 2009, and I have been developing premium WordPress plugins sold through Dev4Press since then. My main WordPress development focus currently includes admin tools and bbPress plugin powered forums.

https://www.dev4press.com/

WordPress PHP Memory Exhausted Error

– “One of the most common WordPress errors is the ‘PHP Memory Exhausted Error.’ And while the immediate fix might be simple, in my opinion, the problem with this error is that it usually points to some underlying issue that needs fixing. The webserver runs PHP, and PHP is used to execute WordPress, and PHP limits the amount of memory assigned to each process. Usually, that memory limit is 32MB, but it will differ depending on the hosting company. Most hosting companies allow you to change this value, but some might have a hard ceiling limit or completely lock-out this value from user changes.

Depending on what plugins and theme your website uses, it will require a different amount of memory. It would be best to have PHP memory limit set to 64MB for general purpose websites or 128MB for an eCommerce website running many plugins and addons. In more extreme cases, you might need to increase the memory limit to 256MB or even more, but in my opinion, anything above 128MB points to some serious issue with your website needing so much memory for a single process.
Ideas on How to Solve It – The best way to change PHP allocated memory is to make the change directly in PHP settings (php.ini file, look for an option called ‘memory_limit’), but nowadays, most hosting companies offer more straightforward ways to do it via a control panel so ask your hosting provider first.

You can also change increase the allowed memory size via WordPress’s wp-config.php file. Upgrading PHP to 7.0 or newer with OPCache enabled is highly recommended because it will require much less memory to run.

If you see the PHP memory exhausted error, tried to allocate more memory, and still keep running into the issue, I would advise in-depth debugging to find out what is using all the memory because you might have a bug that causes endless loops or memory leaks.”

Marius Vetrici

World-class programming put to work for small to mid-sized businesses, startups and nonprofits

https://wpriders.com/

Nasty JavaScript Errors in the Browser Console

– “Many folks we talk to complain that from time to time some features on their website suddenly stop working. These are very subtle yet nasty errors that could eat your WordPress website up from the inside.

Things that could break include:
- the shopping cart
- the checkout
- the contact forms
- any quick quote calculators
- sliders and alike.
Ideas on How to Solve It – Diagnosing such a problem is the first step, and to do that, do follow these simple steps:
1. Right-click anywhere on the web page
2. Click on Inspect
3. Click on the Console tab
4. You should get this:
5. Try the following things to fix these WordPress errors.
Potential Fix 1: Update your WordPress installation, themes and plugins to their latest version. But make sure you are not updating them on the live site, but on a copy of your live site (a staging site).

Potential Fix 2: Install the “Enable jQuery Migrate Helper” plugin

Potential Fix 3: If you are using any caching plugins, clear the cache of your website.

Potential Fix 4: If your hosting uses any caching, clear the cache on your hosting.

Potential Fix 5: If you are using a speed optimization plugin, try to temporarily deactivate it.

Lastly, if nothing from above fixes your error, it’s time you contact your developer. So make sure you reach out to your favourite developer and ask for their help.”

Nikola Birisic

Certified Codeable WordPress Expert Developer

https://codeable.io/developers/nikola-birisic/

Error Establishing Database Connection

– “This is a very common WordPress error especially if you are setting up a new WordPress installation or migrating your website from one host to another.
Ideas on How to Solve It – There are usually a few things that can cause an “error establishing a database connection” error such us: incorrect database credentials, server not running, a corrupted database or a corrupted file.

1. Check Your WordPress Database Credentials

In order for WordPress to work it needs to be connected with the database host from which it pulls the data. To connect your website with the database you’ll need to check the following:
- Database name
- Database username
- Database password
- Database server
You can check this information in the WordPress configuration file called wp-config.php

If you’re not sure what your database credentials are, you can check them on your server in cPanel under the Databases section.

When you enter MySQL Databases you’ll find the database name and associated username to that particular database.

Below database name, when you scroll down, you can find database user’s settings where you can change the user’s password.

When it comes to the hostname, in most cases it is set to ‘localhost’ but this can vary depending on the hosting provider you are using. If you still need help, the best thing would be to contact the support of your hosting provider and check with them about all the information you need.

2. Check If Your Server is Running

If you are still having an issue you may want to check if your server is down. This usually happens if you are on shared hosting and the server is experiencing a heavy traffic load that it can’t handle and because of that it may show your user an error.

You can also check this by trying to connect/open phpMyAdmin. If you can’t open it, then the server is probably down and you should contact support.

If you can connect, but still the error occurs, check if the username has sufficient permissions. You’ll need to create a file, for example dbtest.php (but you can call it however you want) and add the following code:
```
/** 
 * Check my database connection
 */ 
$db_test = mysqli_connect('localhost', 'db_user', 'db_password'); if (!$db_test) {     
      die('Database Error: ' . mysqli_error());
} 
echo 'Database connection is working properly!'; 
mysqli_close($db_test);
```
Be sure to change the dummy info to your database username and password.

Then in your browser go to https://yourdomain.com/dbtest.php (or whatever you named the file) and if the message displayed reads “Database connection is working properly!” that means that WordPress is connected to the database and that the user has sufficient permissions. In the event that you are still getting an error, go and recheck your database credentials in the wp-config.php file (check for any misspelling or mistakes).

3. Repair Corrupted Database

You can also come across the situation where the database is corrupted. For example, if you log in to your WordPress dashboard and you’re getting an error such us: “One or more database tables are unavailable. The database may need to be repaired.” In this case, you need to repair the database. This could happen due to constantly removing and adding new plugins and/or themes that are adding/removing new tables to or from the database.

But don’t despair, WordPress has a database repair mode that you can initiate by adding the following:
```
define(‘WP_ALLOW_REPAIR’, true);
/* That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */
```
Again, add this to the wp-config.php file, just above the line “That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging.”

Then in your browser go to the following location https://yourdomain.com/wp-admin/maint/repair.php and it will take you to the following:

Another way to repair it is through phpMyAdmin. Check all the tables and select Repair table, as in the example down below.

4. Repair Corrupted File

Another reason you might see the “error establishing a database connection” message is because of a corrupted file, although this is not common. This may occur if somebody hacks your website and makes changes to some files, either WordPress core files or some plugin files. Or it can happen due to some issues/errors while transferring files via FTP.

If this is the case, check if any files have been changed/modified recently. If you notice they have, do a fresh install of the WP core files or the plugin, depending on which file has been affected.

And that’s it. You’re now ready to deal with one of the most common WordPress errors and ensure your site has no problems with establishing a database connection!”

Carlos Alvarez

I am WordPress developer with more than 6 years of experience. I like programming and videogames!

https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlos-alvarez-979872161/

URL’s Not Working with Custom Taxonomies/Post Types

– “So you create a new post type or a new taxonomy (either using a plugin or by code), then you create a post (or category) belonging to that post type (or taxonomy), you finish your work in the editor and proceed to see the results in the browser. What happens next? Yes, you see the annoying 404 error page and you don’t know why.

Let’s see this issue with pictures!:

So I created a new post type called ‘Experts’ and created a new ‘Expert’ post:

And you can see I set a nice permalink for this post, so when I go to that URL in the browser I see this:
Ideas on How to Solve It – The reason this happens is because WordPress doesn’t know what to show when http://experts.test/expert/test-expert/ comes in. How can we make WordPress recognise this? The answer: By generating a Rewrite Rule.

A rewrite rule is basically a rule that tells the WordPress system what content to show when a certain URL is used. WordPress comes with default rewrite rules to show normal posts, pages and post category archives but not for other post types or categories that are not in the ‘category’ taxonomy.

In our example, the URL has this structure: domain/post type name/post name. The problem is that WordPress doesn’t know that ‘expert’ is a post type (YET!). How can we make WordPress understand this? Yes, you guessed well, we need to generate a rewrite rule for the ‘experts’ post type. The easiest way to accomplish this is by updating the permalinks structure. When this happens, WordPress also regenerates all the rewrite rules needed for the system to work properly, including the rules for the newly created post type (or taxonomy). To update the permalinks do this:

1. Inside the dashboard, go to Settings and then to Permalinks:

2. Inside the permalinks page, scroll down and click on the Save Changes button

You should see a notice in the upper part of the page telling you that the permalinks structure has been updated (See the image above).

3. Once you update the permalinks structure and the rewrite has been regenerated, you should see the contents of your post!:

Important Note

If you used PHP code to create the new post type or taxonomy, please make sure that the query_var parameter is set to true, otherwise the solution given here won’t work:”

Pierre Saïkali

I've been specializing in creating next-level WordPress experiences. From design to deployment, I enjoy delivering web and mobile solutions powered using React / Native on the front-end and WP in the back-end.

https://saika.li/hire

“Maximum Execution Time of X Seconds Exceeded” Error

– “Depending on the page you’re visiting and your hosting capacity, you may receive this error message. If the page is taking too long for a process to complete, it will result in a timeout and you’ll see this error message.
Ideas on How to Solve It – To fix this issue, we need to change a PHP configuration variable called “max_execution_time”. The value associated with this variable is the maximum number of seconds that the server will spend trying to generate a page.

We have multiple ways to modify this configuration.

1) Edit the `.htaccess` file in your website root folder.

Add the following:
```
`php_value max_execution_time 300`
```
2) Edit the `php.ini` file

Add the following:
```
`max_execution_time = 300`
```
3) Add…
```
`set_time_limit(300);`
```
…at the very top of your `wp-config.php` file.

Using the value 300 means that a page will timeout after 5 minutes (300 seconds).

If you’re not really sure how to edit these files, you should contact your hosting provider and ask them how you can increase the maximum execution time for your website.

If you still encounter timeouts after changing this setting, you may need to investigate deeper and look for the culprit: too many plugins, a demanding CRON job, bugs in your theme, slow hosting provider… A bit of troubleshooting will be necessary in order to discover the cause of this issue.”

Thomas Sultana

Freelance Web Developer based out of Malta, Europe.

https://www.thomassultana.me

Parse Error: Syntax Error (….. on line 42)

– “This can be quite a difficult problem to solve, and may require some programming experience. Firstly let’s define what the error means. You may come across this WordPress error in multiple situations. You may see this error clearly visible in your browser as you view the affected page or website. In other cases you may simply see a white page with no content loaded. This is a sure sign to check your hosting’s website error logs, which will provide more details about the error. The other possibility since WordPress 5.2 is the error is e-mailed to the admin registered email address in the WordPress install.

This particular WordPress error is a PHP syntax error, which means the correct rules were not observed when the code was written. This might sometimes be a simple mistake, like forgetting to add a semicolon. Or possibly forgetting to close or open a bracket.
Ideas on How to Solve It – First you will need to find the offending file. From there you will be able to find the offending line. You will know what line the error is on by looking at the error message. Sometimes the line will be shown like this: “on line 278″, however sometimes the line will be shown like this: filename.php:278”. In both cases the error is most probably on line 278.

So why did I say most probably? Certain syntax errors won’t provide you with the exact line an issue occurred, but rather the line that is close enough to the error. So if you can not see an error on the exact line, try to scan code a few lines up or down. Also, look if there is any missing opening or closing brackets around that line. A good IDE (Integrated Development Environment) will be vital in helping you solve this issue.

So what if the error is inside a plugin or theme which you have installed? In this case, it would be suggested to contact the plugin/theme author about the issue. Hopefully they will be able to provide a quick plugin/theme update which you will be able to download. You can always fix the error and inform the plugin/theme author of the exact fix you made.”

Matt Bonacini

WordPress & WooCommerce specialist 👨‍💻 Helping E-commerce Businesses to increase revenue, grow profits, and deliver a great experience to their users.

https://takeoff.design

Edits on Design or Content Not Visible On Your Website

– “You edited your WordPress widgets, page contents (or design), or even the main theme’s files. Still, you don’t see any edit on your public website and see its old version instead.

What makes things worse is that you don’t see any clear error message, making it even harder to know what’s happening.

Not seeing your edits immediately may convince you to apply further modifications to your site, which can lead to small disasters or unexpected changes to your design, especially if you don’t see what effects the modifications have on your site.

This may also happen when you hire a developer to make specific edits on your site. He’s claiming that he made all the edits required, but you can’t see them.
Ideas on How to Solve It – No worries, fixing this is pretty straightforward. You can try the following steps in this exact order.

Step 1: Force your browser to hard refresh your page. While you’re on any of your site’s pages, you can try to refresh with CTRL + F5.

If you’re on Mac, you can try to hold ⌘ Cmd + ⇧ Shift key and then press R.

Step 2: Search for any active caching or performance optimization plugin on your installation. Login into your WordPress admin area and check your Plugins list. If you have any plugin that improves your site’s performance and loading time, you can try to clear all forms of cache from this plugin’s settings. All the popular plugins in this category, like WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache, WP Super Cache (etc.), should all have a way to clear all the cached files.

Step 3: If you tried everything before this step, and your changes still don’t show up, there’s one final place you can check: your hosting service. Many hosting services, often without advertising it, have some sort of caching system active. Sometimes these are clearly visible in your hosting dashboard; sometimes, they’re more hidden in their interface.

If you’re not sure where to find an option to clear your server-side cache, you can contact the support of your hosting provider who can tell you where to find it.

At this point, you should see all your edits on the public version of your website as well. Hopefully, applying these steps will simplify your work the next time this happens. If you want to make your life even easier when working on your site, make sure to disable all caching options: on your website and on your hosting service.”

Marc McDougall

I design websites sites that turn traffic into customers.

https://clarityfirst.co

Corrupted Database Preventing WP Admin User Logins

– “Although uncommon, it’s SUPER frustrating when you get locked out of your WP Admin area.

This can happen for a few reasons:
1. A malicious attack on your database from a 3rd party.
2. A plugin or theme change corrupted your database.
3. You just forgot your password and don’t have access to the admin email (this happens, yes 😂)
If you run into this issue, your first line of defense is always to contact your hosting provider to see if they’ll help you out.

BUT…what if they can’t help you?

Or…what if you don’t have access to a hosting provider because you’re hosting your site locally while you build it?
Ideas on How to Solve It – If all else fails, you can always manually reset the password to your WP Admin account.

NOTE: This solution is pretty advanced, so only use it as a last resort!

NOTE: This solution also requires that you have access to the SQL database associated with your site (usually through a tool like PHPMyAdmin).

Step 1: Login to PHPMyAdmin and find the “wp_users” table…

After clicking on the “Browse” tab, you’ll see your old admin login.

We’re going to be adding another one that you’ll then use to get back into your site!

Step 2: Create your new password (and hash)…

WordPress doesn’t store passwords in plain text (for security reasons), so you’ll need to hash your password before dropping it into the database.

Go to a site like https://www.md5hashgenerator.com/, and type in the password you want to use in the big text box.

After you click “Generate”, you’ll be given a long string of characters — this is your password hash. Save this for later (and remember the plain-text version, too!)

Step 3: Create your new user…

Now you need to create your new user account.

Back in the wp_users table, click “Insert” at the top and type in the user_login, user_pass, user_email, and display_name values.

NOTE: You want to enter that password HASH into the “user_pass” field, not the plain-text version.

When you’re done, click “Go”

Congrats! You now have a new user that you can use to login to your site.

Now, we have to give that user administrator privileges.

Step 4: Granting administrator privileges…

First, take a note of the “ID” value for the new user you just created.

You’ll need this later.

Next, navigate to the “wp_usermeta” table, and click on the “Insert” tab here.

You’re going to enter a few fields here:
- user_id : Enter the ID you wrote down from the last screen.
- meta_key: Enter→ wp_capabilities
- meta_value: Enter this exact string→ a:1:{s:13:”administrator”;b:1;}
Click “Go” at the bottom of the screen.

Next, you want to repeat this process, but for a different meta_value:
- user_id : Enter the ID you wrote down from the last screen.
- meta_key: Enter→ wp_user_level
- meta_value: Enter→ 10
Again, click “Go” at the bottom of the screen.

Here’s both those queries if you want to double-check everything:

Step 5: Checking that it all worked.

Go ahead and log in to your WordPress site again (usually by going to “[YOUR_DOMAIN]/wp-admin”).

This time, you want to use the new user login credentials and the PLAIN TEXT version of the password you used to generate that hash earlier.

Finally, click login.

…and viola! You should be back in business!

Check the Users pane in WordPress to confirm that everything worked:

Getting locked out of your WordPress site can be a HUGE pain.

I hope this helped you get back in, without too much hassle.”

Nikola Petrov

My name is Niki and I'm a Full-stack Developer with over 14 years of experience. During that time I’ve been working with clients from all across the globe, providing ideas and executing solutions in different parts of the OOAD cycle. My code is clean and future-proof and I always try to keep myself updated with the current standards and technology changes.

http://nikolapetrov.com/

You’re Locked Out of Your WordPress Website

– “One of the most frustrating experiences a user can have is being locked out of their WordPress website. You have spent weeks or months building the best content you can, and one day, out-of-the-blue, you are no longer able to access or even see it. To make things worse, WordPress does not always show error messages when you are locked out of your website, so you might have no clue why this is happening to you.
Ideas on How to Solve It – In the following lines, we will summarize the most common causes of being locked out of your website and how to solve them using techniques from our practice and experience.

The White Screen of Death

Check this contribution for info about this.

Error Establishing Database Connection

Check this contribution for info about this.

An Incorrect Password

Is WordPress telling you that you are locked out because you have entered an incorrect password? This happens because for security reasons the platform allows only a limited number of wrong login attempts (three to be exact) and you have used them all.

How Can You Fix It?

Click the “Lost your password” link on the login page. WordPress will send you an email, where you can reset your credentials. Alternatively, you can reset your password yourself using phpMyAdmin.

If you are still not able to access your website, it is possible that you have been hacked. You can try running a malware scanner and cleaner, or you can contact a trusted developer to help you with the clean-up.

A Corrupt Theme or Plugin

Sometimes, it is possible that a corrupt theme or plugin will cause a WordPress error that can lock you out of your admin area.

How Can You Fix It?

You can try temporarily disabling all plugins by accessing your website files via FTP and renaming your wp-content/plugins folder to deactivate all plugins. If that fixes the issue, you can start re-enabling them again one-by-one (by renaming back your plugins folder to its original name and activating them in admin), until you figure out which is the problematic one.

If that doesn’t help, you can try the same for your active theme. Before renaming or deleting it though, please make sure that you have one of the default WordPress themes (Twenty Twenty or another) uploaded.

Incorrect Roles and Capabilities

While working with a Codeable client in the past, I’ve run into a case where all roles and capabilities of users on her website were messed up. As a result, her admin account no longer had admin privileges.

This is an issue that doesn’t have a straight-forward fix, but if you have some basic PHP knowledge, you can try to track down and modify the global $wp_roles in order to regain access.

Hacked

Are you able to log in but things just don’t look right? You might lack some admin privileges, such as being able to access plugins or themes, or your content might look different? Unfortunately, this is often an indicator of being hacked.

How Can You Fix It?

As with the scenario above, your solution depends on how comfortable you are with cleaning your website yourself. If you feel you need help, there are services like Codeable that put you in contact with developers who can make sure your site is completely cleared of malware. After you regain access, make sure you use a high-quality security plugin to ensure that your site is not hacked again.

Parse Error

If you encounter a “parse error: syntax error” message as you attempt to access your site, it means the problem is caused by issues with the code. This is a very common situation as in PHP, small mistakes like a misplaced comma or a single wrong letter, are sufficient to produce an error on page load.

How Can You Fix It?

Using an FTP client, check the recent code you have added to identify any mistakes in the syntax. The error that you have seen on the page should provide you with a clue as to what and where the mistake might be.”

Milenko Radic

I have more than 9 years of experience in making custom WordPress themes and my outcomes are top notch, user and SEO-friendly, fast-loading WP themes – that are actually – always made from scratch. I’m one of the top performing WordPress developers/experts on the Codeable and Upwork platforms with literary hundreds of satisfied customers. Big snowboarding, travel, Onewheel and Catan geek, as well!

http://milenkoradic.com

Error When Uploading SVG Files To WordPress

– “Very often users want to use an SVG file because it’s one of the best file types for illustrated images. But when you try to upload it to WordPress, what you get is a message that this file type is not permitted for security reasons.

All of you are probably familiar with it:

We all see the problem here, right? An SVG file type is not in the list of supported files in WordPress.

But, hey guys, don’t worry, I‘ve got your back!
Ideas on How to Solve It – This issue can be easily fixed in 2 different ways.

1) If you are a developer or you just feel comfortable changing the functions.php file – you can simply insert this code and your problem will be solved:
```
// allow upload of SVG files
function cc_mime_types($mimes) {
	  $mimes['svg'] = 'image/svg+xml';
	  return $mimes;
}
add_filter('upload_mimes', 'cc_mime_types');
```
2) In case you would like to fix this problem with a plugin, you can use “SVG support” (and you can find it here).

Ok, I know, I know.

No matter which way you enabled SVG uploads, you can still sometimes get that boring message when you try to upload your SVG file:

So, here comes the Pro tip:

Before uploading an SVG file, I would recommend cleaning your SVG file with this tool:

http://svg.enshrined.co.uk

Just open your SVG file in notepad or a similar basic text editor and then paste your code in the recommended tool and…Voilà!

This will also clean your file from possible scripts that could be embedded and then your new file will be ready for upload.

Easy, right?

How to upload your SVG files to WordPress easily: Case closed!”

Giulio Daprela

Giulio has worked as a freelance WordPress expert with codeable.io since 2013 and has been part of the in-house team since 2017. He is part of the customer support, of the team that vets new expert freelancers and takes care of the maintenance of the company's WordPress websites.

https://giuliodaprela.com

“Are You Sure You Want to Do This” Error

– “There can be a few causes for the “Are You Sure You Want to Do This” error in WordPress, but as a general rule it’s important to notice that this error indicates that the nonce verification has failed. Why this might happen is the subject of this short article. Nonce literally means “number only used once” and it’s a security feature used to make sure that only authorized users can make changes to the installation, be that saving a post or modifying a setting.
Ideas on How to Solve It – Probably the most common cause of this WordPress error among regular (non-developers) users is when one hits the back button of the browser and then the forward button again. When you hit the back button the nonce of the previous page is invalidated, but when you click forward again the browser re-sends the same nonce and this causes the error.

Another instance where this WordPress error happens is if you leave your post editor open until the day after (if you have children that distract you, you know what I mean!). If you were editing a post and try to save it after one day, you’ll probably get the “Are You Sure You Want to Do This” error. This happened because the nonce in WordPress has a standard duration of one day and when it’s expired you must reload the page.

There’s a third case where this error happens, and this is the most complicated to troubleshoot but also (at least in my experience) definitely less common. It may be that a plugin or a theme uses the nonce incorrectly, and this causes the error. When this happens, FTP becomes an invaluable tool for your troubleshooting efforts, so please download an FTP client if you don’t have one already (FileZilla is a popular one) and make sure to have the FTP credentials to connect to your host.

It’s hard to know in advance whether the problem is caused by a plugin or the theme but I suggest you start investigating the plugins since this is the most probable cause.

Investigating Plugins

The first step in investigating the error is to disable all plugins. The easiest way to do this is to rename the plugins folder inside your WordPress installation. Connect your FTP client, navigate into the wp-content folder, and rename the folder plugins to plugins.disabled. Then, with your browser load the plugins page in your WordPress admin area. You should see a list of errors indicating that the plugins have been disabled. Now, if you can’t replicate the error anymore it’s a sure sign that it was caused by a plugin. Reopen your FTP client and rename the plugins.disabled folder back to plugins. Now you should be able to see the list of all of the plugins again but they are all deactivated. Activate them one by one until you can replicate the error and you’ll have found the cause.

Investigating the Theme

If the plugins are not causing the problem, the next step is to try the theme. Connect your FTP client and delete only the active theme folder (DON’T delete the entire themes folder) that is located under wp-content/themes. Make sure to always have a default theme installed. A default theme is one of the 20xx themes published by the WordPress team every year. If you don’t have one and you can’t install it from your WordPress admin (I’m assuming that your installation is broken and unusable), download one to your PC from wordpress.org, decompress the file and then upload the resulting folder and all of its content to your WordPress installation via FTP. When WordPress won’t find the current theme folder anymore, it will switch automatically to the default theme. If the error now disappears, then it was caused by the theme.

If you still experience the message “Are You Sure You Want to Do This” after disabling plugins and theme, then there’s an issue with the core WordPress installation. Some files are probably corrupt and you should replace your entire core installation with a fresh copy. That is the easiest way since looking for the faulty file manually could take hours. This seems scary at first but if you know what to do it’s quite a simple operation. Again, you’ll need your FTP client to do this. First of all, as preparation work follow these four steps:
1. Make a backup of your WordPress installation so you can restore it if something goes wrong
2. Download a copy of WordPress from wordpress.org onto your pc and expand the zip file
3. Using your FTP client, download the wp-config.php file from your WP installation to your local machine
4. Using your FTP client, download the entire folder wp-content to your local machine
Now, delete your entire WordPress installation except the folder wp-content. In case you mistakenly delete it don’t worry, you can restore the copy from your local machine. Once you’ve done that, upload the fresh copy of WordPress that you downloaded from wordpress.org to the host, making sure to NOT upload the wp-content folder. Once you’ve done that, upload the wp-config.php file. Your WordPress installation is refreshed and should be working again.

While I’ve replaced the core WP installation a few times for various reasons (mostly on hacked sites), I must admit that I have never had to go this far to fix the “Are You Sure You Want to Do This” error.”

Zeljko Skipic

WordPress developer, Divi theme enthusiast, WordCamp speaker, and Codeable Certified Expert.

https://zeljkoskipic.dev/

WP-admin Not Working

– “This can be extremely annoying, and I will skip the common part of explaining ‘what is wp-admin’ and simple solutions that we all think of right away, and go to the ones that often slip our minds.
Ideas on How to Solve It – …Backup your site! Seriously, before anything, back. it. up.

Cookies
Sometimes your browser cookies can cause problems, preventing you from logging in to your (or any other) WordPress site. That’s why it is a good idea to clear cookies from time to time, and it is an extremely easy fix to try, which can save you a ton of time. And it won’t hurt from a privacy standpoint either! Here’s how to do it in Chrome, but it is similar for any browser:

Open Chrome, and press CTRL+SHIFT+DELETE at the same time. It will open the “Clear browsing data” window. Tick “Cookies” and “Cache” and click on the “Clear data” button.

.htaccess
Sometimes you will get an unpleasant surprise, and see the vicious “404 not found” displayed after your login attempt. Other times you do manage to log in, but the page just refreshes or redirects; the solution for both WordPress errors is the same. You can either create a new .htaccess file, or update your site URL, or try both. Here is how to do it:

– Fixing Broken .htaccess – Through cPanel File Manager or FTP, navigate to the public_html folder, and there find the .htaccess file. Right-click on it, select “Rename” and change its name to something like “.htaccess-off”. We want to make sure that this file is the problem, that’s why we are renaming it first, so we can switch it back to normal if renaming doesn’t fix the issue.

Try to log back to your WordPress site. Worked? Just go to your dashboard, click on Settings, choose Permalinks tab and just hit “Save changes”. That will create a new .htaccess file.

If the fix didn’t work, you can navigate back to cPanel or FTP, and revert the name of the file from “.htaccess-off” back to “.htaccess”.

– Fixing Site URL – To manually fix your site URL, again, go to cPanel/FTP, and navigate to the public_html folder, and find wp-config.php file. Right-click it and select “edit”.

Next, you want to add these two code lines to the wp-config.php file (make sure to enter your real site URL instead of “yoursiteURL”):
```
define(‘WP_HOME’,’http://yoursiteURL’);
define(‘WP_SITEURL’,’http://yoursiteURL’);
```
Save/upload everything, and check your login page.”

Marcel Brown

Marcel Brown, known as the Most Trusted Name in Technology, is a nationally recognized technology expert with over 25 years of professional experience. Marcel has been featured on multiple national TV and radio appearances, quoted for numerous published articles, and his blogs have received national attention.

https://marcelbrown.com

cURL error 28

– “One of the more obscure and “interesting” WordPress errors I’ve run into while working with the platform is:

cURL error 28: Operation timed out after X milliseconds with 0 out of 0 bytes received (http_request_failed)

Depending on where you see the error, it may or may not have all the details shown above.

This error may first be noticed in the Site Health Check section of a WordPress installation with the critical issues “The REST-API encountered and error” or “Your site could not complete a loopback request”. However, you may find this error elsewhere or in your log files.
Ideas on How to Solve It – As I mentioned above, this is one of the more obscure WordPress errors and when I say “interesting” I mean that it can be very tricky to resolve! The bottom line is that you will likely need to get your hosting provider involved, or if you run your own hosting server you may need to get down to some lower-level OS troubleshooting.

cURL is a command line tool that is used for transferring data with URLs (hence the name). WordPress uses a PHP library to access cURL. Therefore the first thing to verify is that you are using an up-to-date version of PHP. For most, that means PHP 7.0 at a minimum. At the time of this writing, PHP 8.0 was just very recently released but most installations should be on PHP 7.3.x or 7.4.x.

Other possible simple explanations for a cURL error 28 are issues with DNS resolving or general network connectivity issues. Often these issues are temporary, but they are worth troubleshooting to make sure your host server is functioning properly. Also, a low memory limit set in the WordPress configuration may intermittently cause a cURL error 28. Additionally, sometimes an old plugin can generate this error.

Beyond an out-of-date PHP installation, most cURL problems are related to security issues. In my experience, the most common culprit for generating a cURL error 28 is firewall or security software on the server. If you’ve ruled out the simple issues above, carefully review your firewall or security logs to see if it is blocking cURL from properly communicating. Often it may have something to do with blocking particular PHP calls. Finally, some hosting providers may put limits on wp-cron or they disable loopbacks. This is not very common, but it is good to verify in case you have a unique hosting company or have a server run by a very strict system administrator.”

Nemanja Cimbaljevic

Developer & Problem Solver; WordPress Professional & Enthusiast; Codeable Expert

https://cimba.blog

File Permission Errors

– “If you are doing WordPress setups daily, a “File permission error” is something that will not even make you blink, but rather think something along the lines of “How hard is it to set privileges properly?!”

File permission errors can cause numerous errors in WordPress. It might be that you can’t upload any images or documents to the media library. Or you might not be able to install a new plugin or theme.

Disclaimer: Do not edit files in your theme or plugin.
Ideas on How to Solve It – All scenarios mentioned above have the same root cause – a file permission error.

Introduction

If you are not a developer or are still new to WordPress installation and development, pause here.
Let’s try to analyze what I said earlier: “How hard is it to set privileges properly.”

Solving this error is Linux-specific, and if your WordPress is on a Windows machine, this would help only as a guideline to debug, but not as an actual fix.

Linux uses file and folder permissions to know who can read, write, or execute files hosted on your account.

Remember these three words: Read, Write, Execute. These will become important and will save you some wall-banging time for sure.

Linux recognizes three different privilege groups: Owner, Group, Other.

File Permissions Calculator

While it might look tricky, calculating your permissions is super-easy.

Each number represents a group.

XXX – The first number is a numerical representation for the Owner, the second number for the Group, and the third one for Others/World.

Each number can have a value between 0 and 7.

The simple way to calculate it is to know that Read has the value of 4, Write the value of 2 and Execute the value of 1.

Ex. If you want Read and Write privileges on a file or directory, the sum of 4 and 2 gives 6.

Cheatsheet:

Number 0: No Access.
Number 1: Execute only.
Number 2: Write only.
Number 3: Write and Execute.
Number 4: Read-only.
Number 5: Read and Execute.
Number 6: Read and Write.
Number 7: Read, Write and Execute.

644 and 755

By default, WordPress should have a simple setup. Files have 644, and Folders should be 755. These values mean that access to the file is granted for the Owner to Read and Write, Group can Read, and Others/World can Read. For Folders, each number is increased by one.

Most WordPress hosting providers these days would support this, and their setup will allow for this configuration.

If you still have to configure it yourself or think there is a mistake in configuration, you can easily do it using FileZilla.

Right-clicking on the directory or file will give you an options menu with “Permissions.”

777 as the Ultimate Solution

If none of the solutions mentioned above work and you stumble on a blog post or Facebook comment that says “Just set 777 on everything,” don’t do it. Please don’t do it, ever.

By setting 777, you can open a path to lots of exploits on your WordPress site. And not just to your website, as with weaker security on the server, you might endanger data on the whole machine/computer.

If the only way to have your file appropriately uploaded, or theme or plugin downloaded, is to set 777, contact your hosting provider immediately, as something is off in their setup.”

How to Secure WordPress Sites (33 Pros Offer Security Tips)

by Chris Herbert | Last Updated July 6, 2021

If you’re a WordPress site owner, you’re a prime target for hackers.

That’s not just my opinion. There are more than a few statistics that make that clear. The popular WP security plugin, Wordfence, reports an incredible 90,000 attacks on WordPress websites every single minute. Another security platform, Securi, produced a report in 2018 based on an analysis of more than 18,000 hacked sites that revealed 90% of these sites were running on WordPress. And last year, close to a million WP sites were attacked in a single month by the same malicious actor.

You get the picture. Hackers have gotten a taste for going after WP sites, believing them to be easy prey. But the truth is, in a lot of cases, site owners make them an easy target. There is A LOT you can do to beef up your site security to prevent your site from being just another number added to the stats above. And in this article, we’re going to help set you on the right path.

We spoke to a whole bunch of WordPress experts and asked them the million-dollar question: How do you secure a WordPress website? Each provided one piece of advice and we ended up with a checklist of sorts to help make your site a tightly-run ship.

So dig out a notebook, grab a coffee and let’s get started.

How to Secure Your WordPress Website Quickly

As part of our research when putting together this article we also conducted a couple of polls asking 50 WordPress pros two questions. The first of these was “Name your 3 favorite quick-wins that bolster WordPress security with relatively little effort?”

We wanted to provide you with an understanding of the steps that are easy to implement, but that have a big impact on strengthening your site security. So if you’re pushed for time, these are the things that are going to give you the most protection for time invested.

In the chart below, you can see which items were mentioned most frequently.

WordPress Security Quick Wins — *(Feel free to use this chart. Grab a copy here)*

As you can see, the top three suggestions are all very straightforward and don’t take any special preparation or skills to implement. These are:

Keep everything updated (this includes the WP Core, your templates and plugins). You also want to keep an eye on the PHP version your site is running on and keep that up to date too.
Install a security plugin. There are several good ones to choose from, many of which have a free version that gives you a good amount of protection without spending a dime. And even the premium versions are often very affordable.
Use secure passwords. This isn’t rocket-science. The weaker your password, the easier it is for a hacker to gain access to your site. So do yourself a favor and make their job as hard as you possibly can by using complex, secure passwords.

So if you only have very little time to try and figure this WordPress security thing out, make these three things your top priorities. If you have a bit more time, look into the other steps outlined on the chart. This will go a long way to helping make your site more secure.

The Biggest Security Mistakes WordPress Site Owners Make

The second poll was simple. We wanted to know which WordPress security errors the pros see WP site owners making most frequently. Because if you can avoid these, it’ll go a long way to ensuring your site is not as vulnerable to attempted attacks.

Most Common WordPress Security Mistakes Made — *(Feel free to use this chart. Grab a copy here)*

And wouldn’t you know it. There are lots of similarities between the two charts. Not keeping software updated to the latest versions and using weak passwords were by far the most popular answers in this poll. And both of these mistakes are so, so easy to remedy.

If your site did fall victim to an attack, it’s extremely likely that one of these bad practices on the chart above would be to blame. Use this as a checklist of the absolute fundamentals that you need to have in place to prevent your site’s defences from being breached.

Other Articles You May Find Useful:

Best Elementor Themes? We Asked 60 Pros

by Chris Herbert | Last Updated March 25, 2021

Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, meaning, at no added cost to you, we will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

Elementor is a popular choice among WordPress users that want to take advantage of the convenience that page builders offer when it comes to designing a website. With 5+ million installs it’s one of the most popular WordPress plugins of all time, and so it didn’t come as much of a surprise when it came out on top in a survey we ran on the “Best Page Builders for WordPress” earlier this year.

But anyway, we’re not here to sing Elementor’s praises some more. If you’ve found this post, you’re likely already aware of how good it is and may have already decided to use it for your next project. But the theme you’re going to use with it…that you’re not quite so sure about. Just which are the best Elementor themes?

There are literally TONS of themes out there that claim to “play well” with Elementor. But which really do? And which give you everything you need to create the perfect website? To find out, we put this very question to 60 Elementor experts who have lots of experience with using Elementor and have tried and tested different options. “In your opinion, what are the best themes for Elementor?” we asked, allowing each expert to name up to 3 themes.

We’ve published the results below and hope that at the very least this will give you a solid starting point in your search for the perfect theme to use with Elementor!

Best Themes to Use with Elementor? How the Experts Voted

Theme	# of Votes
#1. Hello	41 Votes
#2. Astra	29 Votes
#=3. GeneratePress	12 Votes
#=3. OceanWP	12 Votes
#=4. Phlox	2 Votes
#=4. Neve	2 Votes
#=5. Genesis Framework	1 Vote
#=5. Kava	1 Vote
#=5. Kadence	1 Vote
#=5. MaxCoach	1 Vote
#=5. Twenty Twenty	1 Vote
#=5. Woostify	1 Vote
#=5. Rey	1 Vote
#=5. Essentials	1 Vote
#=5. Ohio	1 Vote
#=5. Jupiter X	1 Vote
#=5. Consulting WP	1 Vote
#=5. Architecturer	1 Vote
#=5. Monument Valley	1 Vote
#=5. Sydney	1 Vote
#=5. Page Builder Framework	1 Vote
#=5. _s (Underscores)	1 Vote

There were 21 themes that work with Elementor that were mentioned in total by the 60 experts that we surveyed, but if you’ve looked at the table above, you’ll no doubt have noticed that there were four clear standout performers. These were Hello, Astra, GeneratePress and OceanWP, all receiving plenty of praise from our pros. We’re going to take a closer look at each of these options in the section below to find out why they’re considered the best themes for Elementor by our panel.

A Closer Look at the 4 Top-Voted Elementor Themes (Including Both Paid + Free Elementor Themes)

1. Hello Theme

Hello is made by Elementor themselves, so you should never, ever have to worry about compatibility issues (phew!). It’s what you’d call a barebones theme – essentially a blank canvas – that allows you to create WHATEVER you want (if you have Elementor Pro), without having to operate under constraints built into your theme or waste time stripping out features you don’t need. Instead, you build from the ground up, customizing absolutely every aspect of your website.

Lots of creative freedom but starting completely from scratch does mean that building out a site on the Hello theme will typically take longer, and it probably isn’t a good option if you don’t know your way around Elementor fairly well. The fact that it’s such a basic theme makes it lightweight and fast to load. It’s also responsive, accessibility ready and is absolutely free! Although to get the most out of it you should pair it with Elementor Pro.

More Info

2. Astra

Astra is very beginner-friendly and comes with a vast library of starter templates that can be installed in just a single click. Using these templates as a starting point and then customizing them to fit your requirements can help to greatly speed up your project, and is super useful if you have minimal web design experience or need to put together a professional-looking site in a hurry.

It also plays well with WooCommerce for online shops, and both LearnDash and Lifter LMS for course/education websites. Astra is well-optimized (no JQuery to avoid render-blocking issues) for speed and is developed by a very reputable company in Brainstorm Force, who are very highly regarded in the Elementor space and provide exceptional support. What’s not to like?!

More Info

3. GeneratePress

GeneratePress is another really well optimized theme both in terms of speed (the whole theme is less than 30kb!) and for SEO with a very highly respected development team behind it that is constantly trying to make it better. They’re also very easy to get in touch with and really know their stuff – exactly what you want!

It’s also extremely popular for the amount of flexibility it provides, with tons of customization options even just with the free version, and then even more that are unlocked if you buy the premium version. There are also lots of hooks and filters that make it possible to create just about anything with GeneratePress, and it’s all laid out very intuitively and so is easy to work with.

More Info

4. OceanWP

OceanWP is all about providing design and content flexibility, and equips you with more customization options than either Astra or GeneratePress, but is not quite so optimized in terms of speed (but is still pretty good!). It comes with huge number of controls on a per-page basis that can be enabled or disabled and is particularly popular with folks that don’t have access to Elementor Pro, but need a lot of design flexibility.

It also integrates very well with WooCommerce and is a very popular choice for ecommerce websites. Like Astra it comes with lots of starter templates (they call them “Demos”) that can be imported in one click to speed things up.

More Info

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Read What The Experts Said

We survey industry pros that are deeply knowledgeable about the subject being discussed and base our recommendations on the opinions they provide. But you don’t have to just take our word for it. Below you can read what each and every expert had to say when asked about the best theme for Elementor.

If you’re interested in reading what was said about a particular theme, you can make use of the filters below to quickly bring up all of the comments that were made about it.

{"filter_mode":"masonry"}

Damian Urbaniec

A self-taught WordPress designer and developer. He has a passion for creating custom websites that not only look great but also fulfill clients' business goals.

http://damianurbaniec.com

“You’ve got to admit it – in terms of code optimization, design freedom, and overall cleanliness of the code, no visual editor will be an ideal tool compared to tedious code implementation using just HTML, CSS, and PHP.

Writing code from scratch is perhaps the most elegant and versatile solution for deploying pages. However, it comes with a long waiting time for the final product and a high cost, which not every client wants or can afford.”

Hello – “The ideal balance between ease of implementation and design flexibility is the theme Hello Elementor. “Hello” is the bare minimum, allowing you to build a website template without imposed restrictions.

There are no predefined headers, footers, pop-ups, or 404 pages here. Each of these elements can be created from scratch, giving the designer freedom instead of being confined to the specific framework imposed by the creator of the theme.

Thanks to Hello, you can ensure the highest possible cleanliness of the code, which will positively affect loading times. It does not include any features or styling.

The only disadvantage of Hello comes from its main advantage. The lack of template interface elements means that the production of the website takes much longer than using themes such as Astra or OceanWP, in which you only need to choose one of the ready-made sets.

Oh, and it’s for free.”

Dhruv Pandya

Dhruv is a one-man agency. He has 4 years of experience in WordPress Development, Digital Marketing, Graphics Design, SEO and UI/UX.

https://dhruvpandyadp.com

“Well, I have tried most of the Elementor themes for my personal and client projects, and here’s what I found to work best.”

Astra – “I love to use the WP Astra theme for Elementor. WP Astra theme is easy to use for professionals as well as for newbies. WP Astra theme has one of the best starter templates. You can also use all those starter templates for other page builders and Gutenberg. WP Astra theme has a free header and footer builder plugin. It works great with WooCommerce and LearnDash. I recommended you use the WP Astra theme if you don’t have Elementor Pro.”
Hello – “Hello theme is recommended by Elementor itself. I used the Hello theme when I want to design a website from scratch. The Hello theme is lightweight and optimized for Elementor. If you have Elemenetor Pro then using Theme Builder you can create a beautiful design. I recommended you to use the Hello theme if you have Elementor Pro.”

“Hello theme works great with Elementor and Theme Builder to create awesome website designs. However, WP Aѕtrа theme is a better option for you if you need a universal theme for Elementor that doesn’t require you to design and build everything frоm scratch.”

Luca Ottolini

Certified WordPress Expert Developer. Freelance since 2002, on Codeable since 2015, member of the Codeable Expert Vetting Team. In love with beautiful and fast things, both in my job and in real life 🙂

https://luca8.link

Hello – “Made by the same team who built Elementor itself, it’s a boilerplate that works seamlessly with Elementor, and even better with Elementor Pro. It doesn’t come with bloated stuff that makes the site heavier and slower, therefore it’s perfect if you want to take care of everything with Elementor Pro without any “bells & whistles” coming from the theme.”
_s (Underscores) – “Being powered by Automattic (the folks behind WordPress), you’re guaranteed well-written code. Like Hello, it’s more of a boilerplate than a theme, and you will need either some coding knowledge or Elementor Pro to design dynamic content such as archive pages, headers, footers, single posts templates etc.”
Astra – “If you need more than a boilerplate because you don’t want to set up every dynamic template, and you want more pre-built templates to start from (e.g. LearnDash integration, or more out-of-the box features for WooCommerce), AstraWP is a great choice.”

Ena Granulo

Multidisciplinary Designer based in Rome, with the aim of helping small and medium-sized enterprises in the development of their brand identity in a passionate and tailored way. Using WordPress everyday since 2015.

http://www.studioen.it

Rey – “Definitely my first choice when it comes to creating an ecommerce site with a strong visual impact where the graphic component has significant weight. This is a relatively new theme, perfect for ecommerce (and also for any other type of website) but especially for Elementor, as it perfectly integrates.

A lot of features and effects, good code and a high level of customization and functionality saves a lot of time and gives you the chance to have a solid foundation from where you can build a beautiful and noteworthy website.

Documentation and customer support are excellent so this is definitely a plus.

Summarizing: flexibility, stability, functionality, modularity, performance, great quality design, well coded, helpful documentation and awesome support – all in one.

If you are looking for a WordPress/Woocommerce Elementor based Theme try this one.”

Foti Boutsakis

I have been developing digital marketing & SEO for hotels, small and medium businesses for over 3 years. My work focused on SEO strategies and increased targeted organic web traffic. Using Google Ads and other platforms performed detailed keyword research in order to identify and analyze current market trends

https://marketup.gr

“One of the most common questions I hear is, “Will my site be fast if I design/develop it with a page builder?” The answer is of course a big YES, but the truth is that speed depends on many other factors. One factor is the theme you choose.”

Hello – “If you are designing and building pages with your favourite page builder, Elementor, then you do not need to look far in terms of which theme to use for your website. Hello was created by the Elementor team and is a canvas theme which is actually exactly what you need when working with Elementor. You create the Header and Footer as well as the rest of the pages with Elementor, so you do not need anything else to load on your site. Hello is a blank theme. As you hear it, VACUUM. It does not load any files that you do not need since you make everything from scratch with Elementor. That’s why it’s a theme I always use on all my sites, and the speed results are amazing.”
Astra – “If you do not have time to design pages from scratch, then Astra is a very good theme, fully compatible with Elementor and quite fast. It gives you the opportunity with the ready-made sites that it has, with one click, to have ready-made headers and footers and all the pages of a website. I have tried the Astra and I was really impressed by its speed. If I did not have time or I had to build a site very quickly, the Astra theme would be my choice.”

Mike Kellner

Mike has been a web creator since 2001, now specialising in helping businesses convert more of their traffic into paying clients and customers. Mike also partnered with Elementor in 2019 to start the London Elementor Meetup group which now has 750+ members.

https://designflowstudio.com/

Astra – “Because it is blazing fast, and has well thought out configurations for WooCommerce and LearnDash as well as other common integrations to meet client and project requirements. To keep my project processes as simple as possible, I wanted to settle for one theme that could be used for all client projects. It is also developed by Brainstorm Force who have leaders in the Elementor space.”

Viktor V.

A web developer and a WordPress expert helping small business professionals and digital entrepreneurs build and run their online businesses effectively

http://www.agorawebdesigns.com

“With over 5 million active downloads on the WordPress plugin directory, Elementor is arguably the most popular page builder plugin on the market. Not surprisingly, Elementor has gotten widely adopted among developers over the past few years, and that makes it a part of the growing community of theme and plugin creators that are actively supporting this page builder. Although Elementor is designed to be used with any WordPress theme, below I will discuss my top 3 WordPress themes that work best with Elementor.”

Astra – “Astra is one of those WordPress themes that is made to be used with any page builder and Elementor is no exception. The most notable thing about Astra is that it has the largest library of pre-built websites. These are ready to import websites, and you can find any design that will fit your niche.

The Astra Pro version has surprisingly a lot to offer in terms of customization and control. It is possible to create complex layouts, custom navbars, video headers, and anything you can think of all without the need for coding. I believe this to be one of the key aspects of Astra.

In conclusion, choosing Astra is a decision you can’t go wrong with. Apart from the tons of features you can add without coding, it is built for speed, so you can be sure that your WordPress is running fast and smooth.”
GeneratePress – “GeneratePress is one of the WordPress themes that takes loading speed very seriously. The whole theme weights less than 30KB and it loads no dependencies at all.

Elementor is fully supported by GeneratePress, along with other popular page builders. Also, this theme has a lot to offer in terms of usability. It has all the necessary features that you can use to customize any WordPress website. The flexible layout system can help you design more complex designs and have full control over the website branding. It also has included a library of pre-made page templates.

From a developer viewpoint, GeneratePress has many extra filters and actions that are included in the theme core. This gives you more flexibility and control to develop custom features, that are not possible with a clean WordPress version.

GeneratePress truly has a lot to offer, and I recommend using it if you are looking for a developer-friendly theme. It is well documented and has a community forum where you can ask questions and look for advice.”
Sydney – “Sydney is probably the best business WordPress theme that uses Elementor exclusively as a fundamental feature in its design. It has all the necessary features and customizations possible to create a modern online business presence. Sydney fully utilizes the power of Elementor, and with it, you can rapidly develop your layouts with custom Elementor blocks and make your website stand out from the competition.

Sydney theme comes in both a free and a paid version. Surprisingly it has a lot to offer even in the free version, and it is completely possible to build a fully working WordPress business website with it. But to get the most out of the Sydney theme, consider purchasing the Pro version. With it, you get a multitude of different custom Elementor blocks along with tons of different features and customizations to make a modern business website.

To conclude, if you are looking to build a business website with Elementor, this theme can help you to easily build different kinds of professional looking websites.”

Nile Flores

Nile Flores is a long time WordPress designer and developer, as well as professional blogger at Blondish.net. Nile blogs about WordPress, blogging, SEO, social media, and web design. She loves to give back to the WordPress community, by presenting at WordCamps across the U.S.

https://blondish.net

Genesis Framework – “There’s only ONE theme I will ever recommend, and it’s the StudioPress Genesis Framework. This framework works well, whether you use Classic Editor, Gutenberg, or any page builder, including Elementor.

It is the ONLY theme I recommend due to the fact, that out of the box, there’s not a lot of overhead, and it doesn’t profess to be the Swiss Army knife of themes. I’ve found it’s decent on speed, and after you’ve added your preferred plugins and content, it’s easy to optimize further for speed.

Additionally, it’s a theme that’s SEO ready, and easy to use. Just choose a child theme and add your content. However, if you want dynamic content, a page builder like Elementor can help with extra styling to your pages.

Other than that, together, Genesis and Elementor make creating content less of a headache.”

Vlad Moraru

Freelance web developer & certified WordPress expert @ Codeable.

https://moraruvlad.com/

Hello – “When it comes to Elementor + Elementor Pro page builder I always go for the Hello theme because of its tight integration with the builder, a load time of approximately 500ms and the page size of around 25KB makes it the perfect candidate :)”
GeneratePress – “This is my second choice, as a developer. The theme has fast speeds & small file sizes + it provides many hooks and filters in order to extend the functionality of the theme.”
Astra – “I would recommend this one to non-devs. It integrates very well with Elementor and it also provides lots of templates and layouts, and it can be used without purchasing Elementor Pro.”

Daniel Toth-Lorincz

I'm a freelance web designer

https://onebeat.studio

Hello – “This is the most stripped down theme from Elementor theme. It’s a blank canvas, the user should design every aspect of a website.

If you’re a more experienced designer, you don’t really need anything else.”
Astra – “It’s the most popular theme for Elementor, and is a good fit for webshops, providing a bunch of starter templates.

Good for beginners looking for a starting point. I have several webshops based on this theme. It also has styling options for LearnDash.”

Danijel Rose

As a WordPress Consultant and Trainer, I help small business owners build functional, attractive, fast loading websites with WordPress and Elementor.

https://wpconsultant.de/

“Let’s start by looking at the currently most successful themes on wordpress.org. Leaving aside the WordPress Standard Themes, Astra, Hello Elementor, OceanWP, and Neve are the four most popular themes with the highest number of active installations. It’s no coincidence that these themes are also the best match for the Elementor Page Builder. Let’s have a deeper look at each of these themes.”

Astra – “In my opinion, the Astra theme is not only the best WordPress theme but also the best choice when it comes to the most popular page builder. Being the second most installed theme, it’s not only my personal opinion, but a considerable part of the WordPress community also shares this point of view.

It’s a perfect match for you as an Elementor user independently of whether you use the free or the PRO version of the page builder. One of my primary goals when building a website is fast loading times. Therefore Astra is my favorite theme because it’s one of the fastest themes on the market.

Use it if you want a high-quality, extremely fast, accessible, schema markup optimized theme with extraordinary support.”
Neve – “Neve is the only theme that beats even Astra in terms of speed and therefore, this is my no. 2 go-to theme when creating Elementor sites. What I also really like about Neve is the great header builder. It’s already available in the free version, and it’s an intuitive way of building your header element without any additional plugins.

Use it if website performance is essential to you, and you are looking for a great alternative to Astra.”
OceanWP – “I would say OceanWP is the WordPress theme with the highest amount of available settings included in the free version. It’s a good fit for you if you don’t have Elementor Pro, but you still want to have high design flexibility.

Unfortunately, the theme’s performance is not that good as the other themes mentioned due to the many available options.

Use it if you need a lot of customization options and don’t have the Elementor Pro version.”

“By the way, in case you are wondering why the Hello Elementor theme is not one of my favorites, although I am all about performance, there is a reason.

I tested the performance of the best Elementor themes, and Hello is not the fastest WordPress theme on the planet, as stated by the creators. Supposing you include a simple header and footer, which you should do to draw a meaningful comparison. In that case, the theme’s performance will be worse than the fastest Elementor themes like Astra, Neve, or GeneratePress. Additionally, you would have to create all parts of your website from scratch. You have to invest more time in your website setup, and it requires the Elementor Pro version. Remember that you will have to extend your Pro license as long as your website is live.

You might ask yourself why I only consider the themes of wordpress.org. From my point of view, the mentioned themes are not only the best choices within the WordPress repository but also in the whole WordPress environment. I have also tested themes like Jupiter X or Kava Pro, which also work great with Elementor. But on the one hand, I’m a big fan of trying out free products first and only extending them if necessary. On the other hand, I think that the premium themes outside of wordpress.org are not competitive compared to the previously presented themes, including their pro versions.”

Abby Gulla

Boutique Agency Owner and Freelancer. Specializes in WordPress Development and Marketing. Loves to play ultimate frisbee and build MEAN stack applications.

http://yourdigitalubiquity.com

Hello – “After the new release of Elementor 3, which allows for global styling, I have started moving most of my sites from Phlox, Astra, Ocean WP over to Hello. The only reason to be paying for a pro theme or utilizing a different theme after the last major release of Elementor (3.0) is if you have added a ridiculous amount of features to the theme code.

As a developer, this has greatly enhanced my workflow. Hello Theme is lightweight and essentially blank, so it is perfect for designers and developers looking to create a custom look in WordPress. For those that want the ability to access the theme files, there is a child theme available on GitHub that the Elementor team does plan on putting in the theme repository on WP soon.

While it’s not built-in accessible, one is able to add Aria-labels in Elementor Pro’s “Custom Attributes.” By default the form in Elementor Pro is accessible. The theme is easy to make accessible utilizing Elementor Pro.

In switching themes, if you were using a previous theme to create the header and footer you will need to recreate them in the theme builder for Elementor, but of the 25 sites I’ve moved, it has taken very little time (less than 5-10 minutes per page) to make sure all the functionality has remained the same as when using other themes. Granted, I haven’t been asked to update any deprecated themes to Hello theme, yet.

If you are utilizing Elementor it only makes sense to be using a theme that is 100% compatible with it. The speed alone is worth the switch.”

Dan Bochichio

Dan Bochichio is a founding partner of Bocain Designs, a web design company in upstate NY. Dan has been creating websites since the late 1990s and has over a decade of experience working with WordPress.

https://www.bocaindesigns.com/

“We’ve been building WordPress websites for just over a decade and when it comes to selecting themes, we have a lot of experience at understanding what makes a theme a great choice.

When you’re building a website with Elementor, there are a few great options, depending on your experience with WordPress.”

Astra – “Astra is the perfect theme if you’re on a budget. Astra is free and will let you design almost any site you can imagine.

Astra is lightweight, works perfectly with Elementor, and both can be optimized well to load in just a second or two. If you have a little bit of money to spend, Astra PRO expands the theme functionality further, giving you even more ways to customize the design of your website.”
OceanWP – “OceanWP is similar to Astra, except that it has several ready-made layouts to import with ease. If you want to make a website quickly and don’t want to spend much time thinking about the design, OceanWP helps you reduce the time it takes to complete your site. This is an ideal theme for a hobbyist website.”
Hello – “Hello Elementor is a theme released by the team behind Elementor, so it’s no wonder as to why it is the best theme for Elementor.

It’s a lightweight theme that gives you total control over how the website looks by editing the entire website through the Elementor interface. This includes creating the site header, footer, product pages, blog posts, and more. You will want the Elementor PRO plugin, which has a similar cost to purchasing a theme (about $50) but comes with a robust number of features.”

Martin Suttill

Digital Analytics; WordPress and Digital Marketing Expert. Known for guiding companies to become more profitable by optimising their websites and digital marketing strategies. Martin is the owner of 54 Solutions and can also be found on Codeable.

https://www.54solutions.com/

“Elementor is a great page builder if you want to build something quickly. My team and I have used it on many occasions. Depending on what we have to do we use different themes.”

Hello – “This theme is built specifically for Elementor. It’s a fast and lightweight theme and as you can do practically anything with Elementor pro it is a good choice of theme to start with.”
Astra – “If you need to do a lot of customization to your site, then I recommend you use the Astra theme. It’s a lightweight theme optimised with speed in mind. However, it has a much larger range of options available compared to Hello theme. We have been using this theme for years and it has been very reliable.”
Neve – “Similar to Astra, we have the Neve theme which also gives you granular control over the different elements your site might require. It also has many starter sites that you can import to get things started quickly. This option is also available in Astra.”

“So which one would I choose? Well, it depends on what type of site you need to create. I have placed the themes in order with my favourite theme coming first for ease of use. So that would be the Hello theme.”

Mike Matera

Mike Matera has been creating Websites since 2000 and working with WordPress since 2009. His main focus is providing WordPress training and consulting to businesses and individuals (both online and in person), although he still takes on the occasional full Website project.

https://www.mikematera.com

“Elementor is a great, relatively lightweight yet powerful page builder. If you have the Pro version, it’s a full site builder. Either way, you want a theme that lets Elementor work its magic without getting in its way.

Here are my top three recommendations.”

Kadence – “A relative newcomer, this theme is lightweight, yet fantastically intuitive and flexible. It pairs very well with Elementor (and other page builders) and comes in both a free and a pro version. But just the free version of each is more than enough to craft a great website for yourself, your business, or your clients.

One advantage it has over the others in this list is its drag-and-drop header and footer, even in the free version. You can probably get by quite nicely with the free version of Elementor, given just those two features alone.

KadenceWP is gaining popularity very quickly. Check out some of the fast-growing influx of reviews and tutorial videos to see why.”
OceanWP – “This theme has an amazing array of customizer and per-page options, along with free and paid add-ons – things that normally might mean overkill when paired with something as feature-packed as Elementor. However, since OceanWP is specifically intended to work with Elementor, it’s a logical choice. In fact, if you install OceanWP, you’ll keep seeing notifications to install Elementor, alerts that remain on your WordPress dashboard until you install Elementor.

All you need is the free version of each to have an amazing website. In fact, you’ll find that there’s little you can’t do even with a base installation of each. But since OceanWP has some premium add-ons specific to Elementor, there’s always more you can do with the latter, and those features do not require Elementor Pro.”
Astra – “As with the other themes, you can start with the free version of Astra as well as the free version of Elementor. Both provide a great set of creative features. Astra also has a more extensive library of pre-built sites than do the first two themes I mentioned, including many free ones.

And Astra makes the process of installing Elementor so easy. You just install Astra, then install the Astra Sites plugin. From there, choose the page builder you want to use (select Elementor), then preview the beautifully-crafted full web sites. When you find one you like, you’ll see what plugins it needs.

It’s best to start with a free one that uses only free plugins. Follow the on-screen instructions, and not only will the site – replete with graphics – be installed, but also all the plugins, including Elementor. While Astra has fewer customization options in its free version than do the first two themes I mentioned, it has an impressive collection of pre-built sites, and there are a lot of YouTube tutorials to get you started. Furthermore, Astra has a pro upgrade that includes Elementor-specific add-ons. Even if you don’t upgrade, it’s nice to know that the company behind Astra (Brainstorm Force) creates its theme with Elementor in mind.”

“Those three are the ones I’d recommend, in the order that I listed them. That said, I’d like to give an honorable mention to GeneratePress as well, but only the pro version of that theme. Its free version is not as customizable, at least as of version 2.4. It’s also the only one of the free themes I mentioned that doesn’t let you remove the theme vendor’s footer credits in any easy way (even if you have some technical/coding skills, you’ll find it to be tricky). If a theme vendor is going to make removing its footer credits from a free theme that difficult, then I suggest either purchasing its paid version or going with a different free theme.”

Ross Meadows

With an extensive background in digital marketing, web development, video production, SEO and content management, Ross has had strong exposure to online and traditional marketing methods for well over decade.

https://mediabooth.com.au

Phlox – “Phlox Pro, more often than not when combining a WordPress website build with Elementor we choose to use Phlox Pro theme. It is lightweight and very flexible for our liking. By flexibility I mean that if we are building a basic website it can easily be used or even through to a complex ecommerce build with Woocommerce, it does a great job.

Things we like about Phlox Pro…
- Works well with our preferred caching software Litespeed. Caching is just as important as a good theme for your website, ensuring fast load times for visitors, and can make or break any website!
- Seamless integration with Elementor makes it a breeze to build most styles of WordPress website easily, quickly and professionally.
- Loads of templates with demo content available.
- Constantly maintained and updated. Having a theme from trusted developers that are constantly looking to improve their theme and update regularly is a must.”

Jethro Theo Paul

Jethro is a full stack writer and funnel hacker with 12 years of experience across web design and internet marketing. Using WordpPress, he has built dozens of platforms used globally.

http://www.dynarave.com

“When I first got started with WordPress design, one of the things that usually get me stuck as a newbie was deciding which theme to use for each project. Thinking about it now, it makes me cringe and want to go “arrrghh!”

When Elementor came with its Theme Builder feature, It was an aha! moment for me, being able to design every aspect of my site exactly the way I want it.

Here is my top theme for Elementor”

Hello – “Anyone who appreciates speed, easiness and simplicity in a website will surely go with this theme. I like the fact that it’s lightweight and devoid of distractions in the name of Theme Options. Since it was released, I’ve always worked with Hello Elementor and integrate any other plugin I need for any feature. The result it gives is incredible and rewarding when compared with other themes. You also don’t experience bloat or styles breakdown due to heavy dependence on external resources, as is often the case with other themes.

So my number 1 choice for Elementor is Hello Elementor.”

Alex Morgan

A WordPress web designer who specialises in using Elementor.

https://www.tinybluerocket.co.uk

Hello – “The only theme I use with Elementor is their own Hello theme. The main advantage of working with Elementor Pro is that it’s not just a page builder, but a theme builder.

When I have installed themes before, especially expensive ‘all-in-one’ premium themes, I find myself spending hours stripping out features and content that I don’t actually need. With the Hello theme, you start from a blank canvas and build upwards.

By pairing the barebones Hello theme with Elementor you have total control of every single pixel and part of your website. You essentially build your theme exactly how you want it.

The other main advantage of using Elementor as a theme builder is speed. Websites built with the Hello theme are lightning-fast, mainly because you aren’t carrying any excess weight of features and code you don’t need on your website.

When it comes to building a website with the Hello theme, it might take a little bit longer to build the website, as you’re starting from a blank canvas, but it does ensure you end up with exactly the website you want and with no compromise.”

Mike Haydon

Mike has built WordPress websites since 2006, is a Gutenberg contributor and has presented at WordPress meetups and conferences. He leads a team of people building Accessible websites, and runs a blog focused on WordPress tutorials.

https://www.intelliwolf.com

GeneratePress – “My favourite combination for most custom projects is GeneratePress and Elementor. GeneratePress is easy to work with, handles pretty much everything through the WordPress Theme Customizer, has a great development team behind it and is really lightweight in terms of code. The theme has lots of hooks so you can easily customize it using a child theme. I don’t generally run Elementor on all pages, usually only on pages where I really need it, so I need a theme that can handle the rest of the site without designing two different types of systems.”
Astra – “I like Astra for the same reasons as GeneratePress. It’s lightweight and easy to work with. If I didn’t have GeneratePress, Astra would be my number 1 pick to use with Elementor because of its deep integration. However, on the theme side, GeneratePress is just a little bit easier to use, just a little bit more intuitive and just a little bit more customizable. The difference is really marginal, but that’s why I prefer GeneratePress.”

Ken Brown

Hey there! I'm Ken Brown. As a Business Consultant turned Web Designer, I build digital marketing solutions for Coaches, Consultants and Contractors to help grow their business off the charts!

http://kenbrownconsulting.com

Astra – “As a web designer, I’ve always recommended Astra Theme to all of my clients for these 4 main reasons:
- Speed
- Customization
- Integration
- Design Templates
Astra is great for its lightweight capabilities. Sitting under 50KB, it means your website will load much quicker than other WordPress themes on the market. Also, another noteworthy feature for Astra is how easy it is to adjust your overall design in real-time with its built-in “Customizer” feature. From the header to footer, your theme is totally customizable, and requires no coding knowledge. Another fantastic feature of Astra is the ability to integrate with drag-and-drop page builders like Beaver Builder and Elementor, making it easier to build an end-to-end website on WordPress. If you’re looking for plenty of pre-built website designs to start out with, then Astra is a must-have. With 100+ designs to choose from, you can get a website up-and-running for your niche business in days, not weeks.”

Chris Seifert

Owner/Founder of Portseif, LLC. Been designing/developing for over 15 years, but 2 years ago went full-time. Being able to create something out of nothing is a passion of mine.

https://portseif.io

Hello – “When I work on Elementor projects, this is my go-to theme. It is light, made for Elementor, and is client-friendly. I say “client-friendly” because it does not have a ton of WordPress Customizer options. I use a Child theme because I like to write a lot of custom code, so having a child theme allows me to update the Parent theme (Hello Theme) by not hurting my client’s sites.

A tip when using this theme is to enqueue the priority so you don’t have to overwrite all CSS styles.

Add: add_action(‘wp_enqueue_scripts’, ‘hello_elementor_child_enqueue_scripts’, 15); to your functions.php file.”

Juan Eloy Hernández

I am co-founder of Grub Estudio and creative director of the Barcelona headquarters. I studied graphic design and copywriting, which allows me to see the bigger picture when working on branding and web design.

https://www.grubestudio.com/

Hello – “This is my first recommendation if you want (and need) a lightweight theme that works perfectly with Elementor. It’s almost empty, but if you like doing things from zero, this is your best choice. Also, this theme is completely free with no pro version, and its code is really minimalistic.”
OceanWP – “This is also a great theme to work with Elementor, especially if you are working on a more complex site or for ecommerce. It comes with many features and options for headers, sidebars, and many extra extensions that make this theme powerful, but also fast.”

Yevhen Reshetar

I am a WordPress developer and my main specialization is Elementor development. I have created 50+ sites on Elementor (from small sites with a few pages to big sites with many pages, custom blocks and custom sections). My main aim in development is to create user-friendly sites that my clients can edit without having to have any coding skills.

https://www.reshetar.website/

“In general, I use only 2 themes for my work.”

Astra – “It’s a light theme, which has a basic design.

Astra theme is good for:
- You want to create a simple site and you aren’t that skilled/experienced using Elementor
- You want to create a site, but you don’t have much time to get the job done

Astra is the best choice if you need to choose a theme with pre-existing designs because there are additional features which aren’t included in the Hello theme like a 404 page, a search page etc. It saves you a lot of time.”

Hello – “This is the best theme for development when you have Elementor skills and enough time for development (because it takes a little longer than with the Astra theme).

Hello Elementor theme is good for:
- You are skilled and familiar with Elementor
- You have adequate time for proper development

The Hello theme is the best choice if you want to have a very light theme, without extra files on the site (no unnecessary CSS styles and JS code). But because of this leanness, you need to create additional pages such as a 404 page, a search page and secondary pages. Sometimes it isn’t as comfortable and you don’t have time for this extra work. Also, it’s important that you are skilled with Elementor otherwise it will take you forever to put together a functional site.”

Adrian Ross

Frontend Developer

http://www.adriantoddross.com

Hello – “The Hello Theme is a great choice for experienced designers and developers.

It has simple theme options and works best for people that like to design each page and create their own reusable components.

If you like full control over your design, the Hello Theme covers the basics, is easy to set up, and will probably always receive support since it was made by the creators of Elementor!”

Stewart Laing

Stewart is Owner/Director of Laing Media Ltd, digital nomad, designer, developer, entrepreneur and tech enthusiast among other things.. He has worked with variety of large business from breweries to construction companies.

https://laingmedia.ltd/

“Choosing themes for WordPress in general can be a very subjective thing. The great thing about Elementor is that one theme can have literally thousands of completely different variants if you know how to work the software. So for me, the best theme is always the one created within the theme builder of Elementor itself. This can be personalised however you want it, and it’s now been made even easier with some of Elementors most recent updates. Global fonts and colours mean that whatever your underlying theme is, the most important factor is that it is very lightweight to make sure your site is going to run as fast as it can do with a page builder.

My favourite themes for Elementor are as follows…”

Hello – “Although I always create my own themes using the theme builder, for the underlying theme I would choose Hello by Elementor themselves. Specifically the child version. It is very lightweight, with no bells and whistles. Which means you can make your sites fast and secure.”
Kava – “Kava is an honorary mention as it gives you the option to install the child theme by default and gives you a few additional options that Hello doesn’t have. If you use the Crocoblock theme installer it also comes with a bunch of installable templates and demos that you can use to get the smaller more simple sites built super fast. Very useful if you have clients who don’t have a large budget, want something they can edit easily and that is still going to look good.”

“I’ve always been a massive advocate of Elementor since its conception, I use it on almost all of my clients’ sites and it gets better with every update. In short, I recommend you get the Hello child theme and then build your own variant on top using the theme builder inside Elementor.”

Robert Hapiuc

Husband, father of two girls, CEO & Software architect at VoxelWP Agency. At the agency we develop digital solutions for companies, institutions and NGOs using WordPress

https://www.voxelwp.com

“Elementor has passed the stage where we refer to it as a page builder. Elementor is a trustworthy site builder, and together with some other plugins, it can be a real threat to no-code tools.”

Hello – “Since Elementor is a dedicated site builder, we should start with the first mention, Hello theme. The theme is like a canvas for artists; it is easy to install and setup so the user can get to the creative part as soon as possible.”
Astra – “Astra theme was the right tool at the right time, which gained the status of the fastest growing theme in the industry. It comes packed with many translations; it does not use jQuery and has an excellent performance score. Along with all these features, it also comes with an extensive collection of pre-built themes that help web designers that are just starting to use Elementor.”
GeneratePress – “While other themes are focused mainly on speed and ease of use, GeneratePress comes with what is missing from the industry at this point; excellent security, accessibility, and being developer-friendly. Not all the themes are perfect, but we, as a custom WordPress development agency, really like to extend a theme without harming its performance or security.”

“This list is not ranked in order. Each one of the presented themes is good for their intended purpose.”

Alok Shrestha

I am a full-stack WordPress developer. I started my career as a Web Developer. I am in love with WordPress for over 5 years now and since then have been working as a Fullstack WordPress developer for clients around the world communicating, taking initiatives, demonstrating skills, planning, and meeting deadlines.

https://alokshrestha.com.np

“The availability of Elementor drag & drop provides the freedom to make changes on a website easily. Also, the best part is the live customizer which lets you view the changes made on the website instantly.”

OceanWP – “My favorite Elementor theme is OceanWP. It is one of the most popular free themes available on the market. It integrates with many WordPress page builder plugins, giving you plenty of ways to design full WordPress websites through simple drag-and-drop maneuvers. It is packed with a ton of customizer features. When used with Elementor page builder, it delivers high-end page designs & advanced capabilities. OceanWP has helped me develop several websites fast and easily.”
Hello – “My second favorite Elementor based theme is Hello Theme. This theme offers tons of Elementor compatible features and is very lightweight. It is flexible for developers, comes with a responsive design, and compatible with a popular eCommerce plugin called WooCommerce.”

Paulo Carvajal

I’m a seasoned front-end web developer with more than 20 years of experience building websites and more than 12 years working with WordPress. I work for Vudumedia, a design studio in Bilbao and I’m also a WordPress developer at Toptal and WordPress expert at Codeable.

https://www.paulocarvajal.com/

“My recommendation on the best themes for Elementor will probably mimic any of the thousands of other reviews you could find online.”

Astra – “My favourite one is Astra. It’s lightweight and it has great defaults to start any kind of site. It also has a companion plugin that gives you a good amount of predefined templates in case you need them. Astra also integrates nicely with most commonly used plugins like WooCommerce or LearnDash.”
GeneratePress – “GeneratePress is also light and performs very well. It has a good Schema implementation that can be useful in extreme SEO cases and a good bunch of premade templates.”
Hello – “Another good option is Hello theme. Made by the people who build Elementor itself, it’s obviously tailored for Elementor and works perfectly with it. It is also light and compatible and plays well with most commonly used plugins. In my opinion, it lacks some defaults to start with, but this could be an advantage in some cases.”

Anne-Mieke Bovelett

Need a constructive nudge in learning to master Elementor Pro and creating with WordPress? Anne-Mieke Bovelett teaches Elementor and WordPress, both individually and to groups, in Dutch, English, German (including Swiss-German dialect). Besides that, she runs a versatile advertisement & project management agency, based near Düsseldorf, Germany.

https://annebovelett.eu

“Ask me which theme is best for Elementor, and I’ll happily counter that with a question of my own: “Would you like to be given a fish to feed you once, or would you prefer to be able to do all the fishing yourself, so you can feed yourself every day without depending on anyone else?” Simply because with Elementor themes you can have the best of both worlds!

My primary theme choice is primarily directed at the target group I consider myself to be part of: web designers with frontend development skills, who love ultimate creative freedom and tend to work with tools that speed up their workflow and efficiency.

As a user of Elementor Pro, my primary vote goes to Hello Theme. For those who are less attached to the wish to be the ultimate master and micromanager of every itching detail, but want to whip up a great looking site in no time, my secondary vote goes to Astra.”

Hello – “Hello Elementor is a blank canvas, but under the hood all the necessary settings, including responsiveness, are right. No junk, no clunk, no funky widgets that preload all kinds of scripts that you never needed anyway. Because who wants a slow truck when a high-speed motorbike is what you need, right? Once you get the hang of using the global styling features that come with Elementor, it’s unbeatable.

Besides that, as an Elementor tutor, this theme is my favourite to teach agencies how to convert their flat designs into smoothly running websites in WordPress, or to port site designs made with another theme. The advantage of a blank slate like Hello, is that you don’t need to spend a lot of time tweaking (or overriding) a gazillion settings when it boils down to details of a design you’re porting.

Another reason to choose the Hello Elementor theme is that it’s created and maintained by the developers of Elementor. As a page builder, Elementor works with literally almost every theme, but not everyone realises that sometimes themes, whether freely available in the theme repository of WordPress.org, or themes with paid support from sources such as ThemeForest, sometimes are abandoned by their respective developers. Depending on all technical bells and whistles a theme has, (parts of) your site can break due to lack of maintenance of the theme. I don’t see that happening with Hello Elementor any time soon. :-)”
Astra – “The first time I tested this theme (about a year ago), its speed and versatility blew me away. Don’t worry, I’m not going to get all nerdy here, reciting all the geek speak facts about what makes this theme so fast. But what I will tell you is that it elegantly caters to professional web creators on one hand, and DIY users on the other hand. Beautifully pre-made full layouts and sections enable you to quickly whip up a decent looking responsive website.

Besides, I think the company behind Astra, Brainstorm Force, isn’t going to go away any time soon either. Just like Elementor, they are solid and put their users’ needs first.”

Remco Nieuwenhuizen

Remco is owner of WordPress maintenance company WPsupporters.com. We help entrepreneurs and businesses with WordPress maintenance, Speed and Security.

https://WPsupporters.com

Hello
Astra

“Both themes are lightweight and with the theme builder options of Elementor has almost every theme feature unnecessary. So we only use the theme to select the website logo but for every other option we use the Elementor builder and we love it.”

Domenico Cosentino

I have a passion for bringing out the best in every job and situation. With my background in luxury retail, I focus on bringing the same to every client.

https://lamontagna.co

Astra – “I am going to be bold and recommend only one theme to use with Elementor and WordPress. ASTRA and its PRO plugin. They have put together one of the fastest, cleanest and neatest themes I have seen that works really well with Elementor.

I have spent time trialing several other themes and although there are some great themes out there, I find that many interfaces are glammed up and sadly this hinders them from taking top spot. Astra’s interface seamlessly integrates with WordPress allowing you to quickly and easily tweak site settings. No need to now relearn or decipher a new system.

I am all about efficiency and simplicity. This translates to faster and cleaner builds for me and my customers.”

Marco Polderman

Owner of MMC IT Solutions, a software company that helps entrepreneurs get more free time to focus on their goals.

https://mmc-itsolutions.nl

“When choosing a theme for Elementor you”ll need to look for the best compatibility, performance and ease of use for you and sometimes your customer. So for me, you can’t go wrong with the following themes.”

Astra – “This is a lightweight theme for WordPress in general and has a free option that works perfectly with Elementor. It’s also compatible with a lot of other great plugins like autoptimize, Learndash & WooCommerce.”
Hello – “If you just want to make sure that your theme is always compatible no matter what version of Elementor you run, Hello is the theme for you. It’s compatible with a lot of plugins and is still small in size.”

Kelly Pfleiger

Owner of P1 Web Development and an Elementor Pro expert specializing in building websites for the racing community, small businesses and startups.

http://www.p1webdevelopment.com

“Let’s be real here… There are so many themes out there to choose from and, it is really easy to ruin your site’s performance if you select the wrong one. Depending on your level of expertise with Elementor, there are three options that I would recommend.”

Hello – “Elementor made your choice very easy if, and only if, you are going to leverage all of the features within the pro version. The beauty of the Hello Theme is its simplicity. Seriously, there are no crazy options within the customizer to learn as the theme is designed to satisfy WordPress’s basic needs, and that’s it.

However, while the theme is not complex, it is designed with the expectation that you will be using Elementor Pro’s templates, theme builder, and all of the new global site settings options.

I have been exclusively building Elementor Pro websites for over three years now, and the Hello Theme is all I prefer to use for my clients.”
Page Builder Framework – “Mapsteps produced the most stable theme that can be leveraged effectively across all page builder platforms. It truly does not matter if you are using Elementor Pro or Divi. The theme works well and isn’t bloated with options to slow your site down. I have used the pro version for several clients who wanted a light theme that leveraged the WordPress customizer. By using the Page Builder Framework Theme you can still choose to use all of the Elementor Pro site options, or you can use the same global theme items within the theme it’s self.”
OceanWP – “Now we are getting into the “consumer” level of themes. While OceanWP is not a lite theme, it offers so many customer-friendly options, demos, and layouts that a new designer can build a beautiful website. Options abound for anyone who wants to use this theme with WooCommerce, have SEO tagging built-in, and strong documentation. If you want a theme that provides a ton of options and custom build plugins that can be used within the theme… then OceanWP is the right choice for you.”

“All three of the themes are solid options depending on your skill level with Elementor Pro and WordPress. While I may use the Hello Theme as often as I can, because the extra options within other themes are just that, options I don’t use, I have had good experiences with both Page Builder Framework and OceanWP.”

William Smith

Macedon Digital creates custom Elementor websites for educators, health professionals and not-for-profits.

http://www.macedondigital.com.au

Hello – “Most suitable for non-ecommerce websites. The theme is fast and simple, allowing developers and Elementor builders alike to build websites that perform really well. It is more important than ever to have a website that is not bloated.”
Woostify – “For easy-to-customise WooCommerce stores. The theme is relatively robust and support is exceptional. Woostify allows you to use Elementor to customise common WooCommerce pages. We save around 7 plugins in comparison to using alternatives like Crocoblock.”
GeneratePress – “For simple WooCommerce stores. If you need to get a very simple WooCommerce store up and running quickly then this is our go-to theme. It is very reliable, fast and easy to use. It is also well-reviewed by our customers who find it easy to use.”

Richard Bland

I'm a passionate digital consultant and website manager in the ever-evolving digital age, helping small business owners and start-ups to find and implement digital solutions across the web, e-commerce, social media, email, and video. At the core I am a website designer, front-end developer, and graphic designer.

https://bhambrabland.co.uk/

“Over the years, I have been using one theme solidly with Elementor; GeneratePress.

I will get into the reasons why shortly, but let me be honest and upfront, in the last 6 months, I have taken the choice on some of my website projects to build Elementor based sites using Elementor’s Hello theme.

Let’s take a look at GeneratePress though.

This site was designed and built with GeneratePress and Elementor, for the GeneratePress library (by me, shameless plug), at a time when GP to me was the core ‘theme builder’ and Elementor was a new and quick way to create rows and columns and responsive sections without the need for custom code or additional plugins.

Tom has built and evolved GP over those years to something super impressive, and despite that, his attention has remained on producing a stable and robust theme (or framework as I like to refer to it), one capable of creating and running every site imaginable.

The options available as a premium user will give you every single tool you need to support a standalone website build, or even without the elements and other premium features turned on, GP is an excellent frame to house your Elementor build.

What stands GP apart from the rest of the themes out there is their no-bloat approach, speed optimisation focus, and the coding evolution, which gets better and better every year. Of course, not forgetting their phenomenal support and the community surrounding it, which in my opinion is one of the best out there, period.

For me, it is a no brainer, GeneratePress, along with its Elements tool (formerly hooks), allows me to build and hook in complex code for bespoke builds with ease. It remains one of the best themes on the market and a great place to start if you wish to have a definite no-bloat code framework at heart.

So why have I chosen to start using Elementor’s Hello theme instead?

Well, in some instances, I haven’t. I still have several GP and E websites running, and running very well, and when looking at user requirements, and coding complexity, if GP fits the bill, it is on the table in a heartbeat.

Long story short – GP has developed into its own standalone website builder with GenerateBlocks, and Elementor developed into its own theme builder; the two have started to cancel each other out, in my opinion, so I increasingly have to consider which I feel will work better for my clients’ user experience, not my own.

GeneratePress is excellent for me, with its Elements tool, and it’s compatibility with Elementor, it is just the go-to.

It is excellent for most general designers and developers out there, who may have a little coding knowledge behind them to create those custom sections, or perhaps not, as I say the community is epic and always sharing custom code!

What I have found though is that my clients who want to be ‘hands-on’ with the content of their websites have had a little more success with dragging and dropping Elementor widgets and making style changes on the fly using Elementor’s customiser than they have with GP’s customiser options.

Please Note; this opinion is based on my clients’ usage and does not reflect the overall user experience GP has to offer, it really is a great theme, and I personally find it one of the easiest to customise with.

At this point, I had found myself turning off some of GP’s premium features. They were not needed by my clients, and instead were just being used by me – again OK if I am building a bit more of a bespoke layout or want to hook some code in throughout – but for the regular everyday small business owner who does not need this and wants to do it themselves, these features were just overkill (which is a testament to GP as a product – they really do offer a lot).

It was with this in mind that the Hello theme just made sense to simplify the user experience for the client. It offers a relatively no-bloat option, lightweight, and is obviously built for use with Elementor, so instead of confusing the client with multiple ways to customise the same site, I just choose a theme based upon the client need at the time.

Ultimately, both themes have a place on my mantel. GeneratePress is and will always remain one of the best themes out there, supported by a community of genuinely epic superstars.”

GeneratePress – “If you want a theme that will give you a little extra development space, using their elements (hooks), GP is the theme to go for, hands-down every time.”
Hello – “For those who don’t need that extra wiggle room, and are looking for something simple to base their Elementor build on, then go for the Hello theme, you can’t go wrong.”

“As always when developing any site, even with Elementor, make sure you install your own Child theme and use staging and backups regularly.”

Alan Quirk

A freelance web developer of over 15 years, I put the focus on good user design and experience.

https://alanquirk.com

Hello – “I always use a child theme when developing a new website with Elementor. This enables me to add my own functionality like shortcodes and custom query filters.

For this reason, I prefer not to have any unnecessary code that needs overwriting, so my go-to theme choice is Hello by Elementor.

This barebones theme has been developed by the team at Elementor to not get in the way of designers and developers. There are no settings that conflict with the Elementor builder such as header designers or colour selectors. And the best part is – it’s free!”

“If you need more options then I would probably look at something like Astra, or Layers which is also developed by Elementor.”

Wil Brown

Dad / WordPress Consultant / Developer / Business Mentor / Conference Speaker and Organiser, living in Sydney, Australia.

https://zeropointdevelopment.com/

Hello – “Hello is Elementor’s free base theme for creating websites from scratch and my go-to theme when building a website using Elementor.

If you are looking for a completely blank canvas to start from, this theme is for you.

It comes with no design elements or templates and a fundamental CSS model.

If that scares you then look further down the list of theme recommendations.

This theme is ideal for professional designers and developers wanting to create a bespoke lean site from the ground up, without the hassle of having to remove or override CSS, HTML elements and pre-defined templates.

Did I mention it’s free!!”
GeneratePress – “I’ve been using GeneratePress successfully for a year or so on specific web projects.

This theme is lightweight and focused on SEO, ideal for blogs, information and corporate sites looking to rank quickly on Google.

There are premium modules and templates which quickly extend the base theme.

The free version of the theme is good, but to make the most of it, you should buy the premium version for around USD 50 per site for one year’s support and access to all the paid modules and access to the template library.

Quickly customise any of the theme’s templates with Elementor to achieve your ideal website design.

Perfect for site creators who want a flexible, lean, fast theme to tweak with Elementor.”
OceanWP – “I love OceanWP because of the vast amount of niche templates (they call them “demos”) you can import with a single click.

This theme is perfect for quickly bumping out a professional-looking niche website.

It has one of the fastest load times amongst similar types of themes and with WooCommerce support makes it a winner for shop owners.

Pricing won’t break the bank at around USD 40 per site for one year’s support and access to the premium modules and demo library.

OceanWP is 100% compatible with Elementor allowing website and shop owners to customise headers, footers, content and templates quickly and easily.”

Jenny Sponton

My company designs and develops WordPress websites for local small businesses. We also provide business consulting to help them manage their entire business effortlessly. I also created a software called Spot N Paste which helps dropship sellers process their orders faster.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-sponton/

OceanWP – “Of all of the themes I have used, OceanWP has been the most customizable. Using it alongside Elementor has also been a breeze. I have not had any trouble with them not playing nice together. Even if you use Elementor’s theme builder, there are still numerous customizations you can do with OceanWP. One of the best is the custom page layouts and also the customizations with Woocommerce. When looking at page speed and performance, at first OceanWP might look like it would slow down your site, however, once you turn on the performance settings, you’ll see that OceanWP doesn’t hold you back from getting your site performing at top speed.”

Chase Gruszewski

I build clean processes, easy UIs, smart code, and efficient designs that solve your specific problems, streamline your business, and lead to audience growth.

https://codeable.io/developers/chase-gruszewski/?ref=vLTZJ

GeneratePress – “For my part, I really prefer to use Elementor with GeneratePress.

The theme is extraordinarily stable, and performance-minded. It’s very lightweight too, so it stays out of Elementor’s way and lets the page builder do the heavy lifting without creating conflicts.

It’s also very customizable, so developers can tailor it to e-commerce, educational, B2B, B2C, or pretty much anything you can imagine.”

Sean Conklin

Sean is a freelance online store builder with 18+ years of eCommerce expertise. He specializes in WooCommerce powered store launches, migrations, repairs and performance optimization projects. Through his clients he supports around $10M annual revenues supporting small businesses primarily based in the USA.

https://codedcommerce.com

“I recommend selecting a theme based on the page builder technology the client prefers. As a developer, I expect each client to maintain their own content and just let me know whenever they get stuck. After all, that’s what page builders are for. It’s preferable to “keep it in the family” by bundling your theme, page builder tool, and premium blocks (forms, sliders, etc.) with a single vendor to simplify support and avoid finger pointing as much as possible.”

Storefront – “The default choice is WooCommerce Storefront official theme using the native WordPress Block Editor, which has come a long way over the past year. The Storefront theme is maintained by the core WooCommerce team and is vetted for compatibility with official marketplace plugins. Consider this your safest option. Use the built-in CSS customizer to style it however you wish and load your Google Fonts. Consider the Storefront Powerpack plugin for more controls, especially if you do not know CSS styling code. For premium blocks such as contact forms or galleries I’d keep to this official family and use JetPack by WordPress.com and only enable the modules that you use, not “the kitchen sink”.”
Astra – “Taking things to the next level, the Astra theme by Brainstorm Force with its optional Pro plugin brings a great deal more settings to control your header, footer, sidebars, fonts, colors, and essential global elements. While this theme can work with other page builders I recommend sticking to the WordPress Block Editor. I’ve found this theme doesn’t style the native WooCommerce Blocks consistent with WooCommerce templates and the vendor points the finger at WooCommerce, which I consider poor. Nevertheless this is a favorite theme and performs well. Its developer also offers Ultimate Addons for Gutenberg and other page builders, as well as a popular marketing plugin, Convert Pro.”
Hello – “My top choice for larger sites is Hello Elementor, the free theme for the free Elementor page builder. If using this basic theme one needs to add the Elementor Pro plugin. Elementor is considered one of the best page builders available, though no page builder is 100% perfect and this one does run a bit slower on the admin side. The Pro plugin is important here because it includes global settings for your site’s fonts, colors, buttons, etc. Plus it adds a Theme Builder tool that loads stock templates or allows you to customize templates for content other than static pages. For example, headers (plural as you can have multiple), footers, blog post archives, blog post singles, shop pages, single products, and more.”

Jorge Bañón

Web developer and web development teacher

https://xn--jorgebaon-r6a.es/

Hello – “Highly recommended when you work with both Elementor and Elementor Pro. This is a “blank theme” with no options, so you can freely express your creativity. No incompatibilities with other plugins. Lightweight to speed up your sites.”
GeneratePress – “Great theme when you are working with Elementor free, mainly with the plugin GeneratePress Premium. No incompatibility issues with other plugins. Very useful when working with WooCommerce. Many customization options that can be enabled or not, loading only the code for those enabled. Lightweight and very good support from the developer.”

Vee Ridgley

I started designing websites way back in 2000. We are now an agency that helps businesses and organisations get online. And then make a success of their business.

https://webdesignuk.agency/

Hello – “I can only recommend the ‘Hello’ theme from Elementor themselves.

As the theme’s description says it is “A plain-vanilla & lightweight theme for Elementor page builder”. Which it truly is. I cannot imagine anything better.

The fact that it is from the house of Elementor also means that theme conflicts are non-existent. That is our experience so far at least.

And having no styling of its own means there is nothing to compete with when styling within Elementor itself.

I also regularly see that many Elementor related issue comments on WP, Facebook groups etc. start with “I am using the xyz theme…” And most of us will know that the ping pong battles between different developers can be time-consuming and frustrating.

The Hello theme instantly removes the occurrence of any of the above headaches.”

Ross Merritt

Creative Director at Content Coms, delivering branding, digital design and creative content for B2B and B2C brands

https://contentcoms.co.uk/

Jupiter X – “Jupiter X is hard to beat. Every bit of functionality you can possibly imagine has been built in, there are hundreds of demo sites to use as a starting point and the Elementor integration is seamless. Custom post types? Jupiter makes them super easy, with no hard code required. Our latest Jupiter build was for a global B2B corporation and it blew them away – you’d never guess that a WordPress theme was behind such a top-quality, enterprise-level website.”
Consulting WP – “Consulting is next on our list of incredible Elementor integrated WordPress themes. Straight out of the box, this theme is full of all the features any modern business could need. Case studies? Done. Portfolio? Yep. Want to automate appointment scheduling and Zoom calls? Guess what… it does that too. Even if you just want a super light site, they’ve built in the ability to turn off features not required. It looks great, everything is editable and it’s pretty speedy too.”
Architecturer – “Last, but not least, is the beautiful Architecturer – yes, Google will try and correct you when you try to locate this hidden gem, but it’s well worth seeking out. Perfect for furniture brands, arty businesses, trendy consultants and – as the name might suggest – architects, of course! Complete with creative portfolio layouts, we keep coming back to this theme and it’s made even better by integrating nicely with Elementor.”

Brian White

Brian is an accomplished digital designer, creative director, producer and figure-out-a-way-to-get-it-done-person. In his career he has worked with numerous clients, many that possess a global reach. As creative director of Brian White Design and TriLion Studios, he has led the creative strategy for clients including Motorola, Dell, Sprint, Microsoft, Capitol One and Geico.

https://www.TriLionStudios.com

Astra – “Astra’s a great free theme that plays well with Elementor. It includes its own built in editor but is made to work well with Elementor. Running a child theme is easy as well as Astra has a free child theme creator for those who need help in that area. The team keeps the theme up to date due to the amount of users on the free theme. They also have a premium theme, but I usually go all Elementor now that the 3.0+ versions are stable.”
Hello – “Hello for Elementor is wonderfully fast for 1-3 page sites without blog capabilities. I usually add a child theme for Hello that includes functions for widgets in case the client wants to use blogging and other areas of the site with widgets.”

Amanda Nagy

Amanda Nagy is the co-founder at Finn & Gray design agency. Driven by eye-catching design, she takes pride in creating designs that move the needle. Finn & Gray is recognized as a top design agency on Clutch! In her free time, she loves to spend time outdoors with family.

http://finnandgray.com

MaxCoach – “We have a lot of coaching clients coming to us right now and I have to say this is my favorite by far to build those on because it comes bundled and ready to go for online coaching. I love that I don’t have to install all of the plugins for the theme to work properly so when we have clients that aren’t in need of LearnPress or other features, we can just leave them uninstalled, keeping the theme free from bloat. Plus they’ve built some super awesome CSS widgets I love that I don’t have to come up with myself!”
Hello – “I am starting to fall in love with this simple theme. It’s lightweight and when I’m working with my designs, it is super easy to build out the layout. With Elementor Pro, I love how I can import some of my favorite theme kits/ widgets.”

Mark Buchanan

(Founder and Designer at Neon Collective) 15+ years experience working in Creative industry

https://www.neoncollective.one/

Astra – “So just like everyone out there, we did a lot of head-scratching asking ourselves “which theme is best”. We found Astra to be a solid bet. What works for us…We use the Pro version which you can easily edit the styling across the theme if you wish. Also for e-commerce it has additional functionality, you can white label the Theme, stick header options and various CSS styling options that give you quick and easy editing capability.

An example of a site that we built with Astra was https://www.socialcateringco.com.au. We wanted something that was fun, energetic, bold and showed off Jade’s personality. Astra was a good start for us on this project.”
OceanWP – “Another of our go-to themes. It’s very much on par with Astra. Loads fast and has some great extensions that you can add easily. We used the sticky nav for https://www.persuit.com/. Again editing controls are very good and it works seamlessly with Elementor. It does a great job with e-commerce websites (on the sales funnel side).”
Phlox – “A great case study style theme. It has some additional modules that are specific to Phlox that provide a differnt feel for the user. We have only used this Theme once, but is a good go to if you’re looking to showcase work.”

Devin Holmes

Devin Holmes is founder and designer at Proxy, an entirely Elementor focused web design agency. They pride themselves on crafting unbelievably modern, easy-to-use, Elementor websites. Devin has 10 years of experience working in the design and marketing fields. He lives in sunny Greenville, SC with his wife and two daughters on their small family farm.

https://madebyproxy.com/

Hello – “At Proxy, we only use the Hello theme for every site we create! Hello theme is made by Elementor, for Elementor.

It’s a plain, light-weight theme with absolutely no bells and whistles, which makes it absolutely perfect for Elementor’s built-in theme builder. Think of Hello theme as the bare minimum requirement for a theme that allows Elementor to step in and do most of the work.

WordPress themes simply don’t hold the value that they used to. In the past, we’d plug in a theme, hope our content and effect requirements would fit easily into that theme, and pray like hell that the next update of WordPress didn’t break the site!

That’s all changed since switching to Elementor and utilizing their built-in theme builder. There are no limits designing custom layouts, headers, footers, sidebars, pop-ups, blogs, storefronts, 404 pages, archive pages, and more.

As an added bonus, Hello theme is consistently faster than even the default WordPress theme! This is very important when every second loading can negatively impact conversion rates.”

Patrick Rossel

I am a website consultant from the Netherlands working with WordPress, Elementor and I specialize in dynamic content. I organize the Elementor Meetup in Utrecht.

https://filewatcher.nl

“My standard themes are:Hello, Astra and GeneratePress because they are lightweight, have good support and good integration with Elementor.”

Hello – “I use Hello to have a fast lightweight empty theme when I use Elementor to completely design the whole website for my clients. It gives me creative freedom in my website design work.”
Astra – “Astra uses no jQuery which can be an advantage to avoid render-blocking issues, you can use pre-built sites that were built using Elementor and that can be used to create a full website very easily. It is possible to create different parts for your website, like header and footers, very easily.”
GeneratePress – “GeneratePress uses also no jQuery, which I think is important. I love GeneratePress for the standard accessibility which is important for people with a disability of any form. It is also lightweight.”

Adam Collins

My name is Adam Collins 👋 I am an avid public speaker & have over 10 years of hands-on experience within the SEO industry. I have a deep understanding of the exact strategies a business must implement to scale online.

https://www.igniteseo.co.uk

“Without a doubt, Elementor has been a game-changer within the industry. However, choosing the right theme for Elementor can be a tricky process as it comes down to your end goal. Are you looking for something aesthetically pleasing or lightweight & stripped back.”

Astra – “As an agency, we settled on Astra which performs incredibly well with Elementor. It looks great, has been built well behind the scenes & has great speed performance.

One slight issue with Elementor is when creating sticky transparent headers for your site. Astra effortlessly solves this problem for you as a designer.

The starter templates for Astra really are incredible. They have a whole catalogue of premade Elementor templates that you can preload into your website in less than a minute. You can then customise these layouts to fit your or your customer’s brief. Creating a beautiful site can take only a couple of hours.

Astra is now my go-to when building an Elementor site.”

Jessica Rhoades

I own Create IT Web Designs in Cincinnati, Ohio that focuses on web design, development, and SEO for small businesses.

https://createitwebdesigns.com

Astra – “My favorite theme to use with Elementor is Astra. Astra is one of the most popular themes available on the market and has over 1 Million users. Astra is built on quick and clean code and consistently updated, so you know you have a great theme development team behind the product. It is super flexible allowing you to create almost any type of header, footer, sidebar, and blog post. Because other than that Elementor handles the rest of your website’s layout and design.”

Janki Gajera

UX and web designer + WordPress developer since 2016 /// MS Comp Sci in Interactive Intelligence and Machine Learning @ Georgia Tech /// I'm living my dream when I'm making bouquets, writing code, styling with CSS, or cooking something new!

https://jnkdesignhouse.com/

Astra – “I really like Astra for Elementor build-outs. It’s lightweight and fast. It’s a recommended theme by the Elementor devs, and it’s really easy to set up and get started with. This theme is light but robust enough for most small business websites.”
Twenty Twenty – “Recently, I’ve started to prefer using WP official themes like Twenty Twenty because I know that any security and core features that come out from the official WP team will get added to the official themes. I have been partial to those these days, especially for clients that are a little less tech-savvy or have been burned in the past because they didn’t have a child theme.”
Hello – “I didn’t really care much for this theme myself after giving it a few tries, but it might be something to look into if you don’t like Astra or any of the WP-managed themes. This theme was built by Elementor and has a large user base, so if you ever run into problems with Hello, you could find support quickly and easily. That alone makes this theme a great fit for Elementor sites.”

Witold Frąckiewicz

Developer with over 13 years of experience in the IT industry in i.a.: PHP, JS, relational databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL). Since 2014 co-owner of Dev2Code.

https://dev2code.pl/

Hello – “Our favorite theme is the free Hello Theme. It’s clean, fast and gives unlimited options for customization. Because we almost always create custom-designed sites we can’t be bound by any Theme restrictions. In addition, it’s really light, without any extra code that could slow down the site. It allows you to create a WCAG 2.1 AA Accessible site with ease.”

Francesco De Mento

I'm a digital visual designer based in Messina, Italy. Even though I'm professionally interested in every process of designing a product or a service, my main focus is working on the best user experience.

https://francescodemento.it

Essentials – “Essential is one of the best themes for WordPress. Especially for those who start from scratch and need an idea. It contains a very varied amount of components to be assembled to create impactful landing pages.

For those who don’t even have an idea to assemble, Essentials also contains ready-made templates to be filled with content only. Seeing is believing!”
Ohio – “Ohio is one of the most versatile themes. With a system of widgets and components suitable for every need (blog, design agency, portfolio, online shop, etc.) it is modular and easy to use, even for the less experienced.

A Figma file is also provided along with the theme with all the elements to create the design before publishing it online.”

Nirmal Gyanwali

I run a boutique WordPress Agency based in Sydney. We build high quality and affordable websites using WordPress that are fast, secure, and easy to manage. If you are looking for a conversion-focused, modern and fast website, please feel free to contact us.

https://www.wpcreative.com.au/

Hello – “Based on our experience working on multiple free and premium themes with Elementor, we found it much easier to work on the base theme called “Hello Elementor”.

Being a WP development agency, we would like to keep things simple and easy so we can support the clients for the long run.

Some premium themes are great and can really work well for some businesses but if you prefer to keep things simple and easy to manage, Hello theme is a great place to start.”

Simea Merki

I work with my family at "morntag". We believe that innovation is a matter of the heart. And I love to try new stuff and enable people to say what they have to say through WordPress websites, digital marketing concepts, social media, music, spoken word and new media.

https://morntag.com/

“I use Elementor’s Hello Theme most often, because it works seamlessly with Elementor Pro. If you need some more customizing, I like to use OceanWP.”

Hello – “When working with Elementor as a Theme Builder (building Header-Templates etc.) I always recommend using a theme that is as simple as possible. The most important reason for that is site speed. If your theme loads a lot of css and all the Elementor-styling comes on top, that can slow your site down. So if you choose to use a lightweight theme, you don’t load much unused css.”
OceanWP – “The same is the case for OceanWP. That theme does have some customizing possibilities for the header and other templates. So if you intend to use Elementor as a Page Builder only, without many templates for header, footer and so on, I would say it is a great theme to use.”

Anna O'Brien

Bristol based WordPress designer, specialising in Elementor websites, which look and perform beautifully

https://lowlandswebsitedesign.co.uk/

GeneratePress – “I recommend GeneratePress (pro version) as this is the only theme I use now. When I began designing sites using the Elementor plugin, I quickly found that I needed a theme that was both compatible with the plugin but also allowed me complete control over the appearance. Although some free themes can look stylish, I find that most are incredibly limited, and limiting in terms of design, and that you’re unable to change key elements (such as fonts or colouring). When using the Elementor Pro plugin that isn’t such a big issue, but it can be with the free version when you want to change theme elements.

GeneratePress is laid out in an intuitive way so is super easy to use and it also lets me turn off certain key elements, namely the navigation and the footer, so I’m able to design and display these with Elementor. Adding Google Analytics and the like is also super easy with GP Elements (previously Hooks).

Also, for online shops, GeneratePress, Elementor and WooCommerce all work well together so I have design control over nearly all of the shop (not everything just yet but still, pretty good and better than using a paid Woo theme or have mismatched styling…).

Finally, the guys who created GP are constantly working to improve it and are helpful when customers get in contact, even if it’s about something related to, but not really about, GP. The peace of mind that they know their stuff and are accessible, is priceless. Unless something happens to change my mind, I envisage using GP for a looooooong time. I highly recommend it.”

Sumner Davenport

Sumner Davenport specializes in Web Accessibility on WordPress. She and her team build, maintain, evaluate and remediate WordPress websites to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Success Criterion. She is sought after as a speaker and educator on topics related to Accessibility compliance and is active in accessibility and legal conferences.

https://sumnerdavenport.com

“Elementor is a drag-and-drop page builder for WordPress. The free version includes a limited selection of pre-built templates and customization options. The Pro version includes the Elementor Theme Builder, giving you more creative options and you can then work with any theme.

Web Accessibility is my passion so besides looking for builders and themes that are creative, easy to use and provide good functionality, I also look for its accessibility for persons with disabilities. Elementor is not fully compliant out of the box, although they offer a few instructional blogs giving suggestions on how to make your website Accessible. The free WP Accessibility plugin can help with select Accessibility issues. It’s important to note that no single plugin or overlay can render a website builder to be fully Accessible. Manual efforts are required. Selecting a theme that is Accessible is the best place to start.”

Hello – “Elementor Hello Theme is a lightweight, FREE theme that has recently been added to the WordPress repository list of Accessibility-Ready themes. This means that it has met the basic requirements for Accessibility by reaching the minimum standards that the WordPress theme review team has set. However, when using this or any theme, designers must still make sure the content, images, colors, navigation, etc. they change or add, are Accessible.

The Hello Theme is Responsive and comes with hundreds of page templates & blocks. It is easily customizable and includes a custom menu so that each website you create with this theme can have a unique appearance. Elementor brags that this theme is very fast and that it is fully compatible with the most popular plugins.”
Monument Valley – “Monument Valley is an Accessible WooCommerce PREMIUM theme. Very lightweight, fast and easy to install. Plenty of useful and easy to find documentation including a quick start-up guide after installation. With so many new eCommerce sites being created, having a theme that is built for eCommerce, works with the WooCommerce plugin and WooCommerce 3.0 and adheres to the strict WordPress.org accessibility guidelines – is a jewel.

The theme includes a wide variety of layouts, custom colors, typography and hundreds of pre-packed icons plus a child theme generator, if you want to modify the theme. It is responsive, has a real-time preview, in theme customizer, coded to boost SEO and is fast loading. It also supports right-to-left (RTL) languages so you can create multilingual websites with the popular language plugins (Polylang and WPML). So many benefits in one theme.”

“There are lots of other options but these are my top two.”

Rich Williams

Co-founder of Bristol, UK based creative studio SomethingFamiliar. We empower clients and provide exceptional design services that deliver results.

http://www.somethingfamiliar.co.uk

Hello – “If you’re using Elementor, its because you want control over your design. So I wouldn’t recommend any other theme than Hello – created by Elementor themselves.

Hello provides the absolute basic theme structure to run a WordPress website. There’s really not a lot to say about it, in a good way. The purpose of this theme is to provide you with ultimate control and minimise unused code/content within your build.

Before Hello, we used Astra Theme. Like Hello theme, it’s pretty stripped back, but we were using it with an intention to overwrite its design style.”

Muntasir Mahmud

Co-Founder and Technical Lead of Exclusive Addons for Elementor, an Elementor addons pack. A Core Contributor to WordPress 5.0, 5.0.2, 5.0.3, and counting. Currently working freelance as a WordPress Expert at Codeable.

http://exclusiveaddons.com/

Astra – “Astra is my first choice due to its flexibility in terms of customization, even in the free version. They have their custom-built Customizer controls that allow users to navigate through the options easily. The super fast nature and clean, minimal UI is one of the most important reasons why I recommend Astra to my clients. Their main focus area is Elementor and they have an Elementor Addon. So they put extra effort to ensure their theme works perfectly with the #1 page builder in the industry. After testing many different themes, I found Astra to be the most flawless one.”
OceanWP – “I’d vote for OceanWP as my next favourite. They have their own Customizer control with plenty of options as well. OceanWP is focused on Elementor. Loading super fast is one of their priorities as well. And they do it pretty well. They have some popular third-party integrations available in the free version including Woocommerce, EDD and so on.”

Anja Reimann

Freelance Graphic designer in Duesseldorf focussing on unique and aesthetic designs. Collage artist, too.

https://www.zartherbes.de

Hello – “It’s by Elementor and works best and is the most light-weighted with the Page Builder in my opinion. Also, with its simple “nude” quality and flexibility, it is perfect for Designers like me, who love to layout and design templates, components and sections from scratch, all new and individually.”

Strahinja Živković

Elementor Pro designer & developer. I push Elementor to the max, combining with other plugins such as ACF, Tollset, Woocommerce and enrich with custom CSS/JS code.

https://iodicrain.com/

Hello – “Made by the Elementor team to perfectly fit with Elementor. This is a completely blank theme and gives you the freedom to develop all by yourself (headers, footers, pages, posts … etc.) It requires a decent knowledge of designing and developing with Elementor, so it is not recommended for beginners. It’s all about the speed and doesn’t have unnecessary scripts and files to slow down your site.”
Astra – “Astra is an awesome WP theme with lots of useful perks for beginners to start developing. It has a lot of starter templates with a one-click option to import them into your work as well as few out-of-the-box headers, footers, posts. It seamlessly integrates with Elementor and a few other page builders and works very well with Woocommerce to build an online shop. If you want to build some kind of learning or course site you are covered too, as Astra works perfectly with LearnDash and LifterLMS. If you want you can integrate many payment processors too and start to take payments for your courses. Last but not least, Astra is blazingly fast, with no JQuery and unnecessary code taking only 50Kb of bandwidth to load. In the Pro version of Astra, your possibilities are endless. Recommended for all sorts of users, from beginners to advanced.”
OceanWP – “OceanWP is another WP theme worth a mention. Very good integration with Woocommerce, which gives you the ability to easily make an online shop. With its segmented parts, you can enable/disable the parts (code) you want to use. Unnecessary code can be disabled and you achieve great page speed. Works well with Elementor and other Elementor addons.”

Best WordPress Page Builder? 85 WP Pros Have Their Say

by Chris Herbert | Last Updated March 25, 2021

Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, meaning, at no added cost to you, we will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

It used to be that you absolutely had to have some coding know-how to put together a website that you’d be proud to show off to your customers/fans/mom. But those days of sitting in front of your screen frustrated, huffing and puffing, and most probably cursing to yourself are definitely less frequent for most than they used to be. Web design has become more accessible to more people, and even for those that do have the coding knowledge, it’s become much faster.

And in large part that’s thanks to page builders. I quite possibly owe my sanity to their development, and millions of people around the world have designed some very attractive websites using a combination of WordPress and a page builder. But as with so many things these days, there are quite a few different options to choose from in the WordPress page builder space and that’s why we put together this article.

We wanted to come up with a list of the best options available, so we reached out to 85 WordPress pros and asked them a simple question: “What do you consider to be the best WordPress page builder at the moment?“

We allowed each expert to name up to 3 WP page builders, asking them to explain each choice, and we’ve published the results of the survey in this article. Keep reading to find out which came top of the pile!

Best WordPress Page Builder: How the Experts Voted

WordPress Page Builder	# of Votes
#1. Elementor	33 Votes
#2. Beaver Builder	30 Votes
#=3. Divi Builder	26 Votes
#=3. Gutenberg	26 Votes
#4. WPBakery	13 Votes
#=5. Fusion Builder	4 Votes
#=5. SiteOrigin Page Builder	4 Votes
#=5. Avia Builder	4 Votes
#6. Advanced Custom Fields (ACF)	3 Votes
#7. Thrive Architect	2 Votes
#=8. Visual Composer	1 Vote
#=8. Oxygen	1 Vote
#=8. Cornerstone	1 Vote
#=8. CSS Hero	1 Vote

And there you have it. Quite a few page builders for WordPress were mentioned, but 4 of them in particular received the lion’s share of the recommendations. Those were Elementor, Beaver Builder, Divi Builder and Gutenberg (yes…the year 2018 called and it can’t believe it!). So those are the four we will concentrate on here. Elementor and Beaver Builder were on their own out in front, and either of these builders would appear to be a very solid option if you’re on a quest to find the best page builder for your WordPress site. But ultimately Elementor just nudged ahead and the fact that it’s one of the most downloaded plugins in WordPress history with over 5 million active installs, means that I can’t say I was completely surprised to see it so heavily recommended.

There appears to be a lot to like about Elementor. From its huge selection of widgets and ready-to-use templates, to its user-friendliness (its drag and drop editor is what dreams are made of) and the fact that it integrates with virtually any theme (here are some of the more popular Elementor themes), makes it a great option for most website owners. Whether you want to get in the trenches and do the work yourself or not, the massive community that that has grown with this plugin means it’s neither hard to find quality tutorials nor skilled contractors that specialize in sites that are built using Elementor.

On top of all of that, there’s a free version that should be sufficient for most simple sites, and a pro license is very affordable if you do want to unlock tons of extra functionality (with the pro version you can create pop-ups, headers, footers, forms and much more).

Beaver Builder pretty much offers all of the same conveniences, and while it maybe doesn’t have quite as many out-of-the-box features, there are a vast number of settings and customizations possible. Where this builder really appears to excel is in the quality of its code base. Several experts talked about how streamlined it is, not adding a lot of bloat, which helps to make a website load fast (possibly slightly faster than Elementor-built sites?!). And it won’t break your site if you later decide to deactivate it either, unlike some other page builders.

This plugin also has a large community, and if there’s a functionality that you’re missing, you often find a 3rd party has already created what you need! The free version lets you try before you buy (although is not as feature rich as the free version of Elementor), and people seem to rave about the fantastic customer support they receive from a team that really know their stuff!

Divi Builder pre-dates all of the other top-rated WordPress page builders in our survey, and having stood the test of time, it has grown a passionate following. The Divi Builder comes as standard with the wildly popular Divi WordPress theme, but can also be used as a standalone plugin with other themes. If your skills lean towards design rather than development, you’ll probably love this (it’s user-friendly for non-techy newbies too), and it literally provides you with a TON of templates, widgets and features. So much so that you can likely do without a lot of other plugins on your website. There were a few mentions of the Divi Builder requiring more server resources than other builders, which can slow things down, but the pricing certainly makes it an attractive proposition for anyone building out multiple sites, as they offer a lifetime access license for a one-time fee.

To round out our top 4, we have one that isn’t a full-on page builder like the rest (although it probably will be quite soon), but a content editor that is actually built into WordPress, so no extra plugins required. We are of course talking about Gutenberg. Gutenberg has come a looooong way since it was first released back in 2018, and if you generally create pages or posts with fairly simple layouts, it will likely be all you need. And there are several advantages to using Gutenberg as your page builder. Firstly, it’s the best way to future-proof your site, since it’s actually a part of WordPress and there will never be any compatibility issues. Secondly, the code it generates is well optimized and lightweight, which allows you to create a website that loads fast (it beats the 3 page builders above on this score most of the time). And finally, it’s completely free! And while its feature set is not as vast and it’s not as versatile as the other builders discussed, it is being improved very quickly (the WP community is a powerhouse) and in the meantime the gap can be bridged using 3rd party blocks that are available.

Other Articles You May Find Useful:

TL;DR: Quick Rundown of the Top Picks

1) Elementor – A super popular page builder with an intuitive visual editor and tons of out-of-the-box features that can be implemented in seconds. You get lots of impressive functionality with the free plugin, and a lot more with the pro package for a very affordable price.

2) Beaver Builder – Impressive range of features, code base streamlined to ensure fast loading sites and very stable. Beaver Builder is a quality product built by a team that really know what they’re doing, and it shows.

3) Divi Builder – This comes so chock-full of features that you’ll likely never fail to achieve your vision. It’s also very user-friendly and intuitive, even for the non-techy web design beginner, and the lifetime license gives you insane value, especially if you operate multiple sites.

4) Gutenberg – Baked into WordPress itself, you’ll never have to worry about updates and compatibility issues. It comes at no cost, is lightweight and helps maintain your pages fast and lean, and has more than enough functionality to satisfy the simple website owner’s needs.

Other Noteworthy Resources

The following is a quick list of other resources and tools that were mentioned during the course of our survey which may be of help. Many of these extend the functionality of the page builders talked about above.

Elementor:

Beaver Builder:

Divi Builder:

Divi Chat
Divi Web Designers (FB Group)

Gutenberg:

Other:

Page Builder Cloud

Read What The Experts Said

At WSTE we are all about transparency, so we always publish exactly what the experts we spoke to said. This is not only so you can understand how we arrived at our top picks for the best WordPress page builder, but also so you can learn from their years of experience and expertise.

If you’re interested in reading what was said about a particular page builder, use the filters below to jump to the relevant content.

{"filter_mode":"masonry"}

Robert Ryan

I'm a WordPress Developer, online marketer and SEO guy. I love working with clients who love their business and always aim to over deliver on expectations.

https://robertryan.ie/

“With regards to page builders I have used a lot of them, but the two that stand out to me as being good options are WPBakery and the builder which is native to the Avada framework, the Fusion Builder.”

WPBakery
Fusion Builder

“So, why do I think they are good?

When it comes to builders I think a key factor to consider is longevity and future proofing. If we’re going to hitch your cart to something you want to ensure that it’ll be be able to go the distance. Smaller, lesser used builders have an inherently greater risk of not being future proofed. The Avada framework is one of the most widely used frameworks for WordPress and the WPBakery builder has about 4.3 million users which, all things considered, should ensure that these builders will still be around for years to come.

Another factor is support. With Avada and WPBakery, and their large userbase, there is an abundance of documentation, guides and tutorials available to help you figure out whatever may not seem instantly easy. On top of that, they also have their dedicated support teams which is another option if needed to help troubleshoot something. Compare this to a smaller or lesser used builders and it’s another reason why I’d opt for Avada or WPBakery.

With regards to functionality, both of the builders are jammed with the elements that you’d need to create any sort of site design (pretty much). Sure there is a learning curve to them to understand the nuance or to be able to fully bend the builder to your will, but with time it becomes 2nd nature.

Regardless of whatever builder tickles your fancy, I think it’s absolutely key to consider future proofing. With Gutenberg, a new builder on the block (if you pardon the pun), some lesser used builders may stop being supported as the Gutenberg builder may eat into some of their userbase. Whilst this risk also exists with Avada and WPBakery, I think it’s as low as it could be and so, they would be my recommended builders of choice.”

Chris Williams

An award-winning lead generation expert in the UK with nearly a decade of experience in the web design and online marketing industry

http://williamsgraphics.co.uk

“Page builders can be a useful tool to quickly iterate your marketing ideas and start driving traffic, much faster than if you were employing a professional website developer. Despite being a developer myself, even I use page builders in certain situations. For landing page creation, I have been using Thrive Architect for the last 2 years.”

Thrive Architect – “Thrive knows what it’s for. It’s not trying to be your entire website (though it probably could do that) – instead I’ve found that Thrive knows it’s made mainly for landing pages, to iterate quickly across different viewports, and keep bloated functionality separate to it’s main goal, quickly creating landing pages.

It works on custom post types, in your existing themes, and even lets you completely ignore your theme to build a unique layout for your landing pages.

Any extra functionality comes from other plugins in the Thrive family, and while this can be a hindrance in some cases, for the casual user, you’ll find it’s fast, snappy, responsive, and truly is a “What you see is what you get” platform.

I would recommend Thrive Architect to any marketers who are looking to build landing pages fast, or anyone building a smaller scale website. Couple this page builder with Astra, a free WordPress theme, and you’re in for a very powerful, visual treat.”

Jan Koch

I'm the founder of WP Mastery and host various virtual summits in the WordPress and E-Commerce world.

https://wpmastery.xyz

Elementor – “My favorite page builder by far is Elementor, though Beaver Builder also has a nice reputation. I’m using Elementor because it’s a flexible tool and has a fantastic community around extending it with your own custom code and custom widgets. Many of my friends in the WP space built premium extensions for Elementor which I’m happy to pay for, as they make my life easier.

If I had to highlight the features of Elementor that I appreciate the most, it would be the ability to leverage templates (and even share them across domains with pagebuildercloud.com), easily adjust the responsive layouts with built-in tools, as well as being able to make Elementor-based websites load fast.”

Tom Greenwood

Co-founder of Wholegrain Digital, London's original WordPress agency, with over a decade of experience working on enterprise grade WordPress design, build and maintenance. A thought leader known for talking about web sustainability, accessibility and performance.

https://www.wholegraindigital.com/

“The question of page builders is something that comes up time and time again in the WordPress community. The first question to ask is “what do you want to achieve?”.

Do you want a page builder so that you can create new page layouts without the help of a developer, do you want unlimited freedom in content presentation, do you want a simpler editing experience or to ensure brand consistency? The answers to these questions can lead to very different outcomes.

Gutenberg – “My first recommendation is Gutenberg. I am sure, or at least I hope, that I won’t be the only person here to recommend Gutenberg as a page builder tool. Gutenberg is the official editor inside WordPress and is a huge leap forward in terms of flexible editing compared to the classic WordPress editor.

The beauty of it is that it gives you a lot of freedom over presentation out of the box. It costs you nothing in its default form, and you don’t need to worry about whether it will be supported long term, or whether it will create problems in future if you need to migrate content. Gutenberg is also well optimised so that it doesn’t negatively impact the speed of your website. It is the safe bet, and you can be sure that it will keep getting better and better over the next few years.

What’s more, there are loads of third party block libraries available to help you add even more formatting options into Gutenberg. So if maximum flexibility is what you want, then you should think long and hard before using anything other than Gutenberg.”
Advanced Custom Fields – “My second recommendation is Advanced Custom Fields(ACF). ACF – Before Gutenberg, ACF was widely accepted as one of the best ways to add extra flexibility to the WordPress editing experience in a way that is reliable and scalable, and therefore suitable for enterprise grade website builds.

ACF provides the option to configure flexible and repeatable content fields inside of WordPress, with a defined structure. So it might not be as flexible as some page builders, but if you want some flexibility in how you present content, with the guarantee that your brand guidelines will always be followed and that your website editors cannot break the site or make content look terrible, ACF is a perfect solution. It is also great for managing structured content that has relationships with other parts of the website.

ACF can also be combined with Gutenberg as a way of introducing custom blocks and structured data into the Gutenberg editor.

The downside is that ACF is not really a plug and play solution. Most people would need help from a developer to set it up and configure all of the options that they want. That’s fine for custom website projects but not really suitable for a lot of smaller projects.”

To wrap up, I strongly recommend thinking long term about your page builder tool. I’ve seen so many cases of websites that used the latest, trendy page builder, only to find that it wasn’t supported later or that it was a nightmare to migrate content to another system a few years down the line. ACF has stood the test of time and remains a solid, dependable choice, and as the official editor in WordPress, Gutenberg is set to be the safe bet looking to the future.

Suzanne Bird-Harris

Suzanne Bird-Harris is an experienced WordPress web designer, consultant, and trainer. She is also a StoryBrand Certified Guide. She helps make the web work for you.

https://websitesinwp.com

Divi Builder – “I recommend the Divi theme from ElegantThemes.com…hands down. Nick Roach and his team are incredibly talented and prolific with updates and feature enhancements that are actually meaningful and HELPFUL, making Divi easier and easier to use and accomplish building a great website without any programming skills whatsoever. That is not to say you don’t need skills…you do. But programming skills aren’t on the list. Our clients run the gamut of tech skills – from total DIY to total DFY – and Divi meets every one of them where they’re at, and we fill the gaps so they can accomplish their goals. Thorough documentation, hundreds of tutorials on the blog, and free page layouts and layout packs make using Divi doable for most anyone.”

Wes Marlan

Wes has been webmastering up and down the front range of Colorado since 1997. He enjoys developing fast, clean, and smart layouts in WordPress for his clients.

https://www.lighthousewd.com

Fusion Builder – “I absolutely love using Fusion Builder. It comes with the wildly popular Avada WordPress theme. I’ve worked with several other builders (Divi, WPBakery, etc.) but they don’t seem to have the quality support, ease of use, and dynamic customizations that Fusion Builder provides.

Recently, Fusion Builder has taken their custom layout features to a new level. You can now pretty much do anything you want with the footers using their new Footer Builder. In addition, you can completely customize single posts, portfolio posts, and archive layouts. You choose what to display.

I particularly enjoy the Fusion Builder library where you can save templates, containers, columns, and elements for repeated use on the website. It’s very simple to manage and certainly speeds up web development. They also have global elements where you make one change to that element and it updates everywhere it’s used on the website.

The last thing I want to mention about Fusion Builder is its anticipated longevity. It has a massive support team that actively listens to user feedback. Since it is maintained by the same folks that make the Avada theme (the top-selling premium WordPress theme out there), you know that is will be around for many, many years. This is important when choosing a theme builder because you don’t want to build 50+ websites with a builder that all of a sudden goes unsupported. You don’t have to worry about that with Fusion Builder.”

Micah Wood

Micah Wood is a WordPress Developer at Bluehost. A professional WordPress developer for over a decade, Micah has worked on sites for Fortune 100 companies, has released a number of WordPress plugins and libraries, is a frequent speaker at WordCamps, and shares his knowledge by blogging on WordPress development topics.

https://wpscholar.com

“One of the most important factors to consider when choosing a page builder is vendor lock-in. In our case, this occurs when the costs of switching or moving away from your current page builder are greater than just continuing to use that page builder. Most commonly, this happens when you use a shortcode-based page builder. Because the builder outputs shortcodes into your page’s content, when the page builder is disabled or removed, your content now looks like a wall of gobbledygook text. Multiply the number of new pages you create each month times the number of months you’ve been posting and this can add up quickly. Let me tell you, the cost of manually migrating the content of hundreds or thousands of pages isn’t cheap! I’ve encountered a situation where a client was faced with a $50,000 cost to migrate their content.

For this reason, my number one tip on using any page builder is to use it in moderation. Just because you have a page builder installed doesn’t mean you have to use it for every single page on your site. You can decide on a page-by-page basis. Typically, the only time you need to use a page builder is when you can’t achieve your desired layout using the built-in WordPress editor. The less content that is using custom shortcodes or markup, the easier it is to move away in the future. You can’t know when your favorite page builder company will go out of business or when a new builder will come along and make you want to switch.

Also, make sure you only use ONE page builder. Choose one, choose wisely, and use it in moderation. The only exception to this is when you are trying to migrate from one builder to another, in which case you can have two installed. Just make sure you get rid of the old one as soon as you are done migrating.

My second tip is to stay away from shortcode-based page builders. How will you know if they are shortcode-based? Just create a test page using the builder and look at your magnificent page. Then, deactivate the page builder plugin and look at your page again. Of course, it won’t look the same, but if you see a bunch of extra text on the page you weren’t expecting, you have a shortcode-based page builder. Builders like Divi, Visual Composer, and WPBakery are prime examples of what to avoid.

As far as I’m concerned, there are only two non-shortcode-based page builders that are industry leaders at the moment: Elementor and Beaver Builder.”

Elementor – “Perhaps the most popular among your average WordPress users, this page builder has seen significant growth recently. Part of this is probably due to the fact that the free version of Elementor gives you a lot more functionality than the free version of Beaver Builder. There are also a lot of official and third-party addons available if you need something special. Elementor has also done a great job of growing their community, so it is pretty easy to find a local Elementor meetup group or join an official Facebook group. One downside of Elementor is that it uses its own custom CSS framework, so if you disable the plugin things will definitely not look the same.”
Beaver Builder – “This builder seems to be very popular among agencies. Again, there are a large number of official and third-party addons available. Beaver Builder uses the very popular Bootstrap CSS framework, which means that if you want to move away from Beaver Builder you can just add the Bootstrap framework to your site and things will look very similar if not exactly the same. If you are trying to avoid vendor lock-in, this may be your best option. However, the user experience is a bit less user friendly than Elementor in my opinion.”

Wil Brown

Dad / WordPress Consultant / Developer / Business Mentor / Conference Speaker and Organiser, living in Sydney, Australia

https://zeropointdevelopment.com/

“In my opinion, by far the two leading WordPress page builders for 2020 are Beaver Builder and Elementor. I’ve used both extensively over the last couple of years.”

Elementor – “In the last year, Elementor has included an enormous number of additional features including popups and animation controls, and it’s on its way to becoming a whole-site builder; page builder doesn’t do Elementor justice.

From a value point of view, Elementor will give users the biggest bang for their buck.

However, the fast pace of development means that features frequently change, causing stability issues.”
Beaver Builder – “Beaver may not have as many out-of-the-box goodies, but it makes up for it in the vast number of settings it has to customize all elements on a page.

Feature development may seem slow; however, you won’t find a more stable page-builder on the market. I’ve never had any issues when updating Beaver to another version.

With Beaver Themer installed, you can change part of the site outside the page content.”

Which One Do I Prefer?

“I prefer Beaver Builder Pro for its stability, the more substantial number of element options and better support for styling off-page content such as headers, footers, archives and custom post types.”

David Hoe

WordPress web agency based in the burgeoning seaside town of Folkestone, Kent. Focusing on building relationships with clients to improve their online presence and increase lead generation and profitability.

https://samphire.agency

Fusion Builder – “I pretty much now work exclusively with Fusion Builder which ships with the Avada Theme. It is an extremely powerful feature rich drag and drop website building tool. Fusion Builder is constantly evolving adding tons of new features and functionality. You can customise every part of your site including 404 pages and search results pages.

I work with graphic designers who often design the site then I build it. Fusion Builder is the only tool I’ve used that is flexible enough to build virtually any type of website.

You can build on the front or back end, making it easy to work with if you’re new. There are also several video tutorials available to help you get your website looking just the way you want it.

Top notch support as well. Always have got back to me within 36 hours.”

Rich Mehta

I run Rigorous; a WordPress Agency offering design, development & support, Google Ads & SEO, working with Third Sector & Agencies. I've either been a freelancer or running agencies now for over a decade.

https://rigorous-digital.co.uk/

Gutenburg – “A little controversial, I know, but hear me out. Gutenburg’s core functionality is getting better over time and, for ease of use, it really is hard to beat. It’s so much better than when it first came into the WordPress core.

There’s plenty of add on plugins for it too now, so you can get towards the functionality of some of the more established page builders.

The lack of a front-end editor is a little bit of a bugbear but, that said, the preview is a good trade off for me when you take into account the ease of use.

With sites like this that allow you to copy and paste new layouts in, things are just getting better with Gutenburg.”
WPBakery – “WPBakery’s been a favourite for a long time and has loads of built-in functionality. Some people find it a little overwhelming, but once you’ve got the hang of it it’s very powerful.

The front end editor always seems to show too much space between elements for me, but generally it’s a solid option.

There’s loads of free and paid for plugins to extend it, and the built in integrations with other plugins (like Gravity Forms) are really easy to use.”

Cheryl Russell

Cheryl has over 20 years of marketing, communications, and art directing experience working with a variety of small to mid-sized businesses.

http://www.dot2.studio

Divi Builder – “I’ve worked with a number of page builders over the years but I now work almost exclusively with Divi, by ElegantThemes.

My Clients Appreciate It – I offer to spend up to 2 hours training clients on how to manage updates on their sites during the off-boarding process. I typically spend about 20 minutes and they are capable of doing everything they usually need to do from changing images to adding text. Regardless of builders, most of my clients would prefer to hire me to make more substantial changes but the small ones are quite easy to learn in just a few minutes.

Tech Support is Phenomenal – If you need help, the Divi support staff is on point. While it may take a few hours to get it, you will get the help you need to sort out your issue.

The Divi Community is Amazing – From experts to novices, you can easily find others in the community willing to help you sort out issues. The Divi community is quite vibrant and is very supportive. And if you are into podcasts, divi.chat is awesome.

Impressive Extendability – The builder has continual improvements. Some are driven by innovative staff ideas and some are driven by users. In addition, they actually encourage developers to take their ideas and offer extensibility products.

The Library is a Game Changer – I can save pages, sections, rows, modules and use them on a variety of sites. You really like the way you styled and laid out that footer? You can use it again very easily!

And finally, Divi has significantly increased my overall efficiency. Whether I’m sketching out my ideas and starting from scratch or if I’m starting with a base idea from the built in layouts, I can start implementing my ideas much more quickly.”

Mike Sayenko

Sayenko Design was founded in 2009 to provide businesses of all sizes with user-driven web design and development solutions. I have a long background in visual arts with 10 years of design experience. I’m also passionate about performance which comes from my history as a professional runner. I personally oversee all projects the firm takes on.

https://www.sayenkodesign.com/

Fusion Builder – “Avada Theme & Fusion Builder. It’s the highest rated, most purchased theme on Themeforest with over 23,000 reviews an avg star rating of 4.77, raking up over half a million purchases! It loads fast, ability to brand it as your own, ability to remove features (helpful for handing-off to your end client), has the ability to make global elements, elements that can be saved and used for various pages, and overall the page builder is robust and more advanced than DIVI, Beaver Builder, Elementor, etc. On top of that its also developer friendly, it works well with Advanced Custom Fields. It includes other premium plugins with the purchase such as ACF mentioned, Slider Revolution, Convert Plus and three others.

The page builder has a front-end intuitive visual editor and back-end editing capabilities along with Gutenberg optimized. Has cool features where you can select a specific demo page off their growing list of 65+ demo sites and with one click implement that layout. This is great because you don’t have to load the entire demo site; you can pick and choose different pages from different demos and do it super quick.

They also have amazing support. If I submit a ticket, I get a response within 1-2 days. How many page builders have support like that?”

Ronald Huereca

Ronald Huereca is a writer and software engineer. His passions include writing technical and fiction books, karaoke, his cats, and contributing to open source development projects.

https://mediaron.com

Beaver Builder – “The combination of Astra (or GeneratePress or the Beaver Builder Child Theme), Beaver Builder, and Beaver Themer is killer. You can design pretty much anything you like and the built-in modules are well done.

Beaver Builder makes it extremely easy to extend in the form of custom modules, and the Facebook community is quite active and is always offering free (and useful) help. If you can’t find a module you like, you can build it yourself, or pay for a module suite that makes Beaver Builder even more powerful.”

Tim Priebe

Tim Priebe is a public speaker, author, columnist, and the owner of T&S Online Marketing. He has been working on websites since 1997, and regularly assists clients with online marketing, including websites and social media. He is the author of five books on digital marketing.

https://tandsgo.com

“My team adopted WordPress to build entire websites back in 2009. First we custom coded each site, then we eventually utilized a combination of a home grown blank theme as a starting point, combining that with a series of plugins.

In 2017, we decided it was time to switch to a page builder. We had already worked with a couple that we knew we didn’t like. We considered a few of the popular options at the time, and ended up settling on Beaver Builder.”

Beaver Builder – “Beaver Builder was our choice for a couple reasons.

Relatively Lightweight Code – Any page builder will create more HTML code than a hand coded theme will. Looking at the code generated by the popular page builders at that time, Beaver Builder’s code seemed to be the most lightweight.

Keeping the HTML code lightweight is an important part of technical SEO. It also makes it easier to debug issues during development and later while maintaining the site.

Ease of Use – This area is subjective, but it was important to us. Our experience with some other page builders had been a bit of a nightmare in this area. So we looked at plenty of tutorials, screenshots, and even live demos to get a good idea of how the various interfaces worked.

We were relatively sure that Beaver Builder’s interface would be a good choice. Nearly three years later, my team continues to find Beaver Builder to be fairly easy to use.

We still need to work with other page builders from time to time, but that just makes us appreciate Beaver Builder even more.”

Jason Tucker

Jason has been podcasting for over 15 years and his longest running podcast, WPwatercooler, brings together a collection of wicked-smart WordPress luminaries to discuss all things WordPress. By day Jason is an IT Director for a church.

http://WPwatercooler.com

Beaver Builder – “I feel that the Beaver Builder team has done an amazing job of building a high end page builder as well as fostering an ecosystem that addon developers can build from. When I find a small limitation in the stock modules in Beaver Builder, some plugin developer has made an addon to pickup where Beaver Builder left off. I find that when I am in a situation where I need to do a “design by committee” which tends to happen at the church I work at during the day, I can screen share and drag and drop in the pieces I need to build out the website while my stakeholders watch in amazement. With very little code editing needed I can do 99.999% of the changes to a website without touching any CSS or PHP for that matter.”

Martin Jarvis

WordPress expert with a focus on building and supporting solid, fast and secure websites. I like best-of-breed solutions, rather than always looking for 'free'! Have been building software since the 1970's and WordPress sites for the past 13 years.

https://dmjcomputerservices.com/

Divi Builder – “I use the Divi theme on lots of websites, and also the Divi builder plugin on a few other sites. Can be really tricky to get used to, and also requires more server resources than other builders. However, it has an absolutely huge range of features, with a module for just about everything, and is being constantly developed. Its use is widespread, so there are always developers, forums, social media groups willing to help out for the more complex stuff.”
Elementor – “Easy to use, and fairly lightweight plugin. It’s quicker than the Divi builder, but has fewer features.”
SiteOrigin Page Builder – “I haven’t used this a lot, but one of my client sites uses it, and whenever I have to make small edits to the site it seems to be really easy to use (especially visually), and with no external training.”

Chris Hough

A pragmatic, self-taught WordPress developer, offering WordPress development and maintenance services from England's north-west. King Bee at WPbees.com

https://wpbees.com

“The first thing I would ask you to consider is if a WordPress Page Builder is really the right option. Page Builders can be an absolute fantastic addition, and in fact the foundation of many a WordPress website, but they’re not (as some would hope) a cure-all for every content problem you encounter.

The Page Builders I’m recommending below are very good at many things within a tight focus. So if you have a specific layout in mind or fantastic design concept you want to create, try to kick the tyres of the Page Builder beforehand, ask some pre-sales questions of the plugin author or ask a seasoned WordPress developer who may be able to help give the inside scoop.

Ok, enough preamble, onto the recommendations.”

Elementor – “Elementor seems to be going from strength to strength. Unlike other Page Builders, Elementor doesn’t try to give you all of your design options “inline.” Instead, it keeps its options panel to the left of the screen, allowing you to make changes and see those changes instantly. It’s sturdy, allows for easy control of many, many page layout options and seems to be coming into its own of-late.”
Divi Builder – “Divi is a well respected Page Builder with a slew of options. Their community is very active meaning that new tools & tricks are released frequently. It’s a good choice and, unlike other Page Builders, can be accessed via both a theme and a plugin that can be added to other WordPress themes.”
WPBakery – “Arguably the grandaddy of them all, WPBakery (formerly Visual Composer) kick started this Page Builder revolution and is still a solid option. Perhaps not quite as slick as its modern contemporaries, what it lacks in pizazz it more than makes up for in reliability and experience; it’s been around the block a few times, and as such there are many, many, many add-ons and how-to guides to get the most out of this veteran Page Builder.”

Jonathan Ober

A WordPress designer/developer in Lancaster, PA, USA. I enjoy ACF, Elementor, and video games.

https://codeccg.com

Elementor – “This is my go-to page builder. It’s easy to set up and install. There’s a free version that can get most of the work done, if you’re just looking to add a Page Builder aspect to your WordPress theme easily. It integrates well with most themes, within the wp-content area. There is a pro module add-on which I highly recommend. With it you can build out your own site templates, site wide blocks of reusable content, pop-ups headers/footers, and more.”
Divi Builder – “Another popular builder. While it has come along way since I first used it, my favorite aspects of it are the live editing and the control on various elements within the page that you can move around easily through drag-and-drop, as well as selecting styles you want to apply to elements within your page. Divi and Elementor do a lot to piggy back off one another and each one tends to add elements in an arms race to the top.”
Gutenberg + CoBlocks – “While not necessarily a full on page builder like Elementor or Divi, CoBlocks is a page builder for your Gutenberg editor. If you’re using Gutenberg you will want to use CoBlocks. I have it installed on any site I build that isn’t running a full-on page builder. CoBlocks gives you the abilities that Gutenberg should have natively, but doesn’t, and helps you quickly layout dynamic page content within your editors backend. CoBlocks has better column and button management, as well as logically creating sections for content. It’s really the best partner for WordPress sites.”

Ricki Steigerwald

WordPress Developer since 2006 who specializes in member sites, e-courses and online communities.

https://just2technical.com/

“I love page editors. You can build a page with different layouts and colored sections. More importantly, you can control how they look on a tablet or mobile device.

No matter which page builder you use, it takes time to master them. They come with a lot of bells and whistles.”

Gutenberg (with Ultimate Gutenberg Addon) – “It’s free and for many of my clients, it is enough. The addon introduces several blocks such as icon lists, advanced columns and post layouts. More importantly, you can control the typography, colors, padding, and margins for each screen size.

It comes with some templates, as well as the ability to save a block or whole page to the template library.”

“I caution clients to stay away from some of the lesser known builders. Beaver Builder and Elementor have a huge following. Therefore, many themes and plugins make the effort to integrate with them. While there are free versions, you will probably want to invest in the paid version of either. You get more cookie cutter templates and page elements.”

Beaver Builder – “The Beaver Builder editor loads faster than Elementor. Most of my clients and I find it is easier to learn. One issue is that it serializes the data which makes it harder to move to a new server or different domain.”
Elementor – “Elementor’s pop-up element is more robust and works flawlessly. I sometimes have trouble with the Beaver Builder one. It is easy to find contractors who have experience with this plugin.”

“If you want additional templates or page elements, I highly recommend Ultimate Add Ons by Brainstorm.”

David Lockie

Founder and CEO of Pragmatic, a top-tier WordPress agency globally.

https://pragmatic.agency/

Gutenberg – “At this point my only recommendation can really be Gutenberg. I definitely don’t mean to trash talk any of the other page builders out there but Gutenberg is now an established part of WordPress core so it’s the de facto standard. I’d say it’s already as good as any other page builder out there (WordPress or not) and with the weight of the WordPress community now behind it, it’s going to start edging ahead of others.

Further, there’s a public roadmap that shows the plan to make ever more of the WordPress configuration and build process become powered by Gutenberg, so it’s going to become a design pattern that we see everywhere.

From a user’s perspective, the power of the blocks that Gutenberg has – both as core and via some of the top block libraries – are mind-blowingly powerful and allow the creation of incredibly rich content directly in-CMS.

It’s not without its challenges – block management, accessibility and performance are still all work in progress – but in terms of recommending a plugin for folks to build with – there’s only Gutenberg.”

Justin Scarpetti

I am a Co-Founder and the Director of Web Development at Webstract Marketing. We are a full-service web design & internet marketing agency created for small and medium businesses.

https://www.webstractmarketing.com/

This is my 2nd WordPress product review for WSTE. My first one was for the best caching plugin. Like that review, this one will be the same in 2 regards… First, our team has built near 1,000 websites, so we’ve had the chance to experiment with a LOT of plugins and page builders. And second, I only have a single recommendation and I am not going to bother with the others!

Another drumroll, please…

Divi Builder – “Boom done. Just go buy it.

To expand a little here are 21 reason I love Divi.
- It just works, we have never had compatibility issues
- The creators of Divi, Elegant Themes, have awesome support
- The interface is beautiful
- The licensing is amazing, as of writing this it’s a $249 one time fee for lifetime access. How is that even possible!? I would gladly pay double that. They do have a yearly option but the value for the one time fee is well worth it.
- It has awesome prebuilt layouts
- There is a live website builder as well as a module builder
- They have awesome tutorials, walkthroughs, and videos
- Divi pushes updates weekly along with new features in most updates
- They have great developer documentation for hooking into Divi and building custom modules or extensions
- You have the ability to create global elements
- You have the ability to build custom header & footers inside the Divi builder and apply it to any template
- You can build on custom post types
- Importing & exporting theme config options is very easy and always works
- Every element has a hover state and anything can be animated
- Adjusting for desktop, tablet, and mobile is a breeze
- Undoing changes is very easy, there is a “History” window similar to Photoshop to undo changes
- It has a pretty solid ACF integration. Although the only thing lacking, as of writing this, is repeater fields. However, I have talked to the support team and they have said repeater field integration is in the works.
- Awesome integration with WooCommerce
- There are lots of 3rd party modules & extensions built by the Divi community
- It works very well with every WP Rocket option turned on
- Lastly, I know I briefly touched on this before, most premium WordPress plugins/themes out there have per-site or per-year licensing fee. Divi is one time. Unlimited use. Unlimited sites. For agencies rolling out new sites every week you can’t pass that up.”

Thanks for reading!

Alex Moss

Alex is Director at FireCask, an online marketing and WordPress development agency in Manchester (UK). His background in Technical SEO and WordPress plugin development spans over 15 years and 2 million downloads.

https://alex-moss.co.uk/

Avia Builder
Beaver Builder

“I’m not personally a fan of page builders, especially since the introduction of Gutenberg. However if there are any page builders to use then they must be compatible and use Gutenberg’s core features. As such, if we HAD to choose a page builder, we’d go with Avia and Beaver Builder for those reasons. Good code, not too much bloat, and enhances Gutenberg functionality.”

Gene Armstrong

Gene Armstrong is the founder of Big Apple Media, a digital design agency specializing in SEO and custom website design and development.

https://www.bigapplemedia.com

WPBakery – “The page builder I use the most is WPBakery. Many of the clients I work with don’t want to pay extra for plugins and since many themes come bundled with WPBakery, it’s an easy choice to make. In terms of performance and advance coding, it’s probably not the best builder. However, it’s easy to learn and use, even for people who are not tech-savvy, so for these reasons, it’s been my go-to page builder for a long time.”
Elementor – “Recently I’ve been using Elementor page builder and so far I like what I see. I’m not at the point where I’m ready to switch, but the more I use it, the more I like it. It’s great to view the changes right away without having to switch back and forth from the preview to editing mode.”
Divi Builder – “The only other page builder I’ve worked with and can recommend is Divi. Learning the ins and outs of Divi will take some time, but once you figure out all the settings, you’ll be able to control every aspect of each element. It also has a nice user-friendly, visual interface that’s a pleasure to use. Unfortunately, because Divi is part of Elegant Themes and requires an annual subscription, it’s unlikely I’ll be using it as often as I like. Which is a shame since it’s an excellent builder and would be my first choice, if it came bundled with other themes.”

Ben May

Ben is Managing Director of The Code Company. He is passionate about working with publishers on clever and innovative ways to solve complex problems. He works with The Code Company team on all projects, bringing his perspective and problem solving skills to deliver great outcomes.

https://thecode.co

Beaver Builder – “Beaver Builder has been our Page Builder of choice for situations where it doesn’t make sense to use the WordPress block editor.

We use Beaver Builder for a number of reasons, including its mix of flexibility and ability to build custom blocks and modules for specific functionality.

Another highly appealing reason for us to use Beaver Builder is the markup and general performance was the best at the time when we made the choice.

Finally, Beaver Builder’s “Themer” functionality, allowing you to use the page builder to compose things like Archive templates is highly advantageous, and means you can use the page builder for all aspects of the sites creation.”

David Darke

Co-Founder and Technical Lead at a Bristol based WordPress studio @atomicsmash

https://www.atomicsmash.co.uk

Gutenberg – “Even though Gutenberg had a rocky start, with a less than perfect release strategy, it’s evolving into an amazing way to create and update content. After solely using ‘ACF Flexible Content’ to handle our page building, our clients have loved the editing experience Gutenberg has brought them.

The real selling point for us is the fact it is baked into WordPress. We try not to lock our clients into using ultra bespoke plugins for base functionality. We reassure them that if they would ever like to close the relationship with the studio, they will be able to find a similar outfit that will be able to take on the project with ease.

This ‘out-the-box’ approach falls completely in line with this methodology of how we build enterprise websites. They aren’t just static documents you put online, they should be constantly adapting platforms that should grow over time.

When there are flourishes required, being able to create a bespoke block or even source something from the ever-growing Gutenberg marketplace feels far more future proof than relying on the third-party page builders.”

Adal Bermann

Adal has been consulting full-time as a WordPress developer since 2009, after obtaining a masters in Social Psychology. He is currently launching Coachomate, a business that will provide coaches with tech solutions to automate their businesses, so that they can focus on making positive impacts on people's lives.

https://coachomate.com

Elementor – “Admittedly, there are many page builders for WordPress, and even WordPress core is developing its own Gutenberg block editor. Since I want to give only the best to my clients, I build websites using Elementor. Here’s what makes it so great.

For starters, it is incredibly fast and responsive, and you can you see exactly what the final result will be while you are editing the page. The user interface is extremely intuitive despite the amount of features they packed in, which are impressive. Unlike many of the competing options, with Elementor, you can basically design almost anything that a professional developer could code. From creating multi-layered responsive layouts with intelligent backgrounds, to picking any font you want from a drop down and even setting up animations, I am amazed at everything Elementor can do.

To speed things up, Elementor includes a large library of “elements” that you can insert directly into the page. The free selection is already helpful, and if you want more, you can install the pro-version and even plugins by third-party authors.

As if that weren’t good enough, Elementor gives you access to an extensive library of pre-designed sections, pages and entire websites that you can insert in a matter of seconds. Some are free, and if you want access to more, you can buy them from the ecosystem that is growing around this trend-setting page-builder. It’s no surprise that this page builder is one of the most downloaded plugins of all time.”

Alex Frison

CEO of Inpsyde, the WordPress VIP agency and WooExperts. Using and loving WordPress since 2004.

https://inpsyde.com

Gutenberg – “Inpsyde has always supported the WordPress core and will continue to do so. That is why we work very successfully with the Gutenberg block editor in our projects and look forward to when phase 2 of Gutenberg is completed and every page builder has a common basis on which to build. This will strengthen the entire ecosystem.

The good thing with Gutenberg is you won’t depend on a third party plugin and the development of Gutenberg is much faster than any other solutions, thanks to the strong community. It’s the future solution to go with.”

Jake Goldman

Jake Goldman has been building award-winning websites since the 1990s, serving some of the best known organizations and brands in the world. His agency, 10up, is a global business with more than 200 full-time staff. His insights have appeared in high profile outlets like Time and c|net.

https://10up.com

Gutenberg – “At 10up, we are all-in on the WordPress block editor (Gutenberg).

In terms of page building, we do not necessarily advocate for the open canvas, from scratch approach many page builders take (reminiscent of the FrontPage and Geocities era). That approach forces site owners and content managers to become designers who need to take the time to deal with the cognitive overhead of full page layouts – managing mobile breakpoints, checking cross-browser compatibility, and making design choices rather than focusing on content.

With a stricter component-based approach to page design and layout, the WordPress block editor enables the right balance: flexibility in the order, treatment, and even nesting of customizable components (mapped to blocks) that are curated for each site. The method — less “design a whole page from scratch” and more “stack up these building blocks any way you like” — is closer to a carefully selected set of easy to use and understood stencils.

There’s another reason I steer people away from third-party page builders, even those closer to the “component” / “stencils” philosophy. The new block editor is the default experience in WordPress and is evolving and iterating very quickly, even moving into optional full page layout capabilities. Particularly, as WordPress builds a huge ecosystem of blocks – something the forthcoming native Block Library / installer makes even more inevitable – it’s hard to believe third-party solutions will keep pace and site owners won’t increasingly expect and want the native experience as it becomes more familiar.

I strongly encourage you to embrace the block editor and learn how to build and customize blocks.”
Beaver Builder – “With that said, if you have your heart set on a different direction, my recommendation is Beaver Builder. It features a straightforward front-end editor and drag-and-drop interface, is well engineered, and if you deactivate it, the markup falls back to HTML.”

Luke Carbis

Vigilante Open-Source Emissary and Plenipotentiary for WordPress Proletariat Affairs.

http://carb.is

Gutenberg – “Gutenberg! If you want the fastest, easiest, long-term solution, using the default WordPress editor is the way to go. The speed of new features and improvements to the Gutenberg plugin outpaces any other page builder, and we’re seeing more and more blocks and block libraries released over time. Soon, we’ll even have pre-designed “patterns”, sections that you can combine together to build beautiful posts and pages.

It’s true – other page builders have some features that Gutenberg is still catching up on, but if accessibility, performance, and long-term reliability is your jam, WordPress can do great things right out of the gate.

Oh, and by the way, it’s free.”

Richard Carter

Richard is a seasoned WordPress theme builder, author of 7 books on web design, and founder of UK WordPress design agency Peacock Carter.

https://www.peacockcarter.com

“I find a lot of page builders produce quite bloated markup – they tend to be over-engineered to adapt to every situation, and as a web designer I like deeper control over how the page in WordPress is built. As such, I find the Advanced Custom Fields plugin invaluable in building highly editable pages for client projects.”

Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) – “Advanced Custom Fields is a WordPress plugin that allows you to manage custom fields – images, text, links, and much more – through the WordPress dashboard.

You can manage these custom fields on a per post type (Post, Page and your own custom post types), per page, or on the basis of which template is assigned to the page, making ACF incredibly flexible and an ideal, lightweight starting point as a WordPress page builder.

Whilst you need a little knowledge of WordPress theming to implement, ACF gives you great control over your website’s content and I’ve found it interacts well with other common WordPress plugins, too. The plugin is very well documented, too – and it’s popular usage means there are easy examples to follow for almost every requirement for a page layout, from image galleries and portfolios, to testimonials and landing pages. (For help getting started with a flexible page builder, see this documentation on the plugin website: https://support.advancedcustomfields.com/forums/topic/use-acf-to-make-drag-drop-page-builder-bootstrap/).

It’s worth paying for the Pro license, as this gives you the “repeater” field type which is incredibly useful for page types such as “team members”, product / service lists, custom carousels and image sliders, and much more.”

James Coates

I run a specialist UX & WordPress agency called Impact Media focused on creating exceptional web experiences. We build bespoke WordPress websites and also provide WordPress maintenance and support.

https://www.impactmedia.co.uk

Elementor – “Choose Elementor – We’ve used Visual Composer, WP Bakery Builder and DIVI however, Elementor is the clear winner for me for the front end builder option alone.

It is fast to use from an editing experience and also easy to understand. Many builders use a backend experience which looks complicated and for clients; very difficult to learn.

If performance is a concern we achieve GT Metrix pagespeed scores of B and above – it’s not going to slow the site down (obviously there’s optimisation you can do to improve this anyway).

Elementor is great for designers and great for developers. Designers will love it because they can with minimal coding skills build the sites they design and control the level of detail across all devices and even create custom headers and footers! Developers will love it because it can speed up their workflow.

We use it for creating customisable element / blocks within Elementor and developers can style these accordingly and save as templates. The mytemplates feature gives clients the ability to build further marketing pages using their own branded blocks – something that we are finding is highly desirable.

Apart from other features such as creating popups and exit intent banners which is native in Elementor (no further plugin needed) the transitional effects are also something that you can impress clients with easily.

I’m hoping they don’t change their pricing structure i.e. the agency plan, as from a developers perspective you have one license for up to 1000 websites. Compared to WPBakery which we have many legacy websites that require their own individual licenses, which can add up.

Lastly – Elementor feels like they’re going to be around for a while. Like investing time and resources into learning any software, I feel that with the recent $15 million investment they received, they won’t be going anywhere anytime soon and new features and improvements will keep on coming.”

Ramon Fincken

Open source lover since 2004, WP entrepreneur as Managed WP Webhost and WP Backend developer

https://www.managedwphosting.nl/

Gutenberg – “Hands down. It works very intuitive and is build in with WP Core. Pro of that is that you are NOT bound by any theme editor or in need of a lot of extra plugins. No lock in! If you need some new building blocks, there are neat plugins to extend the functionality. Additionally, if you are able to do some PHP programming, it is not hard to create your own custom blocks. Pro tip: Check out ACF blocks!”
Divi Builder – “Of all the others I have seen (Elementor, Divi, Visual Composer) I would choose Divi builder. User friendly and robust. I do not like the coding and documentation (lack thereof) of Visual composer. Elementor (-Pro) on the other hand tends to slow sites down.”

“Yes: all page builders have a lock-in in the sense that you cannot just switch to another one.”

Lee Drozak

Lee Drozak, founder of LDB Creative LLC, is a WordPress teacher, doer, and fixer. She builds user-friendly WordPress websites for creative and service-based small businesses. Her designs are simplified for productivity and profit so that you can concentrate on happy clients, growth, and revenue-generating income.

https://leedrozak.com

Beaver Builder – “The page builder we use for almost every site developed is the Beaver Builder plugin. We love its ease of use and versatility, along with how light and streamlined the code base is. Another big consideration is that our clients find when we hand them over the website, the learning curve is little, so they can jump right in and use the site as it was intended. We’ve worked with every page builder out there but find that Beaver builder is the best of the bunch. In addition to the core, several developers have created add-ons to extend the many included features, and Beaver Builder plays nice with other plugins that we add to client sites.”
Elementor – “Our second choice is Elementor which also has an easy to use interface. Like Beaver Builder, it is a drag and drop page builder that allows you to preview the page parts immediately. Also, like Beaver Builder, many third-party add-ons extend the functionality, but it seems that Elementor is a little heavier in its codebase, which can add some load time to your website.”

“Both Beaver Builder and Elementor have a “lite” or free version that can be found in the repository. Both page builders have premium plans that include additional features, with Elementor Pro costing a little less. Beaver Builder, a favorite among developers, seems to be a tad more stable since it releases features less often than the other page builders. But that thoughtful release of features doesn’t mean it lacks in any way.

I’ve not used Elementor support much but have read it could use some improvements while the Beaver Builder folks have always been quick to respond and top-notch in their follow-through.”

Aaron Sonnenberg

Aaron Sonnenberg is an award-winning freelance designer and founder of Sonnenberg Design, a boutique web design agency. Aaron has decades of design experience working with brands and businesses, getting them organized, and fine-tuning their online presence so their marketing rocks and their revenue soars.

https://sonnenbergdesign.com

Divi Builder – “The Divi Theme is developed by Elegant Themes. I absolutely love this theme and its built-in builder. I especially think the front-end Visual Builder offers a super intuitive set of tools to create Sections, Rows and Modules. They offer a wide variety of customizable Modules for the traditional post, pages and projects, and have recently released new capabilities that include WooCommerce and Custom Post Type support. With their community of designers, developers and fans I can usually find an answer to my questions with just a few searches. The Divi Theme Builder is my go-to and highly recommend it to anyone who is building WordPress sites.”
Avia Builder – “The Enfold Theme comes with a builder that has a wide array of useful tools that any WordPress designer can appreciate. Enfold comes with a sizable list of draggable page Elements to build your page. I particular like how the Column Layout Elements can easily be increased or decreased across the page. And in a fashion that allows the columns to scale into a grid which becomes very useful. Each element is customizable and can be identified for further CSS styling. All in all, the Avia Builder is very impressive, easy and intuitive to work with.”

Nirmal Gyanwali

WP Creative is a Sydney based boutique WordPress Agency. We build custom WordPress websites that are super-fast, high-secured and easy to maintain and manage. If you are looking for a conversion-focused, modern and fast website, please feel free to contact us.

https://www.wpcreative.com.au/

Elementor – “We have built hundreds of websites using different page builders and custom fields. Every tool has its pros and cons, however, one of the best page builders we use very often and our dev teams love a lot is Elementor.

It’s very quick, glitch-free and has many flexible styling options. It’s easy to integrate with the theme and build required styles for a custom website. It also offers lots of content elements and modules for images, headings, buttons etc.

If you use it in the right way, this is one of the best tools for WordPress users to easily manage and maintain their website for the long-term.”

Rob Dobson

Rob offers affordable WordPress maintenance plans and site management services that keep your WordPress website updated, backed up, and monitored for uptime, malware and optimal performance. Sign up today!

https://wpmaintenance.love/

Divi Builder – “As long as you’re on a decent host (which is really the case for all builders) Divi really does deliver. The features and functionality are endless. The modules available, design possibilities, and flexibility to style and display elements for mobile, tablet and desktop are second to none. Plus they have a wealth of articles explaining how to get the best out of the builder. I do prefer to use it with the Divi theme itself. But you can use the standalone builder with any theme out there. And, being old school, I still prefer to use it in the backend, but the frontend is super powerful. It’s $89 a year for the theme, builder, and two premium plugins for email lead gen and social sharing. It’s a bargain!”
Beaver Builder – “I’ve only used Beaver Builder once but I was really impressed. It produces clean code, there are some great templates, and it seems really fast. It’s not cheap. You really need the paid version which is $99 a year. The version that includes the theme is $199 a year. But it’s easy to produce great, modern looking sites without much design experience.”
Visual Composer – “In my mind Visual Composer is the daddy. It’s the first page builder I ever used, mainly because it’s bundled with so many themes. It has improved a lot over the years, probably due to competition from elsewhere. And although it probably wouldn’t be my first choice, it is still a very good visual page builder. It’s also the cheapest at $59 a year.”

Adam Collins

Company Director at CurrantWeb, one of the fastest growing pay monthly website providers in the UK. An expert at helping business owners achieve Online Success For Less.

https://www.adamcollins.uk/

“As a web developer that evolved into an agency owner I found the transition to working with page builders a tricky one. I remember using Divi for the first time in 2013, being amazed at the functionality and how easy it was to create a simple sites. However, I always felt something was lacking, anything outside the plugin’s core features would require hacking & I would come away feeling like I had short changed my clients.

As time moved on we again experimented with Cornerstone & Visual composer, using each respective plugin for select sites as trials, but again being a bespoke agency the need to hack dynamic elements into the design seemed to deter my agency from further usage.”

Elementor – “In came Elementor which we started using at the end of 2018 – what a breath of fresh air. Finally a page builder with an easy to use, frontend user experience. What impressed my agency most about Elementor is its ability to produce clean code & the sheer amount of customisation for each module. Elementor is extremely easy to use for a beginner, but also more than holds its own as a serious development tool. It has increased our productivity ten fold & we now use Elementor for our smaller development projects.

What’s unique about Elementor is the fact it caters for those dynamic elements / pages on your website, such as: Header, Footer, News, Single, Archive, WooCommerce. You really can’t argue with what the guys have managed to produce at Elementor & it should be part of your toolkit as a designer.”

Martin Mills

I have been a website designer for almost 25 years. These days I specialise in WordPress based website design and development, as well as ongoing support and maintenance.

https://conceptualcreative.com.au

Beaver Builder – “I recommend working with Beaver Builder as my primary builder. I love using Beaver Builder for a few reasons, however the primary reason is ease of use. Whether it is for me working on a client’s page layout or the client adjusting content after website launch. With a simple drag and drop interface and front end editing capability, it feels comfortable and intuitive. With additional functionality purchasable with the pro version of the plugin, or extensions from 3rd party providers the creative options are endless.

As a one stop shop for website design and page layout, Beaver Builder will really open your options. As a plugin you can simply drag in the columns and layout elements. Once you have your layout in place, you simply drag in a picture, text module, testimonial or even a contact form.

In the past I had utilised other page builders but found they were often heavy on the code, increasing load times and requiring additional optimisation and server resources. Beaver Builder, whilst still a little code heavy, is much easier to optimise and the performance out of the box is commendable. I have found that from experience a typical Beaver Builder powered website can easily provide sub 2 second load time with minimal work.

If you’re looking for a great all rounder when it comes to page builders that is easy to use whether you’re technically minded or not, then Beaver Builder is for you.”

Mike Haydon

https://www.intelliwolf.com

“Before deciding on a page builder, you need to decide if you are likely to use a page builder on every page of a small website or just on a few pages.”

Divi Builder – “If you are intending to create every page with a page builder, then I recommend using Divi. You will get a much deeper integration across the site between the page builder and the theme.

Divi used to have a bad reputation, but it’s a lot better now. It’s a simple interface, so it has an easy learning curve. It will be able to handle most run of the mill projects.

I love the ease of cloning a page from a template or an existing site. Some of the other page builders just don’t handle this side as well, as I found out the other day.

The downside of Divi is that it’s heavier on the database across the site. I wouldn’t typically use it for sites with more than 50 pages, or ones where the focus was on the blog. Don’t use it on an eCommerce site either. I’m still dealing with the fallout of a previous designer’s decision to do that.”
Elementor – “If you really want to go to town, I recommend Elementor. It has a fully functional free version, which I find is usually all that you need. The pro version adds a lot of very useful features. You can further extend it with Ultimate Addons or Powerpack, both of which are fantastic value for money. They both do largely the same things, so just pick the one that does it the way you like.

I find Elementor to be more intuitive than Divi. It has a steeper learning curve, because it has more modules and features, particularly if you go with Elementor Pro with one of the addons. With those added features comes a lot of powerful modules that would otherwise require custom coding.

Elementor is better than Divi on some projects because the Elementor styling and scripts are only loaded on pages which you decide to build with Elementor.”

“Many times, you’ll only want to use a page builder on a few pages and do the rest in Gutenberg. That’s the perfect way to build sites for speed and usability, in my opinion. It allows you to use a fast, lightweight theme without compromising your designs.”

Bryan Hoffman

WordPress designer and developer from Park City, Utah

https://spigotdesign.com/

“Page builders certainly have a source of contention among designers and developers. For a long time we actively avoided them due to code bloat and poor integration with the core of WordPress. But as customers have asked for more and more rich, complex layouts, the benefits become clear. In the hands of a skilled designer, a page builder can help create the rich content that customers demand – in an quick, efficient manner that keeps us on budget.

In terms of which is the best page builder? We’ve worked with many if not all of them over the years (I also run a WordPress support service), and while most have become incrementally better in terms of code bloat, there’s only one we use and recommend for our customers: Beaver Builder.”

Beaver Builder – “We use Beaver Builder for a few reasons: First and foremost is the code output and overhead is among the best among all page builders. It doesn’t completely break the site when deactivated and it’s very easy for our customers to understand and use. The front end editor is quick and reliable, and makes it very clear that What You See Is What You Get. (I can’t believe I just wrote that).”
Gutenberg – “The new Block Editor built into WordPress is here to stay, and we are very much embracing it. We use Beaver Builder in conjunction with Gutenberg: BB is only used for the pages that need a rich content or a complex layout. Pages that are more informational or function well with a standard layout are created with Gutenberg. Blog posts as well are created with the built in editor. Beaver Builder has a feature where you can set which post types can use it. We disable it for posts and encourage our customers to learn how to use the new editor.

If Gutenberg continues at its active development pace, I can certainly see a day when it supplants page builders all together. It’s currently miles away but we continue to gain features that step into what page builders do. Until then however, we’ll continue to use Beaver Builder along side Gutenberg, incorporating new features along the way.”

David Harris

WordPress website developer from V2.3 in 2007.

https://localwebsites.biz

“Page builders have become pretty indispensable when creating a WordPress site. They are huge time savers. Some are better than others. I have my two favourites for quite different reasons.”

Gutenberg – “I surprise even myself by starting with Gutenberg. This is now the standard WordPress editor, and received a huge ‘WTF’ when first released. It pushed aside the old familiar editor that we have been using for over a decade. It was a real culture shock. It’s a block editor, which is essentially what a page builder is. Why use Gutenberg when there are better commercial options available? One word. SPEED! I created the same website with Elementor and Gutenberg. I ran them through Google PageSpeed Insights and got a score of 97 for the desktop and 87 for the mobile using Gutenberg. Elementor had both versions in the amber zone with a 73/51 score. Speed is not the full SEO story, but it’s one the biggest factors aside from the content. This made me look at Gutenberg in a new light and I’ve learned to live with it and start creating brochure websites using it.”
Elementor – “If I ignore the speed advantage then Elementor would be my choice. Everything from the huge selection of templates and widgets to the help and community support is excellent. It’s easy to test responsiveness and have different elements on different devices. The drag and drop editor is a huge time saver. It’s faster and easier that other builders I’ve used such as WP Bakery.”

Dave Ryan

Dave Ryan is an Interdisciplinary Developer at Bluehost, where he focuses on helping build WordPress and supporting the WordPress community.

https://daveryan.io

Gutenberg – “Today, the Block Editor is more of a content builder than page builder, but it’s still the right solution for many websites. Often casual website creators don’t need the fine-grained control of a full Page Builder. In WordPress Core, Block Patterns and upcoming Block-Based Themes will begin to put WordPress itself on-par with a third-party page builder. In addition, popular WordPress Plugins including Stackable, Atomic Blocks and CoBlocks can bridge that gap today with their own take on templates and advanced controls. The benefits of learning one tool — the Block Editor — and using a mix of included and third-party blocks storing data in a WordPress-approved data format can’t be underscored enough.”
Beaver Builder – “There are a lot of page builders on the market, but I think Beaver Builder does the best job of addressing the needs of novices, professionals and everyone in-between. As both a developer writing custom modules and a site builder composing pages and content, I find it the fastest route to getting from pixel-perfect mockup to functional website that anyone can maintain. When I’m helping someone with their website and they pull up Beaver Builder, I breathe a sigh of relief because it’s a high-quality tool that sets them up for success and empowers me to put them on a path to success. Plus, its best-in-class integration with the Block Editor means the Block Editor can be the main integration point for everything, and Beaver Builder can be applied to specific layouts and sections as-needed, making it less of an either-or scenario.”

Keryn van der Dijken

Keryn is the founder of Phantom Freelance, a development company specializing in WordPress. She is also one of the expert developers at Codeable. When she's not working behind a desk you can find her playing Dodgeball.

https://www.phantomfreelance.com

“I have always been a custom coder when it comes to websites, trying a page builder here or there but always reverting back to building everything out myself … that is until I found Beaver Builder.”

Beaver Builder – “When I first tried this page builder I found it very intuitive to use. It’s fast to load and easy to drag and drop elements and change settings. Over the years they have added more and more features which makes it really easy to change sizes and settings for tablet and mobile screens, making it an all around dream for responsive websites.

If you don’t know where to start it comes with a number of pre-built templates you can drag and drop onto your page and customize away. There are a number of different add ons for Beaver Builder to extend the functionality even more – namely Ultimate Add Ons and PowerPack. A heads up that these are paid and not part of Beaver Builder by default, but I’ve used them on a number of sites and they work flawlessly together.

Don’t want to pay for a license to use the Pro features? No problem, Beaver Builder offers a free lite version of its page builder so you can use it on any live site or even try it out before making the jump to a paid version.

Honestly, I really can’t say enough good things about Beaver Builder, not only does this page builder give me nearly everything I could ask for, the brand also appeals to my Canadian roots!”

“I have worked with a number of other page builders over the years and all of the ones I’ve used in the past are clunky, slow and hard to figure out. Worst of all, most of them inject a bunch of weird shortcodes onto the page, so if you ever want to stop using it, you’d have a bunch of broken code instead of page content.

While I’d really like to praise some of the other page builders out there, I’m all about building sites that are easy to use for my clients, and if I have trouble figuring something out as a developer, there’s no way I’m going to suggest it to someone else. That is why I recommend Beaver Builder and only Beaver Builder.”

Jodi Allbon

Jodi Allbon is the Senior WordPress/SEO trainer and designer at Let’s Build a Website and loves helping people create, manage, and build websites. She has spent the majority of her career in the web/design industry, gaining experiences in areas such as WordPress, Web Design, and SEO. While building websites is her primary job function by day, Jodi also enjoys writing tutorials about anything to do with WordPress websites and SEO.

https://www.letsbuildawebsite.com.au/

Divi Builder – “I love the Divi page builder because it’s a drag and drop builder, really easy to use with a lot of options within each module (or element) to style. Such as; changing the font size, font family and color. You also get a lot of options to add all sorts of crazy effects to images. Like animation, filters, transitions, scroll effects and more! It also has more advanced sections for web developers. You can build your page from the back end of the website. Or see your progress by designing from the front end.

Divi builder also gives you the option to style all devices separately if required. Which makes life easier for people you don’t know how to code.

Divi builder is a paid plugin which comes free with the Divi theme. But you can buy it separately if you already have your site built but want the ability to create more interesting layouts.”
WPBakery – “This plugin is also great for creating different page layouts. It usually comes with a premium theme. Like Divi, it does have lots of elements for building amazing content. But in my experience I’ve found it doesn’t have any many options to style like Divi.

For example; You can’t control the font within the text element. You would need to know some CSS code. Which is a real pain if you don’t know how to code. I’ve also found you need to fiddle quite a lot to get some elements to look good on mobile devices. Whereas with Divi it’s a lot easier.

WP Bakery also doesn’t have as many effects that you can add to your images. I’ve also found it to be more clunkier when trying to design from the front end. And for someone with little experience with building websites, might find it a bit cumbersome.”

“To sum up – I would definitely recommend Divi builder as my page builder of choice.”

Francisco Torres

WordPress plugin developer, WordCamp organizer and wannabe cyclist.

https://frantorres.wtf

“My prediction is that Gutenberg is the tool we can use today that will be one of the standards of the future.”

Gutenberg – “This is the built-in page builder in WordPress. Unlike other page builders it is widely supported and developed by the WordPress community. It has a fast growth, it is easy to use, extensible and accessible.

The interface of this page builder is simple and efficient, you can insert a series of blocks that provide different functionalities and possibilities to display your content.

You can install plugins to add new blocks, or any developer can build a custom one for your project. It’s becoming a standard and performs well, that’s why this is my only recommendation today.”

Michael Neely

I built my first WordPress site in 2011 and coded my first WordPress theme in 2014. Since then, I have built over 100 WordPress sites for clients all over the United States.

https://michaelneely.net

Beaver Builder – “Beaver Builder is my favorite simply because it is the first page and theme builder that I committed to financially. It was also the choice in the first two agencies I worked with. When I realized that many agencies around the country were using page builders, I made Beaver Builder my go-to for page and theme development. My last five WordPress sites I have built for clients have been Beaver Builder. I also own two sites built on Beaver Builder.”
WPBakery – “WPBakery is my second choice for page builders. WP Bakery was the first builder that I worked with. I was floored by the versatility and options available. It’s is also robust enough to handle the largest site I have worked on, a 950-page, 40 multi-site WordPress install for a major university. WP Bakery can also be installed on almost any theme out there.”
Gutenberg – “Gutenberg is quickly becoming one of my favorites. After getting used to the initial shock of Gutenberg blocks, several plugins made the WP Block Editor much more customizable such as Atomic Blocks, Ultimate Blocks and Ultimate add-ons for Gutenberg. They are not as versatile as the drop-and-drag page builders such as Beaver Builder (yet). However, they are getting better and I am experimenting with their possibilities.”

Craig Martin

At Performance Foundry I help companies deliver and grow e-commerce, e-learning and other websites.

https://performancefoundry.com

Gutenberg – “The best page builder is None! That’s right – the best page builder is no page builder. Leverage WordPress’s built-in editor with a mix of additional blocks from other providers, as well as custom-built blocks that are unique to your needs.

By leveraging this system, you are as future-proofed as possible and you’ll tend to have fewer problems with site speed and technical debt.”
Beaver Builder – “If you have to pick another option, and it needs to scale to high traffic levels, we have found Beaver Builder to outlast all others in stress tests in our lab. We’ve seen it stand up to thousands of visits per minute in a production e-commerce environment without exposing unusual bottlenecks in the code.”

Mike Matera

I've been creating Web sites since early 2000. I began by learning how to code HTML and CSS, gradually working in software to edit, create, and manage my pages. I gravitated to WordPress in 2009 because I wanted to make sites that clients and team members could update.

https://www.mikematera.com

“Having worked mostly with SiteOrigin Page Builder, Divi, and Elementor, here are my recommendations.”

SiteOrigin Page Builder – “SiteOrigin is free, though there are premium add-ons available from the plugin vendor (I’ve not used them). Page Builder is lightweight, mature, and has a large user community. There are plenty of good, free plugins to enhance what this page builder can do. It’s easy to drag-and-drop sections, rows, and columns, and the results display responsively across various screen sizes. It’s also the first page builder that I ever used.

The main drawback is that this is primarily a “back-end” builder; that is, you don’t get an immediate sense of how your page will look unless you preview and refresh in another tab. While there is a “front-end” option, that results in a split screen that allows you to see quick updates of how your page will look as you’re creating. But you are creating in a different pane and seeing the results in another, whereas other page builders allow you to edit most content directly on the page.

It’s also more basic than the other two I work with (Elementor and Divi). The latter two have a lot more features, including pre-designed sections and pages, along with the ability to save your own designs as templates in your personal user library as well as export them to other projects.

Although it’s a tad dated, it’s still a worthwhile option, especially if you don’t want an excess of “whistle and bells”.”
Elementor – “Elementor has a robust free version that provides more than enough features for most users – and more features than does any other free page builder that I know of. While you do edit in a split window, you can edit most content, including text, directly in the visual pane of that split window. Novice users seem to pick Elementor up quite quickly, even people who are new to WordPress in general.

Like SiteOrigin, Elementor is lightweight and relatively mature, considering that it was introduced in 2017. There are many third-party plugins, including quite a few free ones, that add great features. One advantage to Elementor over other free page builders is the ease with which you can add animations and other dynamic elements. It even has its own customizer, replete with color palettes.

Meanwhile, I also own the premium version, which not only adds contact forms and a navigation block, but also allows you to create and edit your entire site through Elementor, including custom headers and footers. Pricing can get expensive if you want to use it on more than a few sites, but you can speed up your workflow with plenty of predesigned sections and pages (many of which are also available in the free version), as well as save your own designs to a custom library.

Drawbacks include stability, which can be an issue if you’ve created anything complex in Elementor. While I haven’t run into any such issues, power users say that the plugin’s frequent updates can cause some designs to break. Another issue is the builder’s increasing feature bloat. Even the free version has, as I mentioned, its own customizer for fonts, colors, and other sitewide settings. If you’re already using a theme with its own customizer or prefer to use your own CSS, you end up with a lot of extraneous stuff.

Nonetheless, I recommend Elementor if you’re considering page builders for the first time. Even if you do upgrade to the Pro version, it’s inexpensive for a single-site license ($49 for the first year, less promotional discounts, with a 50% annual renewal discount).”
Divi Builder – “Loaded with features, the Divi Builder has been around since the beginning of 2014. Since its inception, it’s garnered a massive user base. Originally introduced as part of the Divi theme, the Divi Builder can also be used as a standalone plugin if you ever decide to switch themes. Like Elementor, it’s loaded with a cornucopia of features, including a custom header and footer builder. You can build your whole site with just the Divi Builder, as you can with Elementor Pro.

Divi provides lots of power, including both a WYSIWYG (visual) editor and a wireframe one, which lets you see your page as sections, rows, and columns. That said, the visual editor can be buggy and slow, plus Divi is updated so often that existing pages designed with it can break. And Divi can seem heavy and slow, especially when you want to make only minor updates.

There are plenty of free online Divi resources and tutorials, another good reason to consider it.”

“Even so, I recommend trying the free version of Elementor first, since that may have the features you’ll need – and you’ll get a good idea of how you’ll like it before buying. You may not even have to buy the pro version. With Divi, you either have to pay $89 / year (less promotional discounts) or a $249 one-time fee (again, less promotional discounts). Of course, there is a 30-day money-back guarantee – and excellent tech support – but it’s less risky to try Elementor first.

Regarding page builders in general, it makes sense to go with a free one, since the default WordPress editor is becoming more and more a viable method for page design – especially if it’s augmented with such block plugins as Kadence Blocks (https://wordpress.org/plugins/kadence-blocks/) or GenerateBlocks (https://generateblocks.com/). You may be able to meet most or even all of your design needs without investing in an expensive, third-party product.”

Kody Thompson

Technology Entrepreneur, WordPress Website Expert, and International Speaker

https://www.lightningsites.com/

WPBakery – “My team and I love WPBakery. We’ve used it to build over 1,000 WordPress websites for our clients in the last four years—and we have no plans of switching to another tool anytime soon.

We take pride in our lightning fast development times, and WPBakery’s powerful drag-and-drop editor and ready-to-use integrations and rich content elements definitely help speed things up. Couple this with the fact that the tool also works with virtually any ready-made WordPress theme in the market today, and you’ve got everything you need to build websites at truly ridiculous speeds.

But we’re also a big fan of the WPBakery API because it allows us to build custom elements for projects that require special features.

Long story short, if you’re looking for a builder to use, I highly recommend WPBakery. I promise you’d be surprised too at how much faster you’ll be able to roll websites out using this tool.”

Warren Denley

I help individuals and small business owners build attractive, functional, responsive, conversion focussed websites. I'm an advocate for best-of-breed plugins over custom coding, and firmly believe there is power in simplicity.

https://wpwebsitecoach.com

Thrive Architect – “For a long time I’ve been a fan of Thrive Architect.

It has always offered true visual editing of the page content. You can see exactly what the page looks like as you’re editing it, and resize things on the page itself. For more fine-grained control, there is also a settings panel, but even changing things here instantly updates the page representation. No more guessing what your page will look like, or constantly flicking back and forth between editing and previewing.

It can be used to edit just the content section within a normal page or post, using your theme layout. But its true power shines when building landing pages (sales pages, opt-in pages, thank-you pages, etc). There are literally hundreds of pre-built templates to choose from. Or you can start with a blank template and build up your own page layout from the library of template parts.

Thrive Architect is incredibly easy to use and has a wide range of components that can be added to your page – from the standard headings, text and images, to layout elements like columns and content boxes, through to more complex elements like opt-in forms.

Some of the features I particularly love about Thrive Architect are:
- Smart colours, which mean you can set your brand colours and it will automatically change all elements to match (no more individually changing colours on each element when you change your mind)
- The in-built templates are incredibly beautiful and conversion focused
- A large library of pre-built conversion elements like countdown timers, testimonials and lead generation forms
- Able to style absolutely everything without a single line of code
- Easily rearrange elements for tablet and phone views (without affecting bigger screen sizes) to ensure the best responsive experience possible
And the code it generates is efficient, so your site is not only beautiful and responsive, but also quick loading. Best of all, if you do decide to uninstall Thrive Architect, all of your content is still readable – no shortcodes or other extraneous text sprinkled through your content (although it obviously won’t look as good).

Until recently, Thrive Architect has only been able to do landing pages and content within your pages. But with the March 2020 release of Thrive Theme Builder, you now have control of all elements on your site, including headers, footers, menus, sidebars and page layouts.

Thrive Architect has been the quiet achiever compared to the other loud and flashy page builders.

If you haven’t looked at Thrive Theme Builder/Thrive Architect, now is the time to check it out before you make your final decision – I guarantee you’ll be impressed too.”

Vee Ridgley

I built my first website in 1999 and was hooked on the process. My first clients were small concerns and local to me. I also built three of my own eCommerce websites. The business has since evolved into a full web design agency with small, medium and very large clients.

https://webdesignuk.agency

“Having used four different page builders over the years I certainly have a top recommendation.

I tried Elegant Themes (ET) in its early days, then I moved to my first page builder which was Headway. It seemed really good at the time, but then it folded and left all its customers with outdated software and potential security risks. I also tried the Oxygen plugin but found it too complicated.

Luckily, by now ET had released the Divi theme and that, at the time anyway, was a dream come true. You could only build layout templates not a whole theme style with it though. The move from Divi 2 to 3 was a disaster. When moving to Divi 4 I made the, incorrect, assumption that they had got their act together this time. Another disaster.

Not to mention that their page/theme builder now only wants to work with their front-end editor. Something that throws errors and is painfully slow. Several support attempts with ET about my server settings etc. fixed nothing. The fact is the theme slows things down. Clients noticed their sites being slower too.

By now people were talking about Elementor. Initially I thought it would be too big a job to move so many websites into a new system and face the dreaded learning curve. But the endless “Divi Builder failed to load so let’s blame your plugins” errors were too much. We took the plunge and can now only really recommend…”

Elementor – “If you have looked at Elementor you will know it is a plugin not a theme itself. It can be used with any theme if you choose to. However, I recommend using it with their own theme ‘Hello Elementor’. The theme is virtually empty, which means no unnecessary ‘bulk’. And the likelihood of the Elementor plugin and the Hello theme conflicting is nil. I personally would not attempt to use it with any other theme.

EP has a true theme builder built in, is easy to use and creating a new site from scratch is so much easier and quicker too. The learning curve is there of course, but I found it not too painful. Helped by the fact that their support is great, and they have very good tutorial videos and documentation.

Moreover, the ‘widgets’ that can be added within the builder are so varied you can end up not needing some other plugins. In particular some of the expensive WooCommerce ones. We have invested in PowerPack and Crocobloc to bring an enormous range of functionality.

With any page/theme builder a community of developers springs up offering design layouts, plugins and all kinds of extra functionality. The EP community is strong and growing. Even some of the Divi crowd are now building things for EP.

Moving Divi sites to EP is time consuming. The amount of shortcodes that need to be stripped out is mind boggling. But the move is completely worth it.”
Elementor (Free) – “There is a free version of Elementor and would be the best option for someone with only a few simple websites and little budget.”
Divi Builder – “Divi is much cheaper and can still be a useful theme for anyone with just their own website to look after. The learning curve is there of course, but they also have tutorials and a huge community.

If you are a professional looking after client sites I would definitely not use it though.”

Patrick Hladun

I am a freelance WordPress developer and designer based in Ireland with over ten years of experience creating beautiful bespoke websites. I use WordPress to build websites mainly for fitness professionals, but also other small businesses and provide them with WordPress carte plans and hosting. I also enjoy developing custom themes and plugins.

https://www.cityweb.ie/

“I have worked with a quite few page builders like WPBakery Page Builder, Visual Composer, Elementor, Beaver Builder, SiteOrigin, Revolution Slider and many more. But the ones I use are Divi, Gutenberg and ACF (Advanced Custom Fields).”

Divi Builder – “Divi is a builder developed by Elegant Themes. It is the most advanced page builder I have had the pleasure to use. It has so many options that some people are overwhelmed by this, but I like it. It comes with a vast and growing selection of page templates, powerful Drag-and-Drop Content Editor, split testing tool, and some other useful WordPress plugins to download. Some of my favourite features are:
- Ability to change default styles for the modules.
- History option that allows to undo and redo your actions.
- Powerful theme builder that you can build templates for different content types. You can target pages, posts, custom post types and taxonomies.
- Module and layout and library and portability feature that can save you a ton of time.
… and many more

Divi also has a great community where people will help you in no time with your issues. My favourite is Divi Web Designers Facebook group.

The pricing is attractive. They sell it for $89/year or $249 one-time. The lifetime access plan worried me a bit, but Elegant Themes is on the market for many years, so I think it is a good investment.”
Gutenberg – “Gutenberg is a new page editor that comes with WordPress. For the content like blog posts or other custom post types where Divi or another page builder would be an overkill. I create custom blocks that my clients can use to create elegant blog posts. Also, both Gutenberg and Divi use React JS for front-end.”
Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) – “ACF is not a page builder, but rather a plugin that allows you to add additional options to pages, posts or any other post types and taxonomies or even create your custom theme options page. Also, ACF has a great feature that is called Flexible Content. You can use it to build page templates with cleaner code and still give your clients ways to update their content easily. You can also use ACF as a powerful PHP-based framework for developing custom block types for Gutenberg.”

“Yep, so these are my favourite tools for building pages in WordPress. All I’ll ever need.”

Nick Young

From freelancer to plugin developer to agency employee to business owner. I have spent the last 8 years developing all aspects of WordPress. I do anything from simple tweaks to full-blown custom solutions. I have recently started my own agency name ao1dev.

https://ao1dev.com

Beaver Builder – “Beaver Builder is usually my top pick. I love the flexibility of the layouts you can make and how quickly it can be done. Additionally, I really love what is offered to me as a developer from the plugin. They make it really easy to adjust modules or even add your new custom modules.”
Elementor – “Elementor is a hot pick for me right now. I love what it offers right out of the box and you don’t really absolutely need any additional add-ons to get started. Also the speed of this plugin is super fast in my experience, and I can never complain about that. Oh, and it’s free so that is a nice perk too.”

Rob Golbeck

I'm a freelance web developer and WordPress consultant helping small business owners manage their online presence with fast, secure, simple to manage websites, 24/7 monitoring, and done-for-you site care.

https://handcoded.ca

Cornerstone – “Cornerstone is a page builder developed by Themeco that works with both Pages and Posts in WordPress. It’s available as a standalone plugin that’s compatible with any theme, and it also comes packaged with X and Pro themes, Themeco’s flagship products.

Like other page builders, Cornerstone features a suite of elements that allow users to create responsive layouts and sophisticated functionality, with no coding required. For experienced developers, it features a code editor that lets you take it even further with your own custom CSS and JavaScript.

What sets Cornerstone apart from the other page builders I’ve tried is the clean interface. The workspace is divided into two panels, one with all the controls you need for the element you’re working on, and a preview panel that lets you see what the page will look like as you build it. Plus, all the elements are drag and drop, and the preview pane even supports inline editing. Simple and effective.

Another great thing about Cornerstone are the templates. You can use one of the pre-designed templates, or you can save your own custom templates to reuse throughout your project.

Like any good tool, there can be a learning curve to get familiar with the full potential of Cornerstone. Thankfully it’s well-documented, and has great support. With a bit of patience and practice, Cornerstone can become an essential part of your WordPress toolkit.”

Chrispian Burks

I'm a support engineer at WebDevStudios/Maintainn and have been working with WordPress since the early days. I've managed small personal sites up to blog networks of 500+ sites with it and enjoy working in the WordPress community. My experience includes a bit of everything from servers to software and after 25 years I still love getting to create software on a daily basis.

https://chrispian.com

Beaver Builder – “I’m a backend developer and generally I prefer to work with template files or code to make things do what I want. I recently started working with Beaver Builder at work and have been impressed with it. Out of all the page builder’s I’ve used I’d have to say this one is my favorite. There are a lot of features and there’s a learning curve, but there are also tons of excellent videos and tutorials due to the popularity of Beaver Builder. You can create slick sites with hero blocks, accordions, galleries, carousels, pop ups, CTA’s and more. And one of my favorite things about it is that it’s really fast. I’ve had to do performance audits for sites running Beaver Builder and they usually do very well. There are also some great addons as well as a strong community of people working with and supporting Beaver Builder.”
Elementor – “Another great choice that I’ve run into quite a bit is Elementor Pro. Elementor has a slick user interface making it easy to use and gets out the way and lets you start creating good looking sites. I really like how Elementor handles pop ups for things like forms, modals, images and that kind of thing. All the top page builders these days offer a lot of the same features but Elementor just feels super polished and is easy to use and that’s a big selling point for me. They also have a really strong selection of themes in their theme library. As a backend engineer I mostly write code and I like having a nice template as a good starting point. And you don’t need to know any code to use a page builder like these.”
SiteOrigin Page Builder – “I wanted to include this one as a more budget friendly option because there’s really no reason to not use a page builder if you are not a developer or designer. And SiteOrigin won’t break the bank while giving you a lot of common features in most of the Page Builders. You can create custom post types, hero blocks, embed maps, social widgets, lightboxes, testimonials, use custom fonts, customize WooCommerce and tons more. There are some things the pricier apps do a little better but for the price I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it. I’m trying to get my dad to use it for his sites so I won’t have to do so much tech support after hours!”

Ben Kinnaird

Ben helps businesses get better leads by focusing on measurable improvements. He also speaks at events and on his podcast about being more effective in marketing.

https://ratherinventive.com

Gutenberg – “Despite a few visual quirks that need ironing out, the built-in block editor (launched in December 2018) is by far the best way to layout content without reaching for any HTML or CSS.

It’s faster than other page builders such as WPBakery, my previous go-to for WordPress layout. And it represents more accurately what the final content will look like, especially compared with the layout plugin Divi.

But most importantly, it’s built directly into WordPress, so you know it will be supported for years to come, and with hundreds of contributors, it’s going to get a lot of attention.

On the downside, the built-in editor doesn’t yet include all the features you might want, such as fancy sectional divides or masonry style image galleries but with additional plugins the editor can be extended to do more, much more. My favourites are Stackable which has feature grids and popup videos that look great, and also Coblocks that has a collection of image galleries, layout containers and dividers that I use in most of my web sites.

I highly recommend testing it out for your next website build.”

Kate Gilbert

Kate Gilbert has been building and supporting websites since 2006 and knows WordPress inside-out. Based in Jersey City, NJ, Kate runs WPMaster.me, where she helps site owners achieve WordPress greatness and master the web for marketing success.

https://wpmaster.me

Divi Builder – “I’ve been building WordPress websites since the early days, when a custom theme meant custom coding from Photoshop files into PHP page templates. These days I rely on Divi, both as a theme and as a page builder when necessary. Elegant Themes has done, in my opinion, the best job at developing a slick and efficient page builder that gives the range of options a site needs to be both customizable and DIY-friendly.

As a web developer, I want my clients to feel like they can take their finished site and run with it – without being tied to me for help with every little iteration. Divi is the puzzle piece that makes that happen. I’m able to train my clients to use the Divi page builder to save layouts to the library, borrow from pre-built layouts, re-arrange rows, set anchor links and more – all without having to fiddle with the code.

The Divi Theme Customizer also makes it super-simple to set theme-wide fonts, layouts, spacing and more. Set it and forget it! And the built-in widgets help keep your WordPress site lean and mean and not bogged down by plugin bloat. Everything from sliders to tabs comes built-in with the Divi Builder.

If you’re a web designer, virtual assistant, or DIY site owner who wants a professional-looking site that you can manage yourself, Divi is the way to go. And you don’t even need to ditch your current theme. It’s easy to use the Divi Builder Plugin to spin up a single Divi page within your existing site to see what it’s like.”

John Christenbury

WordPress Specialist

http://johnchristenbury.com

Beaver Builder – “Beaver Builder is a great drag-n-drop page builder for WordPress. You set up your rows and columns, drag in your elements and it just works. You can also dig down into advanced settings to get the layout just right. There are also lots of premium BB plugins that can really take BB to another level.”
Elementor – “Elementor is also very easy to use, provides professional results and is a rock-solid page builder.”

David Coveney

Director at interconnect/it - geek and old dev.

https://interconnectit.com/

Gutenberg – “I know, I know, that’s a really dull choice, isn’t it? So I need to back this up.

First of all, most of the page builders out there are pretty good. But it’s rather like the early days of widgets when there were a few options available. But as soon as something is rolled into WordPress, it’s better to stick to that option. Not necessarily because it’s the best option, but often because it’s the one that will become the de-facto approach in the future. And that happens because migration and ongoing support is easier with a core feature than an add-on.

However, all page-builders come with problems. So do things like shortcodes. They are not ‘standard’ ways of storing or presenting information, so they will always result in migration headaches. Where a client had used page builders in the past and wanted to migrate content we ended up with a deadlock problem – we either had to support the page builder on their new site and accept the complexities of that, or we had to somehow migrate away from it. They didn’t want to migrate, but their page builder had performance issues.

So if possible, we don’t necessarily build pages in this manner. Instead we tend to use form based options on a page template that limit the client a little more tightly and prevent them going wild!”

Sumner Davenport

Sumner Davenport specializes in Web Accessibility on WordPress. She and her team build, maintain, evaluate and remediate WordPress websites to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 AA Success Criterion. She is sought after as a speaker on topics related to Accessibility compliance and is active in accessibility and legal conferences.

http://sumnerdavenport.com

“A WordPress page builder is usually a plugin installed on a WordPress site in addition to a theme, to give the designer a selection of drag and drop options to assist them in creating a more diverse website without having to write any code. It is a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor. Choosing the best WordPress page builder depends on the designer’s expertise, knowledge and goals. A good page builder is not only easy to use, it has a variety of design options and is pro-active with necessary updates.

As more website owners are learning the importance of Web Accessibility, the best page builder would be one that is fully accessible to persons with disabilities, both for the designer and the visitor. To date, none are fully Accessible, however a couple have more promise than others.”

Divi Builder – “Divi page builder is an easy program for a newbie and is easily customizable for the more experienced developer.

The Divi package includes a theme, a page builder plugin, and a Visual builder which allows you to see your changes live as you make them. The package includes several layouts which can be dropped into a new page or used to create a full site. Purchase options are renewable annually or a one-time lifetime license. The page builder cannot be purchased separately but can be used with numerous other themes and functions well with several other plugins.

Divi is not Accessible, however an Accessibility plugin developed exclusively for Divi can correct a select number of code issues. Other Accessibility issues require manual efforts.”
Elementor – “When a tight budget is a consideration, or you don’t want to learn a new theme, Elementor page builder has a free version with limited widgets. For more advanced editing and design a Pro license with annual renewal includes hundreds of ready-to-use templates and dozens of widgets. It’s also a live page builder plugin. No lifetime option available.

Elementor is not Accessible, however, the free WP Accessibility plugin can help with select Accessibility issues. The majority of Elementor Accessibility issues require manual efforts.”

“NOTE: No single plugin or overlay can render a website builder to be fully Accessible. Both Divi and Elementor integrate well with a limited number of specific Accessible-ready plugins, eg: contact form, gallery, menus.”

Mark Fayard

Freelance graphic designer for 25 years, WordPress developer for 10 years, Codeable.io expert since 2013.

https://amazemedia.com

Beaver Builder – “My go to page builder. Extremely versatile, fast front end and back end and a very intuitive WYSIWYG interface. I’ve worked with at least a dozen other page builders and they always seem to come up short one way or another. Tasks that should be simple and obvious often turn out to be overly complicated. This is not the case with Beaver Builder. Tasks like cloning modules, columns and rows or editing column widths is as simple as drag and drop. Page elements can easily be displayed or not displayed using various conditionals. For the few times I’ve reached out to Beaver Builder support, I’ve found their team to be prompt, professional and top-notch problem solvers. I would also recommend Beaver Themer (a sister product) which let’s you create custom headers, footers, product pages and posts types.”

Adam Shaw

Web developer working with small to large businesses operating locally and internationally.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/damshaw/

Gutenberg – “It is the future, it’s built in, it’s a no brainer! It provides a nice middle ground for editors and developers offering customisable flexibility on both sides. Gutenberg makes other page builders virtually redundant and it keep getting better with fast ongoing development.”

“I have never had a pleasant experience with other page builders in WordPress. If I had to use one I might try Elementor. Beaver Builder and Divi to me feel like bloatware.”

Simon Charlton

Experienced freelance WordPress website designer making beautiful websites, and owner of Dapper Web Design

https://dapperwebdesign.com

Divi Builder – “My go to page builder. I use this for virtually all my web builds just because it is so flexible. I use the Divi theme which has the page builder included, but they do a standalone builder plugin that works with other themes too. Some of the stand-out features are the visual builder, (so no more designing pages using blocks with no idea of what the finished result is), their amazing support, and recently the ability to totally redesign Woocommerce product pages, rather than having them in the same limited layout like every other Woocommerce website. What I love about Divi is that they are constantly evolving and developing it, saving you having to add extra code or additional plugins; the builder does it for you all built in.”
Elementor – “This is my other recommendation, just because they have a visual builder now too, and it’s nice and user friendly, and fairly lightweight. It’s certainly less code to run on your website than Divi, so if speed is absolutely critical (it should be high up on your list of requirements anyway), this is a great option. The downside is that is has fewer design options than Divi, but it should satisfy most general website builds.”

Matt Watson

Matt Watson is a husband, farther and web developer with over 20 years experience, with 10 of those glorious years using WordPress. Having been at this for so long, he has knowledge of everything from semantics and SCSS to SQL and Servers (and also things not beginning with s).

https://mattwatson.codes

Gutenberg – “Gutenberg (or the WordPress Block Editor), has been controversial to say the least, however looking past the lukewarm reception it had amongst developers and into the future, Gutenberg is ripening up to be a replacement to all pages builders out there, with Phase 2 of the project introducing full block based template editing.”
Gutenberg Template Library – “OK, technically it’s Gutenberg again (is that cheating?!), however the lovely folks at Gutenberg Hub make it super easy to build entire page layouts that you can copy and paste into the Block Editor, and there you have it, a full page built without mucking about with a single setting.”
WPBakery – “For those people stuck in a world of the Classic Editor, out of all the page builders I have used, WPBakery is the easiest. It has a powerful block based system, with an API that is as simple as creating a shortcode.”

Nile Flores

https://blondish.net

“Page builders are supposed to make it easier to build a site. However, before I give any recommendations, I will say, like any technology, you do need to read documentation or tutorials before using. Once you do, don’t be afraid to whip up a test site and play around with your page builder plugin, before applying it to your site.”

SiteOrigin Page Builder – “My go to page builder for clients, is SiteOrigin page builder, mostly because it’s the first page builder that I tried and liked right off the bat. Honestly, while I get clients that are new to WordPress, I get a lot more that enjoy using the Classic editor, rather than Gutenberg. SiteOrigin provides a simple straightforward design that is congruent with WordPress. I like that they have a lot of great little add-on widgets, their Pro version is very affordable, and this is the only page builder I’ve not had any run-ins on theme or plugin conflicts.”
Elementor – “If I’m going to pick another page builder plugin, then Elementor is it. This plugin is sleek and when using, in my opinion, the design is really user-friendly. I’ve seen a lot of page builders and worked with them, in various types of theme and plugin configurations, and I think Elementor is by far a lot easier to use.”

Patrick Cornell

We're a boutique web design company in Nashville, TN specializing in mobile–friendly WordPress website design and monthly WordPress maintenance.

http://cornelldesigngroup.com/

WPBakery – “WPBakery Page Builder is our go to page builder at Cornell Design Group. Why? It’s easy! Drag and drop. But that’s not the only reason. Each element has many customizable options like padding, margin, background colors, text align, nesting and, if you want to use your own code instead of its predetermined settings options, you can. Sometimes it’s just easier to code the damn thing yourself! A huge time saver with using WPBakery Page Builder is the ‘duplicate’ option. This allows you to duplicate an element you’ve already configured with the click of a button so you don’t have to start from scratch again and again. And finally, it’s easy to lean how to use, which, is important for our clients who want to update their own website. It’s pretty hard to break anything and has revisions so they can revert to their previous revision if they make a mistake. We’ve had continued success with WPBakery Page Builder.”

Jenn de la Fuente

I'm a WordPress developer, web designer, and love solving code problems and playing around with wacky ideas.

https://jenndelafuente.com

Gutenberg – “Honestly, I had a love/hate (mostly hate) relationship when Gutenberg first came out, but now that it’s gone through several iterations, it’s actually pretty great and what I’ll use if clients don’t need anything crazy. The addition of the Group block is nice, the ability to have full-width and wide-width blocks is also great (especially now that there’s documentation about how to enable it in your own themes), and the ability to add classes to blocks has saved my bacon many times. The developer documentation is great, so customizing things, adding new colors, and creating new blocks is relatively easy for developers. (I am a frequent user of Advanced Custom Fields and I’ve been able to create some custom reusable blocks that are fed by ACF.) My only wish is that column support was better in blocks, and that moving around column blocks wasn’t so … blocky and weird. Other than that, if you used Gutenberg at the outset and hated it, come back and give it a try. The best part? It’s free, unlike a lot of other builders out there!”
WPBakery – “I didn’t usually use page builders, but if I had to use one, this was my go-to. I loved the variety of blocks and combinations you could use, I found customizing pretty easy, and it handled almost everything I could throw at it. There are sometimes problems when it’s bundled with themes — make sure you update it properly or consult your theme maker! — but otherwise, it worked like a charm whenever I used it and it’s great for some complex content layouts.”
Divi Builder – “I worked with someone who used Divi extensively and thus began to make a few simple sites with it. If you can’t get WP Bakery, this is a pretty close analog to it. Nice layouts and great column support. Sometimes there are *too* many options to choose from, but customizing is pretty easy, and it is flexible in terms of handling whatever your layout dreams desire. I do love its background support and how it makes handling background images and video pretty simple.”

Anna O'Brien

I create WordPress websites which look and perform beautifully. I work directly with clients or with agencies who need a little extra help.

https://lowlandswebsitedesign.co.uk/

Elementor – “I could try to recommend 3 builders but I’m going to focus on the one I always use, which is Elementor (Pro version). When I created my website business I had very little (OK, pretty much none) coding skills and was used to designing with InDesign. I investigated a number of builders, such as Divi and Beaver but I thought Elementor looked more intuitive. I started out with the free version and quickly found there was much more I wanted to have complete control over so when Elementor Pro included forms, I quickly bought a Pro license.

I don’t like using other people’s styling for my sites (ego, much?) so I use GeneratePress Premium – in my opinion, one of the best themes and theme designers around – and that allows me to work with a completely blank canvas. I can then design all parts of the site with full control of colours, fonts, image size and placement, etc etc. The inbuilt Elementor templates can be helpful if there’s a particular structure you’d like to use, but mostly I design everything from scratch so all my websites are unique to the needs of the client.

When Elementor included header and footer design capabilities, that was a game changer (what a nerd!) for me. Pop-ups were also added with full design capabilities.

One of my favourite things about using a builder is the ability to duplicate styling, sections of a page, or the whole page. This is a real time saver and has reduced my build time massively.

Lastly, Elementor also integrates with loads of plugins, such as Mailchimp and WooCommerce with is helpful. Plus, you can now style nearly all aspects of Woo with Elementor so again, your shop will retain your full branding.

Although you wouldn’t know it, I’m not sponsored by Elementor, I’m just a massive fan. Although it’s not perfect, designers like me with little or no coding skills will find it a lifesaver. And, the Elementor team are constantly updating it so new features are constantly added.”

Rob Marlbrough

Chief Developer at PressWizards.com, a leading WordPress design agency. We also offer hosting and maintenance plans.

https://presswizards.com/

Avia Builder – “My favorite page builder by far is Advanced Layout Builder (ALB) that is built-in to my favorite WordPress theme, Enfold. We use and customize it a lot, and the page builder is very balanced, not too complicated, but powerful enough to handle almost any need. I’ve used others include Cornerstone and WPBakery, and they are often overkill, especially for clients to use. I keep my clients in mind with everything we do, because in the end, with a CMS, they become the user at some point, and we do not turn over hard-coded sites to any client.”
Beaver Builder – “I also like Beaver Builder a lot, we have a few client sites we do maintenance for, and making page edits is a breeze using the front-end editor. There are no surprises as to what an edit will look like on the page, and it’s very easy to use for my team and client alike.”
CSS Hero – “My 3rd page builder is more of a page customizer…CSS Hero! Does it count as a page builder? I think it does, because you can customize any element on the page, click Save, and it’s done. I still do a ton of custom CSS by hand, but CSS Hero is perfect for my team to make desired edits without needing dev skills, and for clients wanting the power and control over everything on their site, because it’s very easy to use.”

Jim Spencer

Jim Spencer is the founder and CEO of jbspartners.com and blogwranglers.com. As the chief problem solver he and his team fix existing websites, design new web sites and have migrated over 300,000 posts to WordPress since 2002. Jim lives in Carpinteria, CA with his wife and very full book shelves.

http://www.blogwranglers.com

“We have worked with Divi, because a client came to us with Divi, and Elementor because we like to build sites with Elementor when we are not coding them by hand.

Elementor was founded in 2016 and as of Jan 2020 has over four million users. Six months earlier they reached 3 million users. By contrast, Divi has over half a million users. Elementor has over 4.5 thousand five-star ratings in the WordPress Repository.”

Elementor – “Here are some of the reasons we think the no-code website design tool Elementor has been rapidly adopted by WordPress users.

Elementor is free. Elementor Pro is currently $49 to $199 depending on the number sites and features you want. In addition there are Add-Ons available to provide specialty functionality.

Elementor uses a drag-and-drop front-end page builder instead of the traditional back-end editor. This is better because it allows you to instantly see the effect of your changes. And the Elementor side-bar menu gives you rapid access to everything you need.

With Elementor Pro you can create unique header and footer designs for use on different pages throughout your website. This is great for landing pages and other special use pages. The header can also be “sticky” so it never disappears from view as the visitor scrolls to the bottom of the page.

Elementor Pro gives you access to even more Elements like counters, Icon boxes, Google Maps, Image carousels and many other features that save you time while providing additional functionality.

Although we typically use OceanWP, Elementor Pro works well with most WordPress themes. It also plays well with the Yoast WordPress SEO plugin.

We had one client upgrade to Elementor Pro just because of the powerful pop-up builder that is included.

Elementor Pro provides support for any questions you may have. Like WordPress, Elementor has a large user community. This means that it is possible to hire developers all around the world that are happy to help you if you need it.

So, if you want to create fast loading, highly responsive, easy to manage WordPress websites with a page builder, we recommend Elementor Pro.”

Anthony Hortin

Anthony Hortin is a Designer & Developer who builds WordPress websites for a living. As well as a contributor to the official WordPress Theme and Plugin Directories, each month he helps organise the WordPress Melbourne meetups. Anthony is the author behind the highly popular Easy WP Guide WordPress manual.

https://maddisondesigns.com

“There’s been a lot of competition in the “Page Builder” space over the past 5 or 6 years, and even more so, over just the last couple of years.

While there are some Page Builders that I would never use personally, there are a couple that are clear standouts from the crowd, and this can be seen through the huge communities that they’ve attracted.

In the end, a lot of it comes down to personal choice. Which UI (User Interface) you prefer, the functionality it provides, and the quality of support that you can receive. I think it’s also important to also look at the communities around each builder as well as they can be valuable resources in the form of YouTube “how-to” vids, blog posts and add-ons/extensions.”

Elementor – “My personal favourite, and one that I always recommend to people, is Elementor. More specifically, I opt for their Pro version. Out of all the Page Builders that I’ve tried and tested over the years (and that’s a lot), Elementor is that one with the nicest user interface, the easiest to use, and more importantly, the most stable.

Elementor is used by a HUGE part of the WordPress community. In fact, they just recently passed 5,000,000+ active installs! The ‘Elementor Community‘ Facebook group also has over 101K people in it. While these huge numbers don’t automatically make it ‘The Best’, it does show that there’s a huge community of people that trust and use this plugin, and contribute to the community in one way or another.

Like a lot of Page Builders, Elementor gives you the tools to make beautiful websites, using a simple drag ‘n drop interface. You can insert rows with a various number of columns, using some default configurations (e.g. 50/50, 75/25, 25/25/25/25 etc..), or by simply add/removing columns, or dragging their width, as you see fit. Once you have your row and columns, you can then drag in a huge range of widgets. Everything from your basic heading and text widgets, to sliders, carousels, social icons, and accordions through to more complex items like Google maps, pricing tables or forms, just to name a few. On top of that, they also provide a large range of professionally designed templates and ‘blocks’ that you can make use of, if your own design skills aren’t the greatest. This makes it super easy and quick to get a site up and running, even for novice users, or those with limited design skills.

As well being able to design/build your main content area within your page, Elementor also enables you create your site header and footer. On top of that, Elementor has a powerful ‘Theme Builder’ built in which enables you to create custom templates for your various types of WordPress content. The Elementor Theme Builder allows you to create templates for your Archive pages, such as your Posts Archive page (i.e. your main blog page), and your Tag & Category archives. You can also create templates for your Single Blog Posts, Search Results, and even your WooCommerce Single Product Pages, among others.

I’ve found Elementor to be very stable whilst using it, and it also provides a large range of styles and customisations for your widgets, sections, rows and columns, making it very flexible.

Like a lot of premium plugins, Elementor provides both a free version, and a Pro version, which makes it really handy to give it a test run if you want to try it out. You definitely won’t be sorry if you do.”
Beaver Builder – “Beaver Builder is another hugely popular Page Builder and although not quite as popular nowadays as Elementor, it still has a respectable 15K people in their ‘Beaver Builders‘ Facebook group and over a million active installs.

Like Elementor, Beaver Builder provides you with a drag ‘n drop interface for creating your pages, along with a large assortment of modules such as headings, buttons, Call-to-Actions, forms and the like. Unlike Elementor though, the main Beaver Builder plugin doesn’t provide you with the ability to create Theme type templates such as Archive or Single Post templates. With that said though, they do provide an additional paid plugin that you can purchase, that adds that functionality on.

There’s a few things that let me down with Beaver Builder. First and foremost is the stability. On more than a few occasions, I’ve had the page builder simply freeze when I’ve tried to insert a module into my page. Not only is this frustrating in itself, the only way to get my browser back was to refresh the page, causing me to lose content and waste time. The other thing I find incredibly frustrating with Beaver Builder is that every time you save your page, it automatically exits you from the builder/editor. Even though they argue that what you see in the editor is exactly what you see on the front-end (i.e. in your browser), I still like to review my pages in a separate browser window so that I can see it as the end user would see it, without any builder tools, extra menus or anything like that. I find it extremely frustrating that you can’t simply save your page whilst you’re editing, and at the same time, remain in the editor. This functionality alone was enough to stop me from continuing to use it.

Lastly, whilst Beaver Builder does have quite a few help guides and documentation pages on their site, it’s not quite as well documented, as Elementor. Also, the larger Elementor community means you also have access to a huge number of community created blog posts and YouTube vids that you can also view as well.

Thankfully, like Elementor, BB has a free version of their plugin that you can try as well as their more powerful Pro/Paid version.”

“I don’t think you can talk about Page builders nowadays without talking about (the relatively new) Block Editor, also referred to as Gutenberg. Gutenberg is the official replacement for the familiar TinyMCE editor or Visual editor (now referred to as the ‘Classic Editor’). This new Block Editor was introduced in WordPress 5.0 and while I can definitely see the need for a new editor, as the old ‘Classic Editor’ is sorely lacking in functionality, I’m not a fan the of new Block Editor. The UI is incredibly frustrating to use even to the point of not being able to select some blocks after inserting them into your page. There’s just no way I would be comfortable giving this editor to a client and expect them to be able to use it, when I have so much trouble and frustration, using it myself. The UI is also extremely inconsistent and also constantly changing. Whilst I can see the need to change over time, if more thought had of been put in to the UI and functionality, up front, there wouldn’t be the need to make such significant changes this far down the track.

Gutenberg does have some nice features, when compared to the Classic Editor, but I still consider it to be beta software and it definitely shouldn’t have been added to core in its current state back in WordPress 5.0.

One of the other big issues I have with Gutenberg is that it forces every single paragraph into a separate block, instead of letting the user decide when they want to insert a new block. If you have text heavy content, it’s considerably more time consuming trying to move multiple Paragraph Blocks around the page, or copying text from multiple blocks, into other blocks. Whilst there is a ‘Classic’ Block that allows you to add multiple paragraphs of text into it (rather than just one), the default block that the Block Editor inserts is the (single) Paragraph Block.

Someday, the Block Editor might be a viable alternative. Until then, you’re better off sticking with one of the more reliable, less buggy, and more featured filled Page Builders that are available.”

Viktor V.

I’m a web developer and a WordPress expert helping small business professionals and digital entrepreneurs build and run their online businesses effectively.

https://agorawebdesigns.com

“Page builders are not new to the market. They have been around for several years, which in digital terms means a lot of time. During this time, page builders in the form of plugins or themes have evolved to be the leading standard approach to building web pages that convert your users to paying customers. In the following list, I will discuss my top 3 picks for this category and explain some of their notable features.”

Elementor – “This is a choice that you can’t go wrong with. Elementor is my number one pick when choosing a page builder. It is definitely a plugin that extends the possibilities of what a page builder can do. It is a rich and powerful plugin that has everything you’d expect from a page builder. With a comprehensive template and block library, Elementor’s focus is on ease of use and a user-friendly experience. In general, the Elementor Pro version provides a vast array of tools for developers or digital marketers to build pixel-perfect websites and showcase their product/service in the best light possible. This is possible even using the free version of Elementor. Another notable aspect of the page builder is that it hosts a vibrant community of open source developers. This means that it supports third-party extensions giving you even more functionality to additionally customize your WordPress website. The only drawback when it comes to how you use Elementor is that the creators don’t offer a white-label version.

To recap, Elementor Pro can be your best choice when you are looking to on-board as quickly as possible. It works with every WordPress theme out there and is super easy to use, plus it has the ability to natively extend your project with your own customizations. Whether you are starting out with WordPress or you have been around for some time, Elementor Pro has the tool-set you need in order to build your next WordPress project. It is something I’ve used in multiple projects before and it will probably be the page builder I’d choose again for the next project.”
WPBakery – “If you base your search on the number of templates the page builder offers, then WPBakery is definitely for you. The most notable thing to mention about the WPBakery page builder is that it hosts the largest library of reusable blocks. It really has everything you could think of, and probably more. I’d also say that if you are coming from a technical background then this might be the choice for you. It offers a lot of customization in a way that is programmable and editable down to minor details.

The only real drawback when using WPBakery is that it locks you into your theme. It outputs all of the content from shortcodes, which, in turn, produces a lot of code and sometimes this may result in more time for you to clean up if you decide you want to use another theme. Also, there is no free version of the plugin, and if you decide to use it you will have to buy a regular license.”
Beaver Builder – “If you are looking for a smooth and highly rated page builder, then Beaver builder may be for you. It has an amazing looking interface that works seamlessly with any WordPress theme. Beaver Builder offers some one-of-a-kind features like the option to save live elements as drafts or program-specific elements to have the desired output whether the user is logged in or not. You could start with the free version, but if you really want to build a full-featured website, then you should probably consider purchasing the premium version. If you choose to use this page builder, then you should consider using the Ultimate Addons extension which, in turn, will give you more tools to work with and build the website you want.

The drawback of using Beaver Builder is that when you compare it with the two-page builders I mentioned above, it holds less ready-made elements for you to use. But at the same time, the team behind Beaver Builder has amazing support, and they are willing to help you out if you are experiencing any issues with the plugin.”

Conclusion

“All of the page builders mentioned above are fully compatible with WooCommerce and are translation ready. Also, they all support a global settings panel and have a default styling included which means that you can use these page builders with any WordPress theme out there. Ultimately choosing the right page builder for you might depend more upon your professional habits, your technical skills, and the project requirements you are working on. I hope my thoughts have helped you arrive at the best decision possible when it comes to choosing the right page builder for your next WordPress project.”

Shanta R. Nathwani

Shanta R. Nathwani is the President & CEO of Namara Technologies Inc., where we help businesses transform underperforming websites into time-saving money makers. Specializing in WordPress, she has given more than 40 WordCamp talks across North America mostly in beginner and intermediate lessons focussed on wayfinding and navigation.

https://namara.com

“Lately, there have been a lot of people asking me which page builder they should install on WordPress. It’s my thinking that you don’t necessarily need a page builder, unless you want to change the template of your existing theme. Most people can get along just fine with a theme and the existing block editor. You don’t have to install one by default because you think you have to have one. You may not need it. Read on…”

Gutenberg – “The first builder that I would recommend is the built-in content builder called Gutenberg. The reason I like this is because it doesn’t require any further installation and it comes with WordPress out of the box in versions 5.0 and above. Most recently you are now able to add things like columns, which was a big piece that was missing when it originally came out and why a lot of people went with page builders other than Gutenberg. Another new addition is the ability to add text over images, such as in hero images. To be clear, this is a content editor as opposed to a full page builder. Eighty percent of what you probably want to accomplish can be achieved with the block editor and is related to the content itself. The only time you will need to more than likely use a page builder is if you need to change things like the header and footer or the way that the widgets appear either right or left and you don’t have those settings within the theme itself. One of the other reasons I like the block editor so much is because it put outputs to straight HTML and if you do want to later change to something else or change your theme, then it is quite easy to do and translates well.”
Beaver Builder – “If you must go to a page builder then I would highly recommend going with the Beaver Builder. Similar to the block editor in WordPress itself, it also outputs directly to HTML and is quite lightweight. With speed being a common issue, the fact it outputs to HTML instead of using shortcodes, means that your site will load faster, which, of course, is a good thing. If you do have to remove it or change to something else afterwards it’s actually quite easy to do because it goes directly to HTML. Many of the other page builders will use shortcodes which causes problems especially if you change to another theme or have to ultimately go to an installation where they do not have that page builder and the content itself is gone. This product, while it is a paid plugin, has great support and is a favorite among many WordPress people.”

“I have used other page builders in the past and found them far too overwhelming and many beginners get very frustrated with these if they jump into it right away without understanding the need for one. That is why I recommend that you don’t use a page builder if you are just starting out and learning how WordPress works. Try just using the block editor within WordPress and see how far you get before you decide to go to a page builder. WordPress can be hard to learn because there is so much to it. Take your time with it and start with the basics and build from there. See what I did there? ;)”

Dave Pullig

Dave is a web developer with over 20 years of experience developing and running websites. He co-owns Delicious Media, an agency specialising in custom and complex WordPress development.

https://www.deliciousmedia.co.uk/

Gutenberg – “I’d recommend using the block editor in WordPress, also known as Gutenberg. It’s come a long way since it was first added into WordPress at the end of 2018.

For end users, the built-in blocks and layout elements give enough control for most pages and there’s a growing ecosystem of 3rd party blocks available to add any extra elements you may want. You can combine these with reusable blocks to manage consistent elements across pages. Even better, is the new “patterns” functionality which allows you to add pre-built groups of blocks to a page. At the time of writing, patterns is still under development, but you can try it out by installing the Gutenberg plugin which gives you access to the latest features – do try this on a test site before putting it on your live site.

For developers, the ability to build custom blocks is great. It’s also possible to build restricted templates for certain types of content so you can be sure that end users will build consistent pages. We’ve been really impressed by the content some of our customers have built with the toolkit of blocks we’ve given them. Lots of our customers rely on their sites for lead generation and the marketing teams love that they can build out new pages fast, while keeping true to the site’s design.

If you are going to develop custom blocks, I’d recommend looking at the Blocks functionality in ACF Pro. It makes it possible to build simple blocks in minutes, not hours.”

Toby Cryns

People seem to like the timely, honest, and unique perspective I bring to business, tech, & human problems. I've been building WordPress sites for 15 years.

https://www.themightymo.com

Divi Builder – “By far the most designer-centric page builder I’ve ever used, Divi ships with over 100 beautiful out-of-the-box pre-built page templates that can be generated with a few clicks. Or if you prefer, you can start from scratch using Divi’s beautiful modules to build your site from the ground up – sliders, calls to action, WooCommerce, you name it! Additionally, Divi has a familiar gui interface for building site-wide templates for things like products, archives, blog posts, and more!”

Tracy Trathen

Tracy Trathen, founder of e design studio, LLC, is a multi-passionate entrepreneur and designer excited about helping businesses grow their online presence. She does that by building kick-butt, search engine optimized websites that convert visitors into customers and clients.

https://edesignpdx.com

Divi Builder – “Divi by Elegant Themes is an amazing page builder. It has over 40 different website elements available, so there’s a module for almost everything. There are almost 800 pre-made designs, and over 100 full website packs in the Divi library. Everything is searchable, filterable, and findable. You can build pages two different ways – with their visual builder which makes everything very easy (right in the page itself) or in the WordPress Admin page editor.

They offer a free version, as well as two purchase options: yearly access, or lifetime access. The lifetime license allows unlimited use on an unlimited number of websites. It includes all their plugins and themes, 24/7 support, all updates, really excellent security and, of course, the builder itself! I’ve used it on quite a number of sites, and my clients have all been very happy with the results.”
Oxygen – “Oxygen completely changes the way sites are built in WordPress, eliminating the need for “themes.” Like other builders, it is a plugin, but for me, had a bit more of a learning curve, mostly because I had gotten so used to tweaking child themes. If you like working with themes, then Oxygen is probably not for you. If, however, you like tweaking every last pixel, then this might just be your dream builder.

Oxygen offers three packages: Basic, WooCommerce, and Agency. All three include lifetime access for unlimited use, lifetime updates, support, and unlimited installations. The WooCommerce package has… well… WooCommerce integration – for those who need a storefront website. Agency, their highest priced package, also includes Gutenberg Block Builder integration as well. All purchases come with a 60 day money back guarantee.”

“I love both of these builders for different reasons. Each one is a winning choice and well worth the price.”

Matthew Upton

Matthew has over 25 years of experience in multimedia and web design/development, including running a successful web agency for the past 20 years. He specializes in WordPress sites built on Elegant Themes' Divi framework and hosts all his work at WP Engine

https://goquik.com/

Divi Builder – “Having used Divi from the beginning of its release, it’s my go to builder these days. For me, its Visual Builder is much cleaner and easier to customize in than WP Bakery or Elementor. For my clients, it’s easier to use to edit content with than those and far easier than Gutenburg as well.

The Divi Visual Builder is the closest I’ve found to a representation of the live site and the way it lets you edit for Desktop/Tablet/Mobile is outstanding. I’ve probably built over 500 sites on Divi (but who’s counting) and can’t see switching to another builder any time soon.

In addition to the Visual builder, their classic editor makes it easy for simple edits for my clients. The way I can label sections, rows, columns, and modules (more on this below) makes it super quick for them to find and edit whatever they need to. If you have clients that need to edit their own sites, then I highly recommend Divi for them.

Divi’s new Theme Builder is a welcome addition as well. One can set up headers and footers (Global or for individual pages) and templates for everything from a single page, to blog posts, category pages, a 404 page, or even custom post types! It’s super organized in the way it let’s you customize a site without any editing of PHP template files!

Speaking of Divi’s modules, this is where the builder really shines. In addition to their 38 regular modules (every thing from basic text to an Accordion to Video Slider), more modules are added when you activiate WooCommerce on your site. There are also a ton of third-party modules (free and paid) to most anything else you can think of.

All of that to say, I love using Divi and will continue to do so for all of the sites I build in the forseeable future. Take it for a test drive yourself and I’m sure you’ll love it as well. One last thing – search google for Divi tutorials. You’ll be amazed at how big the Divi community is, and much everyone is willing to help!”

divi visual builder — Divi’s Visual Builder, with the Text Module editor open

divi classic editor — Divi’s classic editor with sections, rows, columns, and modules

Matt Christenson

I am the GEEK, with a personality (yes, that is my official company name)! I am a freelancer who specializes in WordPress Website Design, Development, Maintenance, Hosting, Training, and SEO. I have been using WordPress since 2005 and use it exclusively to build clean, mobile friendly, easy to navigate websites. I want your website to become a real asset and tool for you, which will have a positive impact on your business or organization!

https://geekwap.com

“Ah, page builders! Beautiful page builders! When page builders came along they were a godsend for me. They were simple, straightforward, and gave me a “the world is your oyster” feel. Page builders opened up a whole new world with the ease of laying out pages very efficiently and relieved the headaches I would run into frequently.

My approach to selecting the right page builder is…try them all! Each page builder has its own unique flow and I believe it is important to find the one that fits your style and personality.”

WPBakery – “For me, WP Bakery Page Builder is king! It comes with a frontend editor and backend editor, and I love the backend editor. It is very intuitive and visually makes sense. It has a large selection of elements that you can add to your page, which is very useful. Each element has a number of flexible options that you can use for customization, along with the ability to add class names or ids to any element for further customization with CSS. The page builder also has the ability to edit headers and footers. This is fantastic as it gives you expanded design flexibility. Another cool features is the ability to make a template out of an entire page or even a single element. You can then apply these templates on other pages to make the building process very efficient. There are also a number of nice responsive options to make sure your website looks awesome on mobile. Overall, WP Bakery Page Builder has a wealth of elements and functionality that will make your website design process easy and efficient. There is only a premium version available, but you can simply purchase a theme like Impreza, for a one-time fee, and WP Bakery Page Builder is included. Impreza also has an incredible Theme Options section, so building a website couldn’t be easier.”
Beaver Builder – “My 2nd favorite page builder is Beaver Builder. It only has a frontend builder, but it is intuitive and efficient, so it works for me. It also has a large assortment of elements with good customization options. It has some good keyboard shortcuts for preview, save template, responsive editing, and publish, which make editing more efficient. The Preview is on the same page, so you don’t have to toggle between edit and preview tabs like usual. Beaver Builder also comes with some powerful theming options, where you can build a custom theme based on any of the default themes that come preinstalled with WordPress. This eliminates the need to purchase a theme. There is a free version and premium version available.”
Avia Builder – “This is my honorable mention. I have used the Enfold theme on a handful of websites and really like the Avia Layout Builder that is built into the theme. There is only a backend editor, but like WP Bakery Page Builder, it is visually very intuitive and efficient. It has the standard features of most page builders with a wide array of elements, element options, and responsive options. One aspect I really like is when you are editing an element you don’t have to hunt for a little gear or wrench icon. You simply click anywhere on the element and it opens. Very efficient! Enfold also has very good Theme Options to help customize your site.”

Dennis Ploetner

WordPress Enthusiast, Plugin Author, Blogger, Fitness Fanatic, WordCamp Mentor, Meetup Organizer & PHP Lover | Born in Germany. Reborn in Italy.

https://msls.co/

“WordPress 5.0 introduced the new block editor “Gutenberg”, which will replace the WYSIWYG editor TinyMCE soon. Naturally, such a change in the process of creating and maintaining content is never perceived as completely painless.

While it seems that the new user-interface for editing posts seems just difficult in some cases, Pagebuilder users often face a completely different dilemma: the lock-in effect. If a user decides, for example, that they no longer want to use a certain page builder, it is often immediately visible that the content box mainly consists of shortcodes.”

Beaver Builder – “Beaver Builder has been around a little longer and its stability is often praised accordingly. Worth mentioning is the fact that the Beaver Builder Editor can convert the content from Gutenberg to Beaver Builder and vice versa. This also applies to the Classic Editor if it is active as a plugin.”
Elementor – “I noticed Elementor mainly because of their open API, which will make an integration probably much easier. Additionally, you will notice a lot of care for mobile content, a feature that is also available in the free version. With Elementor Blocks for Gutenberg you can also save layouts as Gutenberg Blocks.”

Brecht Ryckaert

Brecht is a WordPress Expert at Combell.com and organiser of the Ghent WordPress Meetup. He also wrote an ebook on WordPress Security and is a frequent speaker at WordCamps throughout Europe.

https://brechtryckaert.com

“First and foremost, there’s no one page builder that bests all of the others. In a sense, the discussion of “the best page builder’ is exactly the same one as those of the preferred operating system or text editor. The best one out there is the one that works best for you and your use-case. So as with all tools, because a page builder is but a tool, it comes down to testing them and finding the one where the logic works for you.

That said, here are my personal favorites:”

Gutenberg – “Despite being the new kid on the block and while some might even argue that Gutenberg is not a Page Builder per sé, this is the one to watch and start implementing. The major advantage over any other page builder is the absence of the use of shortcodes, which means there’s no vendor lock-in. Furthermore, this also improves page loading speed, as shortcodes require extra actions/queries to display the intended content. So this is, in my most humble opinion, the future.”
Divi Builder – “I’ve been using Divi since version 1.0 and used it up to version 4.4 so far. While no page builder is perfect, I’ve always praised Divi for its user-friendly workflow. It’s also a page builder that allows you to speed the pages up quite a lot.”
Elementor – “My third choice is Elementor. It has been an industry standard for years now, with an immense userbase. It’s also very popular with developers as Elementor is especially developer-friendly. From a hosting standpoint we also seldom see issues with Elementor or Elementor Pro, which is a testament to the work of their development team”

Ryan Hudson

Ryan is the founder of Hello Hudson, a web and design agency based in Toowoomba, Australia. He's been building websites since 2000 and has a passion for crafting custom websites that not only look beautiful but also strategically engage the target audience.

https://hellohudson.com.au

“When I first started with WordPress, anything that resembled a ‘page builder’ was so limiting and restrictive, it caused me to swear I would never use one — that was until Elementor came onto the scene.”

Elementor – “Elementor continues to deliver a beautiful balance between simplicity and flexibility. Its simple, clean user interface allows users to easily create stunning layouts in minutes, while delivering customisable widgets and integrations that allow you to achieve results that were once only possible by custom code.

There are a number of Page Builders out there these days that have definitely improved in their flexibility and how much of your WordPress website you can customise, however, of the ones I’ve tried, none come close to how Elementor continues to take advanced tasks and make them simple.”

Carlos Longarela

Web developer since the late 90s. Working with WordPress for several years, I love photography and music

https://tabernawp.com/

“With page builders, we can currently develop all kinds of complex web pages that were previously only available to web designers and programmers. Page builders do the same function as WordPress in programming, that is, bringing the development of web pages closer to anyone without technical knowledge. Although many professional developers deny these aids, I think they are beneficial to the end-users who can modify certain parts of their website without having a specialist. Other than for development professionals, sometimes, they also make things easier and can speed up times and lower costs. We should keep in mind that you shouldn’t use it in all parts of the web, but it could be instrumental in individual sections, such as our homepage, the contact page, design our general footer, or our header.”

Gutenberg – “The first page builder that I recommend and the one that we should all have in our crosshairs is Gutenberg. There are many reasons to recommend Gutenberg as the first and best page builder. First of all, it’s the native WordPress page builder, which has improved a lot in recent months and will continue to improve daily with a multitude of plugins designed for Gutenberg. The code it generates is fully supported HTML, without the use of shortcodes. At present, it cannot develop headers, footers, or modify widgets, but the team is working on that functionality, and you will be able to see it in a short time. This editor comes built into all WordPress installations since version 5, improving loading performance and an option that has 100% compatibility assured with all future WordPress versions. It is an active development that is growing day by day, and although it still has specific weaknesses, it is a safe bet that every WordPress user should know and gradually use in their designs.”
Divi Builder – “The second page builder that I would recommend is Divi. Divi is a page builder that allows us to modify any part of your website and even create different templates. Thus being able to have different headers or footers or content layouts according to the category of a particular page that is being edited, such as a 404 error page, WooCommerce products, or any other condition we want. It has evolved a lot in recent months, and its compatibility with Gutenberg is total, so if you wish, you can use Divi to generate your header or footer and widget bars and use Gutenberg for the content. If, on any page, you need something more elaborate that Gutenberg does not currently incorporate, we can integrate Divi as an inserted Gutenberg module. The possibilities offered by Divi are vast, being able to customize the appearance of each element in a visual way. If we want to reach a higher level, we can interact with the code to further refine its behavior. Among the different options, we can generate static CSS, send the CSS in line with the page, integrate the Google API key (for example, for maps) or reduce and combine Javascript and CSS files, among many other options.”

“These are my two main recommendations. There are many page builders available, some are well-known e.g., Elementor, Beaver Builder, Page Builder by SiteOrigin or Visual Composer; each with its advantages and drawbacks: higher load on the web, incompatibility with different themes or plugins, unoptimized code, etc. So in each case, you have to investigate a little and look for the best options for your development. We can’t download a page builder and say that this works very badly or is the best, there are many variables in each specific development. In my particular case, in 90% of my tasks, the first two and, in some cases, custom code satisfies my clients’ development needs.”

Spencer Taylor

Spencer Taylor is a Freelance Web Designer and WordPress Consultant based in New Jersey. Expert Divi Theme Builder web design and custom WooCommerce solutions built to be mobile-first are his specialties. Spencer works with mostly B2B clients and partners with SEO and Marketing agencies in South Jersey and Philadelphia.

https://spencer-taylor.com/

“Using Page Builders for mobile-first WordPress websites is easier than ever, but the right tool is paramount. My Page Builder top choice for web design is Divi; however, my choice for more complex sites that use many Custom Fields and WooCommerce is Elementor. Let me explain why.”

Divi Builder – “From a design standpoint, no Page Builder competes with Divi. It offers the most options for creative control, the best workflow, near-endless plugins to expand its abilities, and broad support. Divi caters to web designers, which is a good thing.

Divi’s responsive design abilities are outstanding. Furthermore, Elegant Themes, the maker of Divi, offers an immense number of beautiful templates to fast track projects. Divi also offers the best user interface and overall experience of any Page Builder.

However, nothing is perfect, and Divi’s weakness is its Theme Builder. If your needs lay in designing category and archive page templates, Divi offers excellent options. However, once you journey into Custom Fields and WooCommerce, Divi’s limits become clear.”
Elementor – “For projects which require extensive use of Advanced Custom Fields, Elementor offers superior integration and a better Theme Builder experience. Similarly, for WooCommerce, Elementor works better for creating product templates, product category and archive pages, and product integration for landing pages and marketing campaigns.”

“Using Divi is always my preference, and I believe it’s the best Page Builder on the market. However, for projects which require more sophisticated Theme Builder support, Elementor is the best option.

A final thought is to consider using Divi for the page designs and using Elementor for WooCommerce products and templates which require Custom Fields. Yes, these two Page Builder rivals play nicely together on the same site!”

Stephen Starr

Stephen Starr started Stephen B. Starr Design, Inc. in January 1991. Areas of expertise include website and internet application design and development, branding, print design for marketing and communications and strategic content creation. Stephen is past president of Chicago Creative Coalition and founded the Chicago Web Professionals Meetup in 2006.

https://www.stephenbstarrdesign.com

Beaver Builder – “Beaver Builder rocks! It is my choice for its many designer friendly drag and drop modules that can be highly visually styled.

Designers will appreciate the ability to create custom templates that can be saved and used for consistent site building throughout your process. You can start with a number of homepage or secondary page templates to get your process going and shape them to your own purpose. Beaver Themer, a Beaver Builder add on plugin, lets you style posts, archive pages, custom headers and more. Beaver Builder skews slightly toward a development savvy creative and conversely toward a design savvy developer with a high degree of code customization possibilities. Use the Beaver Builder plugin with the Beaver Builder theme or use it with your favorite starter theme. I have not nearly exhausted the possibilities of the Beaver Builder theme in the years I have been using it.

The support team at Beaver Builder is top-notch. Everyone I have interacted with has a high degree of development and CSS skill for times when you can’t come up with a fix on your own. The development team behind the builder often release an update before a core software release. I get the sense the team is watching WordPress carefully.

In short, the Beaver Builder plugin has brought the fun of being a designer back to website creation. It is the best product I have found that is low-code and offers results as sophisticated as custom PHP websites. Frankly, it’s the best of artificial intelligence for the website creation world I have found. And did I mention… clients love it for its WYSYG editing environment making the native Gutenberg blocks look clumsy by comparison.”

Russell Aaron

I'm Russell Aaron. WordPress Support Specialist and Podcast Personality. I've worked with some of the smartest minds in the WP community. I've been offering WordPress support since 2012.

https://russellenvy.com

“One of the most common WordPress support questions I get asked the most is, “What’s the easiest Page Builder plugin to update without breaking my site?” And that’s a really tough question to answer. Technically speaking they’re all easy to update inside of WordPress. You can set your plugins to autoupdate if you really, really wanted to go that route. And if you’re using the page builder at face value, nothing should break just because you updated the plugin.

The issue of Page Builders breaking a website usually stems from a lack of testing the updated software in a staging environment. This way your production site remains fully operational while you tackle any complications you might have. Please make a back up your WordPress site before you take any WordPress advice.”

Beaver Builder – “The page builder we see installed the most is Beaver Builder. They provide many useful tools like Premium Modules & Templates. The plugin provides our pickiest users the opportunity to finely-tune every part of their WordPress site. It’s also the plugin I see demonstrated the most during meetup groups. Beaver Builder allows you to create your own templates or sections to reuse over and over again. They make it very easy to update one template across your entire website.”
Elementor – “The free version of Elementor won the Torque 2020 Plugin Madness tournament. That’s pretty impressive. There were plenty of vital WordPress plugins in the competition. Elementor is a widely popular page builder plugin with a great presence on YouTube. Elementor Pro works well with WooCommerce and the lowest payment plan comes with all of the available features at the time of this article. Usually you have to upgrade to a medium tier plan in order to unlock every feature. I commend them on that. Elementor Pro is a marketing experts favorite tool. The marketing and conversion widgets make it really easy to convert users passing by into repeat guests.”

Kim Blake

Owner and lead developer of Alpha Webworks with more than 20 years of experience in design, development, e-commerce, e-mail campaigns, and print production. She enjoys learning about the latest web trends and discovering new techniques to enhance websites.

https://alpha-webworks.com/

Divi Builder – “My favorite WordPress builder is Divi. I’ve been using Divi since it was first released in 2013 and through the years it has made significant improvements to meet the needs of web designers. Like most page builders, Divi has the ability to directly edit and preview a page in real-time. You no longer have to save the page via the dashboard and then preview your changes in a new window. Some of my favorite features are the ability to:
1. Save sections and modules to the Library, making it easier to add to other pages.
2. Copy and paste styles for sections and modules. Helpful for when you have many small changes and need to apply it elsewhere on the site.
3. Create a new theme builder template that can be assigned to specific parts of your website. Useful for blog, archive, search and 404 pages. No need to create a child theme to customize these pages.
4. Apply tablet and phone styles easily while using Divi’s viewport tools. Useful for working on designs so you can see how your layout is coming together and address any issues ahead of time.
5. Only have to purchase the license once for lifetime access.”

Justin Meadows

I own a Wordpress Support and Speed Optimisation service. We also do custom Wordpress builds using a range of page builders.

https://tunedwp.com/

Beaver Builder – “Beaver Builder is the builder we prefer to build with. It is fast to use and has cleaner code that some other builders. We can get good page speed results with Beaver, and it also doesn’t leave content with shortcodes if you switch. Combined with Beaver Themer it is very easy to create templates or frameworks for pages or sections of pages that can be reused to save on development time.”
Elementor – “Elementor is another good builder, really the only reason we don’t use it is personal preference because we have our processes setup to use Beaver and so our team are all more familiar with Beaver.”
WPBakery – “WPBakery is ok, but it is a bit clunky and not as user friendly.”

Best Cache Plugin for WordPress? 65 WP Experts Vote

by Chris Herbert | Last Updated March 25, 2021

Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, meaning, at no added cost to you, we will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

We all want our website to load faster, right? It helps create a better user experience, is a known factor for SEO, and can help turn visitors into customers. And there are quite literally dozens of things you can do to help knock a few seconds off your load time, but one of the most simple and commonly recommended solutions is to install a caching plugin.

It’s easy, won’t cost you a fortune, and is proven to make a difference. What a caching plugin does in simple terms is create a static version of your website’s pages, which can be accessed far quicker when your visitors navigate to them. Normally, when a page is loaded, there are lots of steps involved to get that page to appear in front of your eyes, and a caching plugin removes many of those steps.

But which should you choose? Which plugin works the best? Should you go for a free or premium plugin? These are all questions that we tried to address by contacting and talking to over 60 WordPress experts to ask them, “which is the best cache plugin for WordPress in 2019?” These folks use WordPress every day, and most have tried and tested many of the caching plugins available.

Each expert we spoke to was allowed to nominate up to 3 WP caching plugins. Keep reading to find out which plugin came out on top, and equally as important, why.

Best WordPress Caching Plugin: How Our Experts Voted

Caching Plugin	# of Votes
#1. WP Rocket	39 Votes
#2. W3 Total Cache	21 Votes
#3. WP Super Cache	18 Votes
#4. WP Fastest Cache	15 Votes
#=5. LiteSpeed Cache	4 Votes
#=5. Autoptimize	4 Votes
#=6. Breeze	2 Votes
#=6. Swift Performance	2 Votes
#=6. Hummingbird	2 Votes
#=6. Cache Enabler	2 Votes
#=7. JCH Optimize	1 Vote
#=7. Simple Cache	1 Vote
#=7. SG Optimizer	1 Vote
#=7. Nginx +FastCGI Caching	1 Vote
#=7. Comet Cache	1 Vote
#=7. Batcache	1 Vote
#=7. WP REST Cache	1 Vote

As you can see from the table above, although there were quite a few plugins mentioned, most of the votes were shared between just 4 caching plugins: WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache, WP Super Cache and WP Fastest Cache. So those are the options we’re going to focus on here.

WP Rocket was the clear winner, with just about double the number of experts citing it as one of their preferred WordPress caching plugins. Why was that? We kept hearing the same three things: Ridiculously simple setup, it just works, and a great feature set.

Caching plugins can be notoriously tricky to set up and make sense of, particular for “non-techy” folks. The endless options, the technical jargon; it’s enough to make your head hurt. And that’s where WP Rocket really appeals to a lot of people. Set-up is suuuuuuper simple (in 2 clicks, you can have a basic configuration put to work on your site). Of course, it also backs this up with great performance (numerous experts mentioned seeing massive speed gains literally by just installing the plugin and doing nothing else!).

That’s not to say this plugin can only handle the basics though. It boasts an impressive range of features that you can take advantage of to further speed up your website if you have a little bit of know-how, or are prepared to invest a little time testing. These features include deferred JS loading, lazyload for images, removing query strings from static resources, cache preloading, database optimization, DNS prefetching, HTML minification, Google Fonts optimization, and more.

On top of all of this, for a paid plugin that “does what it says on the tin” and is very well supported (quick to help troubleshoot and solid support documentation), the price they make it available for is very, very reasonable. The fact that there is a licence fee also means that they are able to have a team behind the scenes working to consistently improve the plugin.

W3 Total Cache came in second place, and boasts “veteran” status, having been around far longer than most other caching plugins. There’s always something to be said for longevity, and the support team behind it is pretty responsive when you run into trouble. There is a free version and a paid version of this plugin, and even with the free one, you are equipped with a very extensive feature set, which gives you lots of flexibility. Herein lies the double-edged sword though, as the one criticism that kept cropping up with W3 Total Cache is that it’s not as easy to configure as other options. So if you’re not that tech-savvy, it could be a little frustrating to set-up, and you have to be prepared to invest some time “getting to know” the plugin to really take advantage of what it can do.

In third and fourth were WP Super Cache and WP Fastest Cache, which both have LOTS of active installations (WP Super Cache has over 2 million!), and are both very stable. WP Super Cache is actually produced by the team behind WordPress (Automattic), so you don’t really need to ever worry about waking up to compatibility issues after an update. Both of these plugins have free versions, are very quick and easy to set up, have nice interfaces, but lack some of the more advanced features such as lazyload. WP Fastest Cache does have a premium version that unlocks more features though.

Other Articles You May Find Useful:

TL;DR

1) If you’re either a non-techie or don’t have lots of time time/desire to invest in configuring a caching plugin, want advanced features to get the best performance and want to see speed gains fast, then the experts would recommend:

2) If money is tight and you want a powerful caching solution that offers a comprehensive suite of features, and don’t mind getting your hands dirty with “some trial and error” testing initially to get it firing, check out this option:

3) If you’re looking for a free plugin that’s easy to setup and navigate, has a solid track record and comes with the basics to improve your site’s loading time, either of these options will work:

Read What The Experts Said

It’d be far easier to just make all of this up, but that’s not what we’re about here at WSTE. We really DID ask 65 WordPress pros for their take on the best WP caching plugins currently available, and below you can read exactly what each of them had to say on the matter. There’s lots of really good advice in there!

This section is really handy if you want to see what was said about a particular plugin. You can use the filters to jump directly to all of the comments about whichever one you’re interested in.

{"filter_mode":"masonry"}

Jeffrey Visser

As Operations Manager, I make sure our team and our clients can perform at full speed and are happy doing so. With 8+ years experience in web development it feels like I've experienced everything there is when it comes to caching.

https://www.van-ons.nl

“Before managed (WordPress specific) hosting became affordable and was as widely available as it is today, everyone using WordPress was using a caching plugin of some kind. Mostly W3 Total Cache. But its settings were a lot of hassle, especially when you weren’t as involved in DevOps related tasks, and moving from development to production caused a lot of headaches.

Nowadays we like to work with managed hosting partners that really know how to set up a caching layer server side to run WordPress as smoothly as possible. NginX together with Varnish seems to be the go-to setup, and honestly that works great for most of our clients. Without any additional caching plugin!”

WP Rocket – “When we sometimes do feel the need to experiment or just want to get that extra layer of caching going, we’ll fire up WP Rocket. It just works. And we love not having too many options that can mess things up and cause unexpected behaviour.”

Merianos Nikos

Full stack WordPress developer with 11 years of experience in building big projects with thousands of users per month.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/merianosnikos/

WP Fastest Cache – “I have been using this plugin for the last 3 years, and it’s one of the simplest plugins for caching, with a huge impact on performance. The plugin comes with a few simple configuration settings that almost anyone could set, even if you’re not an expert.”
W3 Total Cache – “One of the most advanced plugins for caching in WordPress. I love this plugin, but it’s too complicated to set up, and I don’t like it for small projects. In addition, while it supports nGinx, it requires extra configuration to make it work properly.”

Matthew Heyes

I'm a WordPress developer of over 10 years, focusing on theme development and performance diagnostics.

https://matthewheyes.com

Autoptimize – “This is an awesome plugin by Frank Goossens! It’s perfect for small to medium sites (though I have also used it on large projects). I largely use this plugin to do quick minification and caching combo! In just a few clicks this plugin can give you a huge jump in performance and have your site scoring more satisfying results in the Google Page Speed tool. The plugin will also defer your CSS/JS scripts, async non-aggregated JavaScript and remove WordPress core emoji junk.

Looking forward – this is still a useful plugin if you are on HTTP/2.

And finally, I’m really looking forward to trying out their partner plugin with criticalcss.com to automatically identify and inline critical CSS to improve page render time.”
W3 Total Cache – “For my premium customers I always use W3 Total Cache. The daddy of caching plugins. The plugin is thorough and has an extensive settings section, which can be daunting to the beginner. However, once you have done some groundwork, you’ll find the options available to you through this plugin will take care of most of your caching and performance concerns.

My best recommendation regarding W3 Total Cache, is that once you have finely tuned your project, through the many settings available to you, download a backup of of your settings. This settings backup file can then be imported into future projects, thus speeding up your setup time. You can then do the customisation required to tailor each install to its environment. The caching options here are vast. W3 Total Cache will also take care of browser caching and database object caching. The support for search results is also excellent. Finally, don’t worry, CDN integration is seamless and I’ve never had a conflict issue here.”

Michiel Tramper

Michiel is a WordPress Expert and founder of Make it WorkPress, and has developed dozens of WordPress websites, themes and scripts. Currently, he is setting up a WordPress platform with in-depth reviews.

https://makeitworkpress.com

“Which caching plugin is the best is a funny question. Actually, a much more important question may lay behind it. For example, how do I make my website as fast and smooth as possible for my visitors? How do I save on server costs? After all, these questions may vary, depending on the size of your company, your audience and business targets.

So before selecting a caching plugin, think hard. Think hard about what is your question behind this question? What are your criteria for selecting a caching plugin? Why do I want it?

But even before a caching plugin comes hosting. Hosting has a major effect on how your caching plugins ultimately will perform. The best thing would be to have a hosting party with servers close to your visitors. And obviously, a well-reviewed one. A hosting party that already arranged all caching on the server level. So you do not even need a caching plugin – just a plugin for minification of scripts and styles. Kinsta, for example, is a solid one.

That having said, let’s look what caching plugins I’d recommend.”

WP Rocket – “WP Rocket is the way to go for beginners. Although it is a paid plugin, it is one of the easiest plugins to set-up. Moreover, it incorporates all essential features for caching and speed optimization, such as page caching, lazy loading of images and minification of files and scripts (yup, that makes your website smaller, thus loading faster!). Essentially, you have everything you need and it’s easy to set-up. And it works with most themes and plugins out there.

WP Rocket is the way to go for beginners. Although it is a paid plugin, it is one of the easiest plugins to set-up. Moreover, it incorporates all essential features for caching and speed optimization, such as page caching, lazy loading of images and minification of files and scripts (yup, that makes your website smaller, thus loading faster!). Essentially, you have everything you need and it’s easy to set-up. And it works with most themes and plugins out there.

Don’t you fancy a paid plugin? A combination of the plugins Cache Enabler, Autoptimize and a3 Lazy Load brings you close to WP Rocket’s performance. But as you may have noticed, you will be using three plugins.

The only downside of WP Rocket is the more advanced stuff. Beware! For example, it does not support serving cached pages from the memory (using Redis or Memcached), nor does it support object caching.”
W3 Total Cache – “W3 Total Cache – Advanced (Total Control). Over the years, W3 Total Cache has grown infamous for its varying effects on performance. It allows you to control almost every aspect of caching, so the first time round, it is quite hard to get to grips with. Still, it is a powerful suite for cranking out great performance. It works great with hosts that use Varnish, Memcached/NGINX FastCGI in combination with Redis for object caching. Moreover, it allows granular control on how to minify styles and sheets in combination with HTTP2 Push of assets. Once you know what settings offer the greatest impact on performance, it’s quite easy to use actually. Moreover, it supports object caching and the basic version is free. In my testing of hosting providers, I get consistently fast performance with W3 Total Cache.”

David Hoe

https://samphire.agency

“With the ever changing landscape of the internet and the devices on which users consume content, it is now more than ever critical that your website is optimised for the fastest download times possible. I can recommend two WordPress plugins that are suitable for novices and professionals.”

WP Rocket – “A premium plugin that comes in at $49 a year, around £40 UK, WP Rocket is an easy to use and configure plugin that does a great job at reducing page load times. Has all the things you’d expect; file optimisation, Gzip compression and a free image optimisation plugin called Imagify. There are more options for the more advanced user, including connecting to a CDN (Content Delivery Network). Tech support is quick and helpful. Updates regularly with a host of new features and performance tweaks. I think it’s well worth the £40 a year. I have the Infinite Package at £200 a year. I add it to every new website I develop.”
WP Fastest Cache – “If you don’t want to part with £40 a year, an excellent free WordPress caching plugin is WP Fastest Cache. Not as customisable etc as WP Rocket, unless you upgrade to the premium version, but very easy to set up and can significantly reduce page load times.”

Claire Brotherton

I'm a WordPress web developer, blog writer and accessibility advocate. I build sites for small businesses and nonprofits.

https://www.abrightclearweb.com/

WP Rocket – “I’ve tried a few different caching plugins, but my favourite by far and preferred option is WP Rocket. I installed it recently on a site and immediately noticed it was much faster! Most of the speed improvements work right out of the box. The remaining settings are simple to enable, though you might need to do a bit of tweaking to check you haven’t broken anything. WP Rocket’s friendly support staff are knowledgeable about other services that impact site speed, like the HTTP/2 protocol and Cloudflare (which has an integration with WP Rocket).

WP Rocket has database optimization and heartbeat control built-in, so you don’t need separate plugins for managing those things.”
W3 Total Cache – “For smaller budget sites, I use W3 Total Cache, which is good for a free plugin, but I find it trickier to configure.”

Recently I’ve been experimenting with the Perfmatters plugin, which fine-tunes what loads across a site, so you’re not loading your contact form scripts and styles on every web page!

Melissa Spiegel

Experienced WordPress Developer with digital marketing in her DNA. Always looking for a new challenge. Digital strategy, implementation and execution all in one place.

https://melissaspiegel.com/

Autoptimize – “Autoptimize makes optimizing your site really easy. It can aggregate, minify and cache scripts and styles, injects CSS in the page head by default (but can also defer), moves and defers scripts to the footer and minifies HTML. The “Extra” options allow you to optimize Google Fonts and images, async non-aggregated JavaScript, remove WordPress core emoji and more.

There is extensive API available to enable you to tailor Autoptimize to each and every site’s specific needs.

Every site is different and Autoptimize does take a little tinkering to get the settings right. My suggestion is to make 1 change then check for js errors, and run it through GT Metrix.”

“I also like the following in terms of speeding up your WordPress site:

Smush Image Compression and Optimization

Smush allows you to resize, optimize and compress all of your images. It is best to upload this before theme customization and set it to automatically smush all images on upload.

Asset CleanUp: Page Speed Booster

Asset Clean up scans your pages and detects all the assets that are being loaded and easily allows the exclusion of scripts on a page per page basis.

This plugin is good for 2 different uses. One, if you do not have a custom-built WordPress theme and are not able to properly wp dequeue scripts via PHP, then you can easily exclude scripts and style sheets on a page per page basis. This way scripts that run the slideshow on the home page, do not load slideshow scripts on pages that do not have a slideshow.

The second use is for developers and helps to easily determine the handles of all the scripts being loaded on each page. Now simply dequeue scripts and styles using is_page() conditional statements in your functions.php file.”

Mike Demo

He believes in sharing his business acumen and marketing insight and has spoken on various open source topics including WordPress and Joomla! (where he was a board member) in addition to marketing related talks which include A/B testing content. Be sure to say hi to Mike on Twitter at @MPMike.

https://www.boldgrid.com/

JCH Optimize – “A useful caching plugin with many other options available. Has multi-tier one-click settings available for easy setup. What I like most about this tool is that it can be installed on WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and Magento. I have done projects with all 4 of those CMS systems, and having the same tool made it easier to learn and deploy. The pro versions add excellent features such as Kraken image optimization.”
W3 Total Cache – “In addition to being really popular, it is one of the few caching plugins that offers Fragment Caching: Fragment Caching allows breaking objects into multiple pieces that may be cached and generated with more granularity than Object Caching alone. The idea is that rather than simply caching an entire Object and rebuilding the entire object when a portion of it updates, you can break the object into multiple fragments.”

John Overall

John Overall has over 20 years’ experience online hosting, developing, repairing and maintaining websites and managing servers.

https://wppluginsatoz.com/

“Your website speed is one of the major influences for SEO ranking these days. While there are a lot of things you can do for your website, such as image improvement and code tweaks to speed up your site, you may still only get down to a 3 or 4 sec load time. To get that last little bit and load in less than 2.5 sec, you may need caching.

Caching plugins come in all kinds of flavours, from the very basic to insanely crazy to configure ones. If you are looking for caching, you will want something that is easy to get setup, has minimum fuss and provides excellent caching right out of the box.

You will want WP Fastest cache.”

WP Fastest Cache – “WP Fastest Cache is a simple plugin to use and the free version you can get works very well and is easy to set up with just a few check boxes. It takes care of all the issues of updating your .htaccess file, so you don’t have to go in and mess with any code. When ever you post or update a page it automatically clears the cache to prevent issues. If you have special pages you need to be served without caching, you can also block caching on those pages. WP Fastest Cache minifys your HTML and CSS files for you. It also combines your .js and .css files for faster delivery to site visitors by decreasing the number of files and https requests made. It can also be set up to use Gzip and Browser caching. WP Fastest Cache is compatible with CDN networks such as Cloudflare, Photon and Stackpath.

At only $49.99 for the premium version you can extend the abilities and speed of WP Fastest Cache with additional tools to manage your website such as Image Optimization, Minify and combine plus, cache statistics and more.

This plugin was reviewed in Episode 338 of WP Plugin A to Z (you can check it out here)

Overall this has been the best and easiest caching plugin I have tested and used over the years.”

Michael Acevedo

Designer and Developer at Spark Creative. I spend a majority of my time improving WordPress speeds for SEO.

https://www.sprkcrtv.com

“I LOVE WordPress! I believe it’s the best, most affordable option for small to large businesses with good theme support for smaller budgets, and offers great affordability to built-in options for larger budgets. It’s also easy to find a developer to work with on your new or existing project.

There are many great plugins to extend your options, and caching plugins are one of those great features we can add to any WordPress website.”

WP Super Cache – “This is a popular option among WordPress website owners with over 2 million active installs! This plugin is simple and easy to go through and set up for your website.”
W3 Total Cache – “This is another great plugin that we run into all of the time. There are more options and features, but is better suited to advanced users.”
WP Engine Page Cache™ – “I recommend WP Engine to my clients because of its high speed, security, daily backups, and having an intuitive staging system that allows you to test your changes before moving them to live at the click of a button (literally). WP Engine also features server-level caching – no plugin needed. This, combined with the built-in CDN will bring your website to the fastest speeds we have seen for WordPress websites.”

Frederic Sune

I am the CEO of WP Expert, a web agency specialized on WordPress in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. We also provide a full range of services for Entrepreneurs using WordPress.

https://wpexpert.ca

LiteSpeed Cache – “This is our first choice because the caching is done at the server level, not at the WordPress level like other plugins. You can be very precise on what you want to cache, minify, exclude… etc. It comes with a suite of tools like images optimization and works fast. No need to add another plugins to reduce the size of the images, plus it does this automatically. LiteSpeed integrates with WordPress seamlessly and we get amazing result on load speed. But, this one is only available via your hosting company so choose one that offers it. We are using a Managed WordPress hosting provider.”
Swift Performance – “This is the only other caching plugin we will use. We deploy this one on shared server or for any other clients where we don’t handle the hosting for them, but where we need to have a very good caching solution. After you install it, you will run a wizard that will setup it properly according to the resources you have on the server and what technology is being used; no need to guess! It comes with nice features like lazy load for images or smart YouTube embed, which will help with the load speed since it will only load the YouTube assets if the visitor starts the video. It supports CDNs as well.”

Pawel Laczny

Entrepreneur, software engineer and business technology adviser. Full Stack Web Developer with over 14 years of commercial experience. Startups lover. Author and tech blogger.

https://www.beenet.london/

WP Super Cache – “WP Super Cache is one of the most popular caching plugins for WordPress, with over two million active installs. The plugin is created by Automattic, the same team that created WordPress.com, JetPack, Akismet and WooCommerce. WP Super Cache helps you generate static HTML files instead of the heavy WordPress PHP scripts. It offers three caching modes, which can be used by both amateur and professional users. The huge advantage of WP Super Cache is that it’s open-source and free of charge for everyone.”
WP Rocket – “WP Rocket is probably the most popular premium caching plugin you can find. It has a very simple user interface and it’s quick and easy to set it up. Once you activate the plugin, page caching will immediately be activated. It automatically minifies HTML, JavaScript, and CSS files; and significantly improves page load time. WP Rocket also has some great features like lazy loading, browser and page caching and much more than any free equivalent.”

Alex Belov

I have enjoyed my job since 2008 and I think Wordpress is just AMAZING! I know this because I have developed many custom themes and built many successful e-commerce projects from scratch with individual designs for clients from all over the world! I also love to HELP WordPress and WooCommerce users with any tasks they have!

https://codelfo.com

WP Rocket – “My absolute favorite caching plugin is WP Rocket. I have used it for many years, and it was great from the beginning. The development team improves it consistently. The settings of the plugin are very flexible, and with a little WP expert help, you can achieve really great scores in performance metrics and really improve your site load speed. You can try to set it up by yourself if you have basic WordPress skills.”

Tom Greenwood

https://www.wholegraindigital.com/

“The biggest bottleneck when it comes to scaling WordPress is most cases is the database. Every interaction with the website will most likely result in either a read or a write from the database. On a clean WordPress install running the twentynineteen, the queries can be in the low 20s! Quickly though, with the help of custom designs with relational content and a few plugins, this balloons past 100 and sometimes higher. Whilst there might be optimisations that could be made to reduce the queries, it will most likely not have as big an impact as implementing a front end caching strategy.

Our first recommendation is to choose a host that implements server side caching. Varnish and LiteSpeed are the two most common implementations. By utilising server side caching, the first time a request is made for a page, WordPress will go through its standard process of making database calls and generating the page, but with server side caching, the request for the page never makes it to WordPress, thus removing the slowest part of the website.

Managed WordPress hosts such as WPEngine, Kinsta and Flywheel all implement server side caching, and all behind the scenes so there is no configuration (most providers install a plugin to give you the ability to clear the cache too). Cloud hosting providers such as Cloudways support Varnish as well.”

WP Rocket – “Our second recommendation is only for when server side caching is not available. The WordPress community over time has attempted to address the performance problem by implementing caching solutions similar to server side caching but in the form of plugins. The first time a request is made, WordPress will go through the full process of generating the page, but instead of just sending it to the browser, it stores it for next time. Whilst this offers a performance improvement, it still requires WordPress to start up and made requests.

WP Rocket is our recommended caching plugin, as it is simple and effective. It’s simplicity makes it quick and easy to set up without too many confusing options or jargon that are common in other caching plugins. It also includes nice features to improve performance beyond the minimum expected of a caching plugin. These include pre-caching, meaning that the cache is generated before a real user hits the page, compression of HTML, CSS and JS files and lazy loading of images to further improve page load times and user experience. WP Rocket delivers the biggest performance boost with the least hassle.”

Shawn Hesketh

Shawn is a WordPress educator and consultant. In 2008, he created the ‘WordPress 101’ video tutorial series, which has helped more than two million people learn how to use WordPress. Over the past decade, Shawn has created hundreds of video tutorials for notable clients like Automattic, WooCommerce, GoDaddy, and others.

https://www.wp101.com

“One of the most common questions we hear from our members at WP101 is, “How do I make my WordPress site load faster?” And that used to be tricky to answer. Maybe if you had more web server resources… a better host… a CDN… a more lightweight theme… or removed all the images from your site… maybe then your WordPress site would load more quickly. Right? But that’s not at all realistic.

Thankfully, today we’ve got a much better answer: WP Rocket.”

WP Rocket – “Most caching plugins are incredibly complicated to install, configure, and troubleshoot. But you can install WP Rocket in just a couple of minutes, and it will immediately start optimizing your WordPress site, automatically applying best practices — even before you’ve enabled a single option.

Of course, you can dive in more deeply and minimize your files, media, or preload pages. You can easily block specific pages from being cached, and even optimize your WordPress database. Best of all, if you run into trouble, their support team is incredibly friendly and knowledgeable.

There’s one more important thing to note about WP Rocket. Most Managed WordPress hosts block the use of caching plugins, because they typically interfere with their own caching at the server level. But not WP Rocket. It’s the only caching plugin accepted by the top Managed WordPress hosts, and that’s why today we only recommend one caching plugin for WordPress… WP Rocket.”

Warren Denley

I live and breathe WordPress, and I'm passionate about curing the technical headaches for service based business owners so they can get on with what they do best. Outside of work I love spending time with my wife and young son, and I can't say no to good coffee.

https://wpwebsitecoach.com/

SG Optimizer – “The ONLY caching plugin I use for WordPress is SG Optimizer.

Yes, it only works if your site is hosted on SiteGround. But since all of my sites, and most of my clients’ sites, are on SiteGround, it’s the perfect choice.

The plugin is designed to link with SiteGround’s advanced technical configuration and squeeze every last ounce of speed out of what is already a pretty fast platform.

It has all of the normal features you’d expect from a caching plugin, including combining and minimising CSS and javascript files, static and dynamic caching, forcing HTTPS (enabling better multithreading) and compressing files for faster transfer to your browser. It also includes advanced image compression capabilities and lazy loading (ie, not sending images until they will be visible on the page) to help speed things up even more.

And because it is tightly coupled with the server setup, it also include intelligent database query caching, which gives an even greater bump in speed.

Even though SiteGround is a fast host to start with, when SG Optimizer is installed and properly configured, the difference is really visible (no need for automated speed tests to prove there is a difference).

And if you’re not on SiteGround? My recommendation would be to move to SiteGround (I wrote a whole article on why it’s the best host out there). Otherwise, check out what some of the other experts are recommending.”

Michelle Phillips

Michelle Phillips is the owner of Codefetti, an agency that offers customized website design and support. She is a creative techie and problem-solver who loves to work alongside small business owners to help them achieve their website goals.

https://codefetti.com

“As a web designer, my goal is to create sites that are fast and secure. So I routinely run performance benchmarks on client sites to ensure they are optimized for speed. I use and highly recommend WP-Rocket or WP-Fastest-Cache (free or premium version).”

WP Rocket – “I have been an avid fan of WP-Rocket for 3 years. I currently have the Infinite license, which allows 1 year of support and updates for unlimited websites. It has boosted speed on every site I’ve installed it on.

PROs: It’s an excellent caching plugin with great support. It generally improves performance right out-of-the box and includes a lazy load feature, which is great for image-rich pages and posts.

CONs: Annual charge”
WP Fastest Cache – “Earlier this year I ran into some performance issues with an e-commerce site that just wasn’t getting the speed we needed with WP-Rocket. So I spent considerable time testing WP-Rocket against the free version of WP-Fastest-Cache. I was amazed to find that the free version of WP-Fastest-Cache performed as well as WP-Rocket on the e-commerce site.

PROs: Free and it works great!

CONs: No lazy load option in free version.”
WP-Fastest-Cache (Premium) – “As part of another site redesign, I decided to swap out WP-Rocket for WP-Fastest-Cache and was thrilled to see consistently equal or better page load times of under 2 seconds. By upgrading to WP-Fastest-Cache premium, we achieved even faster load times per the major online testers including Google Page Speed Insights, GTMetrix, and WebPageTest.

PROs: Rivals and exceeds the best caching plugins out there, including WP-Rocket. Includes lazy load option. One-time charge.

CONs: The license is good for only one site. You need to keep both the free and premium version installed, updated, and active on your site.”

Matthew Bourne

Hey! I'm a freelance, specialist WordPress developer with around 15 years' experience in web development and 8 years' specific experience with WordPress. I run my own successful WordPress development business - WPMAD - and I'm also one of the top-rated sellers on People Per Hour.

https://wpmad.com

“With your website’s speed being a major factor for search engine ranking, it’s essential that you have not only fast web hosting but, just as important, a good caching solution in place on your website. I can personally recommend 2 caching plugins for WordPress; a free plugin and a premium/paid plugin.”

W3 Total Cache – “If you have a limited budget or are just looking for a free caching solution, then W3 Total Cache should be your number one go-to. It has an extensive list of features, offers great performance and, best of all, it’s free.

The only downside to W3 Total Cache is that it can be a little overwhelming and complicated for non-technical/end-users to set up.”
WP Rocket – “With pricing starting at just $49/year for a single site license, if you have a little budget to spare then you can’t go wrong with WP Rocket. It’s also the most feature-packed caching plugin including some great additional features to speed up your website such as lazy loading, Google Fonts optimisation, database optimisation.

Best of all, it’s super quick and easy to set up and get it working.on your site – it has a really clear and simple admin interface and the settings are easy to understand and give detailed descriptions of what the settings do. Most importantly, it offers the best site performance from testing that I have done when comparing caching plugins.

If you want to compare the features of the above caching plugins (and a couple more) then there’s a great feature comparison on the WP Rocket website here.

I personally use WP Rocket on my own website but, as above, if you’re on a limited budget then W3 Total Cache is a great caching plugin too!”

Anton Vaniukov

Lead developer / Buddy lead at Incsub LLC (WPMU DEV, CampusPress and Edublogs)

https://premium.wpmudev.org

Hummingbird – “If you’re looking for a caching plugin, I would recommend trying out Hummingbird. Hummingbird Is a relatively new product on the market, when compared to plugins that have been around for over 10+ years (W3 Total Cache, WP Super Cache). But it’s being actively developed with new features added almost every release.

Hummingbird focuses on providing the user with easy to use tools to optimise website performance. The caching module is split up into four sub modules (page caching, browser caching, gravatar and rss caching), allowing you to easily customise what should and should not be cached on the server.

Page caching module will give your site a major performance boost. It’s a one-click solution that can be customised to fit any website. Hummingbird has a close integration with the most popular hosting platforms and server-side caching tools (OpCache, Varnish, Mamcache). Mobile caching, cache preloading, compressing cached files, exclusion rules, integration with Gutenberg and many other features will make your site running super fast.”

Miles Burke

Miles has been creating websites for over two decades, and is passionate about digital marketing and SEO, of which site speed is a large factor.

https://www.milesburke.co/

WP Rocket – “I’ve tried a number of different caching and speed improvement plugins over the last few years, and my absolute fave is WP Rocket.

The default WP Rocket install will improve your speed significantly, and then you have plenty of granular control in their options, making it ideal to keep pushing every little improvement in speed.

A case in point – a recent little side project of mine, https://www.softwareguide.com.au/ has a Google PageSpeed score of 97, even with 57 images, totalling over 2mb in size on the homepage! The only caching or speed tool I am using is WP Rocket.”

Craig Burgess

I'm a WordPress expert and teacher. We use WordPress at Genius Division to build websites of all different sizes and host lots of WordPress websites.

https://www.geniusdivision.com

WP Rocket – “We host lots of WordPress websites and it’s important we make sure that they’re snappy when they’re browsed. We’re always playing the battle between keeping a WordPress site fast to load and useful for our clients to edit, and WP Rocket lets us do exactly that very effectively.

It allows us to configure everything in one place. In the past, we’d use W3 Total Cache along with Autoptimize and a few others and sometimes they’d clash or you’d forget to clear one or the other. WP Rocket allows us to clear the cache quickly and easily. Combined with Nginx, we can configure it so that WordPress is bypassed completely if a cached version exists.

It’s reasonably priced as well, especially for when you’ve got a lot of websites. Use it!”

Kelly Janes

Ms. Janes has over 20 years' experience in Tech and 10+ years' experience with WordPress. She is Founder and CEO of Owl's Head Business Services, a digital agency designing, building, and maintaining responsive WordPress websites for small to medium businesses and non-profit organizations.

https://owlsheadbiz.com

“Caching is a way of saving your web content so that your website loads faster. Slow pages can lead to high bounce rates, page abandonment, and lower conversion rates. Any one of these negative outcomes will lower your site’s search engine ranking. While Google and other search engines value good content, they also like a quick page – especially on mobile!”

W3 Total Cache – “W3 Total Cache is a robust – and popular – caching plugin with over three thousand 5-star reviews in the WordPress repository. Here are a few of my favorite W3TC features:

*Works out-of-the-box with minimal setup
*Robust customization options with a fairly straightforward interface (this can be intimidating to the uninitiated, thus my first favorite feature)
*Mobile-specific caching options
*Minifies and compresses HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and feeds
*Quick access to clear the current page cache, as well as site-wide cache
*Content Delivery Network (CDN) integration (more on this below)
*”Web host agnostic” (to date, I’ve used W3TC successfully on 5 hosting platforms ranging from fully managed commercial WordPress hosting to an internally managed Linux environment)

W3 Total Cache has been available for more than 10 years, and has over 1 million installs. At the time of this writing, the W3TC support team has resolved 118 out of 128 open support tickets in the last two months – and this is a free plugin. That’s a good track record!”

Cloudflare

“Cloudflare is a Content Deliver Network (CDN) that brings content closer to your users by caching static web content on its network. Dynamic WordPress content is compressed and routed on the fastest, least congested path to the end-user. Because cached content is stored on the CF network, your server’s traffic load is greatly reduced. Like W3TC, CF allows you to clear your entire site cache at the push of a button, or you can manually clear one or more specific resources (this is very helpful when making changes to your CSS!).

In addition to their caching features, Cloudflare provides multiple SSL implementation options, as well as DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) protection.”

W3 Total Cache and Cloudflare Combined

“Combining the W3TC plugin and Cloudflare frees up your server(s) for more immediate tasks and it provides a faster, more efficient website experience to site visitors. Highly recommend!”

Ian Pegg

You already have a website but the problem is, so does everyone else! To stand out these days, you need to be outstanding. At EggCup Web Design, our mission is to help you find your people by working with you to take your digital strategy to the next level.

https://eggcupwebdesign.com

LiteSpeed Cache – “Without hesitation, the caching plugin I always recommend is LiteSpeed Cache. Whilst the plugin will work on any Apache or NGiNX server, to make use of the page caching features, you will need to have a web server with either OpenLiteSpeed or the commercial alternative offered by LiteSpeed installed.

Guru web hosting (based in the UK) offer shared hosting with the LiteSpeed web server installed for about a fiver a month. At this price point, you will be blown away by the speed and memory efficiency. LiteSpeed is still compatible with Apache configuration files (htaccess rules stay the same) but it blows vanilla Apache out of the water. I believe many tests have also shown LiteSpeed to be faster than NGiNX too!

Coming back to the plugin itself, it is fully featured, and as far as caching plugins go, fairly easy to set up. The default settings are sensible for many site configurations. The plugin makes the most of the distinct advantage that it knows what kind of web server environment to expect.

If you simply install the plugin into a LiteSpeed environment and go with the default settings, you will notice an enormous performance improvement right off the bat. However, if you’re a tech head like me or you know an experienced web developer, then get them to configure it properly. It will be worth the investment, especially if you run a larger or more sophisticated website.

The plugin also minimises and concatenates JS and CSS and can generate ‘above the fold’ critical CSS to dramatically improve page rendering times. Better yet, the plugin includes lazy loading for images and iframes and will compress your media library using the WebP format. Whilst the interface for compressing and converting images is a bit clunky compared to SmushIt, the plugin can consistently deliver a 60 – 80% reduction in image file sizes — even for images I’ve already compressed using JPEGMini!

I could go on about other killer features, such as the Memcached/Redis object cache integration (for which you’ll need a VPS), but if I haven’t convinced you to give it a go by now, I never will be able to!

I’ll finish my recommendation with a real-life example: after full configuration, one of the sites I moved across from an Apache shared hosting environment to a LiteSpeed shared hosting environment saw a 1000% performance improvement! The best thing was that the plugin is free and the hosting itself didn’t cost any more than what I was already paying!”

Justin Scarpetti

I am a Co-Founder and the Director of Web Development at Webstract Marketing. We are a full-service web design & internet marketing agency created for small and medium businesses.

https://www.webstractmarketing.com/

“I’ll keep this short and sweet. And I’ll only recommend 1 plugin. Drumroll, please…”

WP Rocket – “Sometimes in the WordPress community, people tend to think that by working in an open-source world you don’t need to buy licenses for anything. While that may be the case for some, you’re probably missing out on some awesome plugins and other WordPress integrations. WP Rocket is one of those plugins.

Our team has built near 1,000 websites, so we’ve had the chance to experiment with a LOT of plugins, many of them performance plugins. But as of 4 years ago, we exclusively use WP Rocket. It works great, the price and licensing options are great, the interface is great, support is great, everything about it is great. Every feature that we need is built into WP Rocket. Some of those features include the basics like caching, minifying, and concatenation. But other not-so-common features include sitemap based cache preloading, database optimization, lazyload for images, deferred JS loading, DNS prefetching, lots of filters, and good support documentation.

I also love that I can log into my WP Rocket dashboard and see every website that is using our current license (which is currently over 400 websites right now). If I see one that should no longer be in our account, I can easily remove it from our account. I’m sure many will have their opinions on other plugins, that’s what makes this community great! But if they didn’t mention WP Rocket then don’t listen to them ?

Thanks for reading!”

Manuel Masia

Lead dev for Uncode theme by Undsgn, Wordpress guy for more than a decade, father of two, husband of one, literature addicted

https://www.facebook.com/undsgn/

WP Rocket – “I vote WP Rocket as the best premium solution: great support, tons of features, very ductile.”
WP Fastest Cache – “Not perfect, but easy to use and with the most necessary features.”

Robert Ryan

A WordPress native with a focus on SEO and building sites that help build businesses for clients.

https://robertryan.ie

WP Rocket – “When it comes to caching plugins my go-to plugin is, undoubtedly, WP Rocket. It is a plugin I’ve been using for years and is one of the best on the market that I’ve found. Relatively easy to configure for a beginner, but with a variety of options for those who want to get into the nitty gritty; it really is a great caching solution. Coupled with their stellar support and pretty competitive pricing when it comes to caching, WP Rocket cannnot be overlooked. Paired up with a Cloudflare CDN and Smush for image compression, WP Rocket will give you all the tools and features you need to get your site humming!”

Justin Meadows

Owner of TunedWP, my team and I have been optimising the performance of WordPress websites for over 10 years.

https://tunedwp.com/

WP Fastest Cache – “The plugin our team default to when optimising a website is WP Fastest Cache (premium). We have tested a few, but this plugin consistently produces a fantastic result. Another big consideration is that this plugin rarely produces conflicts or any other errors in WordPress. We work with a wide range of websites built by other developers and so occasional issues and conflicts occur, but this plugin runs into far fewer issues than others. It is also extremely easy to set up, with easy to follow instructions and documentation. Another advantage is the one-time fee of $50 making this a very affordable premium plugin.”
Breeze – “Our second choice is Breeze (free). This produces a fantastic speed improvement for a free plugin. It is not as powerful as premium plugins and has fewer features (as you’d expect), but it is very easy to use and you’ll see a significant speed improvement. It integrates well with Varnish server caching, but unfortunately we often need to turn that feature off as it can cause conflicts with Beaver Page builder, which we use a lot.”
WP Rocket – “Finally, I would recommend WP Rocket (premium). This is a more expensive premium caching plugin. It is feature-rich and can produce great speed improvements. It is a little more technical (but not as technical as W3TC), it has a recurring fee (which gives trust of ongoing support). This plugin can occasionally have conflicts with some themes, especially the minification feature.”

Ben May

Ben May is the Managing Director of The Code Company, an Australian technical agency that specialises WordPress solutions for established digital publishers.

https://thecode.co

Batcache – “Batcache is a single file caching solution that works on some of the largest WordPress sites around. It is a developer focused plugin, it has no admin UI or settings page. It requires WordPress to have an object cache (such as memcache) installed and running.

Because Batcache uses the object cache, it is more suitable for our large projects because a lot of caching plugins write files to disk, which is not possible on large multi server environments. It also works in harmony with the rest of our setups which include nginx page caching and CloudFlare caching.”
WP Fastest Cache – “Easy to use, mostly straightforward. Free version does quite a bit of out of the box, which provides significant performance increases. We’ve used on multiple sites with noticeable performance increases. Free version also does more out of the box than the other big caching plugins.

The premium version isn’t crazy expensive. It unlocks additional features like mobile caching, image compression, lazy load, and further minifying of html, css, and JS (removal of spaces, comments, etc).”

Jan Koch

Jan runs a WP-service agency for clients across the globe and develops custom WP themes and plugins. He fell in love with WP in 2012 and works with WP whenever his wife or his two dogs give him time.

https://wpmastery.xyz

Which caching plugin you should choose highly depends on your hosting provider and your website setup. For example, Cloudways has a really good free caching plugin called Breeze – I tend to use that a lot. Siteground has their own caching plugin as well.

If possible, I advocate to first try the hosting-specific caching plugin if there is any. Those are, if well built like Breeze, deeply integrated into your hosting architecture and can sometimes lead to faster website speed than generic caching plugins.

WP Rocket – “If you ask me for the best paid caching plugin, I’d vote for WP Rocket. Many of the websites my team maintains run with WP Rocket and they fly. It’s a very comprehensive plugin and supports not just plain blogs, but also more taxing requirements like eCommerce, integrating CDNs, and lazy loading for media files. The ease of use makes it easy to configure and it runs stable.”
Swift Performance – “My team also likes Swift Performance for caching. Their lite version is pretty good for the basics. But to get to a level close to WP Rocket, you’ll have to upgrade to the paid version Swift Performance Pro.”

So, my recommendations are: hosting-specific plugins should be tried first, then compared to WP Rocket, and lastly to Swift Performance Pro.

Joe Stone

I am a freelance WordPress developer based in Essex, UK with over 10 years experience creating beautiful bespoke websites from the ground up.

http://jswebdev.co.uk

WP Fastest Cache – “This is always my go-to caching plugin for WordPress, it is by far the easiest plugin to get set up and the results are on par with most premium caching plugins.

WP Fastest Cache creates static HTML files for your website, which has a huge impact on page size and loading times. Other features include minification, browser caching, GZIP compression and the ability to combine JavaScript and CSS files to reduce the requests that are sent from your server.”
WP Rocket – “This is a premium caching plugin that includes a rich feature list. It is ideal for beginners because it is functional after activating the plugin, however, if you would prefer to tweak some settings, there are a huge amount of settings that can be configured to suit the website’s needs.

One popular feature is to lazy load images, so that they are not loaded until the image has scrolled into the viewport. This will decrease page loading times and it will have a positive impact on your Google Page Speed score.”
Cache Enabler – “This lightweight plugin is ideal for sites where page loading time is the main priority. I have not found a better plugin that can decrease loading times as efficiently as Cache Enabler. Another great feature is the ability to serve the new image format “WebP” without JavaScript. Using WebP images will help to further decrease the page size and loading times.”

“In conclusion – WP Fastest Cache is my preferred WordPress caching plugin because of the quick set up, great results and its easy to configure settings. If you want to get even better results from this plugin, you can upgrade to the premium version, which will give you better caching results and additional options such as JS combining and minification.”

Nick Gramatikov

CTO at Digitawise, a digital ecommerce and marketing agency, headquartered in Los Angeles. Strategic problem-solver, with experience on both the marketing and the technical side of the digital realm.

https://www.digitawise.com

WP Fastest Cache – “In my experience building different corporate sites and ecommerce stores on the WP platform, I would recommend using WP Fastest Cache.

WP Fastest Cache comes in two options – Free and Premium (paid). The free option is great for smaller corporate websites that need basic optimization, including desktop and browser cache, minify HTML/CSS, as well as gZip compression. Really this is more than enough for a small site that doesn’t have much traffic. With the gZip that compresses the files sent from the server, it definitely improves load speed and decreases total page size.

The Premium (paid) version comes with a few more awesome features, that allow you to optimize your images, cleanup your database, minify and combine JS and more. This type of functionality is really helpful for larger sites with more traffic and larger informational infrastucture. The database cleanup feature for example is great when it comes to making a lot of revisions to different pages or posts, as WordPress by default saves all revisions in the database, which can significantly slow down the website.

We always cross-check the site performance through different tools including GtMetrix, Pingdom and Google Page Speed Insights and we see significant improvement with this plugin. Not to mention that it is easy to install and setup, without the need of touching the server htaccess file.”

Jean-Francois Arseneault

Jean-François is co-founder of SatelliteWP (a WordPress management service), has been using WordPress for 14 years and is involved in the community since 2010 as volunteer, speaker and co-organizer of WordCamp Montreal. He also supervises the translation of the WordPress ecosystem as well a Beaver Builder and WP Rocket to French. In his spare time, he likes to run (so he thinks) and spends time on his sailboat.

https://www.satellitewp.com

WP Rocket – “For years now, I’ve been recommending WP Rocket as an alternative to the free caching plugins available, and the most important reason is simple … the plugin is as simple as they come! Activate it and it’s already running with a basic configuration, providing immediate results.

Of course, you may enable additional features to gain even more performance. And in doubt, WP Rocket’s documentation is thorough, their tech support is top-notch and they’re taking a proactive stance in ensuring their plugin is tested and compatible with all major hosting providers.

The money spent on this plugin will easily save you hours of works, while providing extreme performance painlessly!”
WP Super Cache – “What’s not to like with WP Super Cache : it’s free, it works very well and it’s from Automattic, the company behind WordPress, so you know it’ll always be compatible with WordPress.

It offers a few modes to choose from, supports CDN and advanced configurations, but the Simple Mode lets you get an instant boost with minimal risk. Highly Recommended.”

Shawn DeWolfe

I am web developer with 23 years in the business. I have built sites with PHP, Perl, ASP, C# and HTML. Nowadays, I do a lot of work with WordPress.

https://shawndewolfe.com/performance/

WP Fastest Cache – “The WordPress caching plugin that I like the best is the WP Fastest Cache combined with some other techniques. I have tried other caching plugins, but found that the best end effect came from WP Fastest Cache. I will combine it with other plugins and techniques:

1) I use Cloudflare as a CDN to speed delivery and cache some assets.

2) Shortpixel is great at shrinking image sizes to get sites under control.

3) I will use Scripts to Footer in some instances to get render blocking scripts to appear in the bottom of the body.

4) If possible (in terms of time, budget and design), I will convert images into sprites to save on the requests.

5) I like to use SVG images as much as possible, they are small and vector based– two great ways to get a lot more horsepower out of a website.

To assess how well I am doing, I will put key pages through GTMetrix.com to look for weak spots. As I find issues, I return to the site and tweak it more.”

Tony Cecala

WordPress Consultant, Speaker, Community Organizer

https://TonyCecala.com

WP Super Cache – “I’m a big fan of WP Super Cache by Automattic. Using this plugin on client sites helps me sleep well at night. I know that when WordPress updates, this plugin has a high probably of working well because it is maintained by WordPress’ “home office”, Automattic.

What I love about this plugin is that is operates in multiple modes depending on the user level.

It can be simply configured for beginners, in a kind of “set it and forget it” mode. Simple mode just serves static files with PHP and this works well.

Expert mode is the fastest method and bypasses PHP. This is called Expert mode, but really doesn’t require any deep knowledge of server technology. Of course, for developers and geeks, Automattic includes the potential for making API calls and configuring a CDN.

For users of the plugin who need a little help with installation and configuration, Automattic includes a 30-point troubleshooting list of helpful measures written in a user-friendly manner.

When used with the amazing Autoptimize plugin, most WordPress websites will load blazingly fast and will score well with PageSpeed and YSlow. Caching is wonderful, but if a page still loads 35 different CSS and JS files, then the DNS lookups and additional overhead of loading those separate files will impact load time. Autoptimize combines the CSS and the JS and also minifies HTML to make all pages, cached and uncached, load a lot faster.

Autoptimize also works hand-in-hand with several caching plugins as outlined below.”

Autoptimize makes optimizing your site really easy. It can aggregate, minify and cache scripts and styles, injects CSS in the page head by default but can also inline critical CSS and defer the aggregated full CSS, moves and defers scripts to the footer and minifies HTML. You can optimize (and even convert to WebP) and lazy-load images, optimize Google Fonts, async non-aggregated JavaScript, remove WordPress core emoji cruft and more. As such it can improve your site’s performance even when already on HTTP/2! There is extensive API available to enable you to tailor Autoptimize to each and every site’s specific needs.

If you consider performance important, you really should use one of the many caching plugins to do page caching. Some good candidates to complement Autoptimize that way are e.g. WP Super Cache, HyperCache, Comet Cache or KeyCDN’s Cache Enabler.

Andrew Sazonov

More than 20 years of experience in software and information systems projects development, software development, networking and Internet systems development. Leader and senior developer in various software projects for different branches of industry and business.

http://www.crispwp.com

“WP. Caching. Questions for reality check and ask yourself as a solution provider just a several simple questions:

1) Do we need it?

2) Do we REALLY need it?

3) Why do you need caching – and what’s wrong with the site you’ve developed?

An honest answer to these questions will save you time. There are just a limited set of options:

You simply created something slow – and desperately hope that caching will save you and your client. Well – that’s not good and you try to save something – but it’s a bit late.
Wow – the site you’re going to build will attract more visitors than Google plus YouTube. Really?
Something is the middle of above. And that’s good ground to start.

As with any caching solution, there are pros and cons. It’s simple to make “a cache”. It’s hard to insure that cache is invalidated properly. As usual, there are no “silver bullets” and in some cases, caching may deliver lots of interesting yet hard to solve issues.”

WP Super Cache – “Well, and anyway, if we’re talking about simple, boring and the most common – and simple case. – there is WP Super Cache. It’s not too smart if you have users who are logged in. Ok. But it’s more than good enough if most of your visitors should not log-in and if they will not return some comments. Sad but true – lots of one-time visitors – and you (of course, the site you develop) should serve them fast.

That’s cool – that’s the most optimal case for us. Simple, fast, pain, widely adopted… oh, and it’s supported by Automatticians… You know – these guys are behind the creation of WordPress and other sites. Well, I can believe these guys do know how to cook WordPress and they are good enough with cache.

More than enough for simple sandbox and 90% of typical clients. And workloads. Simple way for most cases.

“But if you are really going to do something more. Something. Say – 74 billion unique visitors. In an hour. Well, in this case, you’re going to be beyond the limits of this plugin. And if you’d still like to house your site within the WordPress framework, you’ll need a custom caching solution.”

For such cases – we handle this is using our in-house solution. And there is nothing I can really share or recommend. Redis, Varnish. Clusters. Replication and CDNs. Amazon. Just to give you a few pointers…

As I said – there is no silver bullet. For loaded sites – Think. Try. Measure. Think again. Improve. Try something weird. Do something great you may be proud of.”

Panagiotis Synetos

Hey, I’m Panos (short for Panagiotis), a web developer with more than 15 years of experience in IT. I am the owner of 11 Digit Labs, a web development agency based in Athens and a proud member of the Codeable team. I’m an all-around guy and enjoy solving problems and finding solutions. I love technology, black coffee and beer in no particular order.

https://codeable.io/developers/panagiotis-synetos/?ref=nOTk3

There are two plugins that I prefer to use, WP Rocket and W3 Total Cache.

WP Rocket – “First of all, I like WP Rocket because it’s effective. It’s user friendly and very easy to configure, the ideal plugin for the “non-tech” people. Most of the time it works out the box or barely needs configuration. Last but not least, I love the “Separate cache files for mobile devices” feature.”
W3 Total Cache – “On the other hand, W3 Total Cache is effective, but it’s not a plugin for the “non-tech” people. I like it because it has tons of advanced but complicated options that give developers full flexibility, but may be frustrating for the simple website owner. And a bonus point for the mobile support, apparently, it’s very important.”

Jason Koning

I’m a professional WordPress consultant who has made my living building, hosting & maintaining WordPress sites for small businesses across New Zealand & Australia for more than a decade.

https://aotearoawebdesign.co.nz/

WP Rocket – “I’ve used WP Rocket for a number of years, & it is still my go to caching plugin, despite my host (SiteGround) having their own solution. What I like about WP Rocket is its integration with external services, like CloudFlare, content delivery networks & being able to take care of things like Heartbeat & database optimisation, all within the one plugin. They also have stellar documentation & support. Being able to cache Facebook Pixel & Google Analytics is also a bonus, so long as you’re not using Google Tag Manager to install those scripts on your site – which is a little frustrating. They do have some pretty stiff competition these days in Swift Performance, but then competition is a good thing. The articles they provide in their newsletter are also fantastic, so I’m sticking with WP Rocket.”

Wil Brown

Dad / WordPress Consultant / Developer / Conference Speaker and Organiser. Living in Sydney.

https://zeropointdevelopment.com/

WP Rocket – “For clients not on a managed WordPress hosting plan, I always recommend the premium WP Rocket plugin for caching. It starts caching your site from the moment the plugin is activated – no setup required and that’s what most clients are after.

There are options to minify CSS and JavaScript files, and lazyload images for extra oomph, as well as the usual exclusion options for eCommerce checkout and dashboard pages.”
WP Super Cache – “It’s free and it works like a charm! Minimal setup required and your site is running faster already. Maintained by Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, you will not have any compatibility issues between WordPress core and this plugin.

The interface is super easy, with an expert mode if you think you know what you’re doing.”
Nginx +FastCGI Caching – “What the frak is that!!?? Nginx is an alternative to the popular Apache web server. The setup works just like the caching plugins above by storing already compiled PHP to HTML files in memory at the web server (hardware) level, pumping them out as static HTML files at lightning speed. Yes, this is a level up in skillset, but damn will it make your website zoom at warp speed without having to install any WordPress caching plugin. Win!”

Malcolm Peralty

WordPress user since before version 1.0, Malcolm has done it all. Currently, the co-founder of PressTitan, a WordPress service agency.

https://www.presstitan.com

“The best caching plugin really depends on your hosting environment. Some WordPress hosts don’t need you to add a caching plugin at all, some have their own that they have created, and others use one of the popular picks to speed up their WordPress websites.”

WP Rocket – “Our current favourite is WP Rocket (https://wp-rocket.me/), it has a ton of options, but is also very easy to use. The best part is that if you run NGINX, you can use RocketNGINX (https://github.com/SatelliteWP/rocket-nginx) and get a huge performance boost on your WordPress website. RocketNGINX basically allows you to bypass WordPress completely and go right from NGINX to the static cached file. Even without that more advanced configuration option, we have seen sites go from eight seconds in loading time to under two seconds just with WP Rocket configured correctly.

One of the big criticisms that I see for WP Rocket is that it is a premium plugin, but if you sell anything on your website or depend on page speed for SEO/brand/marketing growth, then I think the price to value ratio is amazing.

Don’t forget if your server runs Varnish or you are using Cloudflare, to enable the option under add-ons for clearing them as well, it’ll save you so much trouble down the road.”

Martin Jarvis

https://dmjcomputerservices.com/

WP Rocket – “My vote for the best WordPress caching plugin goes to WP Rocket. During the 12 years I’ve been building WordPress websites, I’ve used many other caching plugins (such as WP Super Cache and W3 Total Cache), but WP Rocket is superior on every count… except you need to pay for it! It’s not expensive, at $49 per year for a single site, but it offers so much more than just simple page caching. Features like deferred JS loading, image lazyloading, and removing query strings from static resources help to improve page speed scores from the likes of GTMetrix. Scheduled database optimisations and cache preloading ensure snappy response times, and it’s dead easy to integrate with CDN’s such as Cloudflare and MaxCDN (Stackpath).

It works straight out of the box too, and although there are loads of settings to tweak, you can just install and activate it to get going. Not all WordPress websites are the same, though, and some WP Rocket options may not be suitable for every site, so if you’re going to go for maximum effect (switching all options ‘on’) then you’ll need to set some time aside to test your site afterwards to make sure nothing is broken.

As I look after a lot of client websites, I tend to roll WP Rocket out as a value add to clients, helping them get faster websites and happier, and more engaged, visitors. Although there is an annual fee, it’s great to know there is a team of developers constantly working to improve the product and add new features, and who are happy to support you when you run into difficulties.”

Liam Webster

Managing director of a WordPress focused digital agency based in West Yorkshire

http://www.identifywebdesign.co.uk

LiteSpeed Cache – “Without a doubt is our winner in this category. Even with its basic settings, out of the box, you’ll notice a huge speed increase – and its basic settings are suitable for most websites. So you’re a pro with caches? Litespeed gives you tonnes of options to play with – such as excluding certain pages or queries by URI, minification and combination of JS and CSS, and loads of fine tuning options (it even plays nicely with CDNS). Litespeed is also compatible with WooCommerce, which is a huge requirement in our line of work (we’ve all had nasty issues before with the basket caching with other plugins!)

The downside? Your server has to run Litespeed as a replacement for Apache or NGINX. We use Guru for our managed hosting requirements, and we seriously recommend them.

So, you can’t host your site on a Litespeed server? That sucks, but there are still some other options….”
Autoptimize – “Autoptimize minifies and compresses HTML, CSS and JS – so it can dramatically reduce the size of your site, and help to please that pesky Google Page speed test by reducing the amount of JS and CSS files your site loads. Be careful though, blindly enabling these options can cause problems, especially with plugins that don’t enqueue JS or CSS in the WordPress way. Autoptimize also allows some other cool features such as deferring scripts to the footer, and can integrate with CDNs (although we haven’t tested this).”
WP Super Cache – “So, this is our fallback (sorry guys) when we can’t host a client’s site on a Litespeed server. It has some great options, and works usually just as well as Litespeed with one main downside – it doesn’t handle the caching of private or dynamic content very well in our opinion (see comment above about cached shopping carts). WP Super Cache encourages the use of JS for dynamic data, and provides developers with a filter to use, but this isn’t always what you want to hear when you’ve spent months developing a site, to have to make last minute changes to make it compatible with a cache. The only other downside is it doesn’t offer minification or lazy load (that Litespeed does), and so we use it in conjunction with Autoptimize above.”

Tracey Rickard

I am a professional freelance website designer and WordPress specialist. I have been designing and building bespoke themes on the WordPress platform since 2009.

https://traceyrickard.co.uk

“Caching is so important for a website, as page speed forms part of the Google search algorithm. I am recommending caching plugins here, but I would also say that there are some great hosting companies who offer top notch caching as part of their package. For example, you don’t need to install anything with WP-Engine to get lightening fast speeds.

You will quickly see that I focus on great caching and ease of use for the website owner. Caching is complex and that needs to be taken care of for you.”

WP Rocket – “My number one is WP Rocket. It’s absolutely brilliant, so good I use it myself. Whilst there are advanced configurations, you can just install and go and watch your website speed up immediately. It is a fully featured optimsation plugin, so focuses on more of the page load elements than caching alone. It will sort out everything you need, such GZIP compression, reducing file sizes through minification and loading images only as required – when the visitor scrolls. This is a premium plugin though and the cost is $49USD per year. Money well spent as far as I am concerned.”
WP Super Cache – “Number two is WP Super Cache. This is built by the people behind WordPress, Automattic. This is a free plugin available through the WordPress repository. It’s easy to setup and is great as a caching only plugin. WordPress generally uses PHP to load the page, gathering together all of the data it needs prior to loading, so this can take time. WP Super Cache generates static HTML pages, pretty much a snapshot of a ready loaded page, so these are much smaller and quicker to load. I think for the sake of 5-minutes it is worth installing this if you don’t have a caching plugin, it will give your visitors a much better experience.”
Hummingbird – “Number three is Hummingbird. The free version of Hummingbird is a very good product. Like WP Rocket it is a fully featured optimisation plugin that compresses files, does the GZIP stuff, optimises file and image loading and provides a complete caching solution. I quite like this one because it lets you know what could be done to speed up your site and offers you one click options to get the best solutions. If you really want a belt and braces solution, you can run this and WP Rocket together. The reason I put this lower down the list is because if you decide to move up to the premium version (which you will need to do if you take all of their suggestions on board) you have to subscribe to the full WPMUDEV package, which is $49/month. Having said that it does give you everything you need to run your site from hosting to marketing and SEO.”

Rob Stephens

Wordpress web designer and

The Most Common WordPress Errors

An Overview of the WordPress Errors + Problems Covered in This Post

What the Experts Said: Solutions to WordPress Errors Explained

Ilene Johnson

Exceeds the Maximum Upload Size for this Site

Cristina Robinson

Stuck in Maintenance Mode

Arūnas Liuiza

White Screen of Death

Scott Kindred

WordPress Website Not Sending Email

Scott Bothel

PHP Version Mismatch

Natalie Famula

Connection is Timing Out (504 Error)

Lisa Rees

Internal Server Error (500)

Jithin Mathew

HTTP Error During Media Upload

Scott Adrian

Bad connection to your REST API

Juan Pineda

Broken Links on Your Website (404 Error)

Sarah Strait

“Your Connection Is Not Private” SSL Issues

Jenn Gardiner

Critical Error on Website

Lucas Benvenuto

WordPress Migration Fails and is Not Working as Expected

Sherry Holub

Broken Images in Media Gallery

Paul Portelli

WordPress redirecting to Old URL When an Installation is Migrated to a New Host or a Completely New URL

Ali Khallad

Redirect loop ( ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS )

Ionut Calara

Plugin Cannot Be Deactivated/Breaks the Site After Activation

Mykolas Raižys

Uncaught TypeError: $ is not a function” jQuery Error

Eileen Mullin

Links to Your WordPress Site on Social Media Don’t Include an Image

Giannis Kipouros

Huge Error Log File (debug.log, php_errorlog etc.)

Milan Petrovic

WordPress PHP Memory Exhausted Error

Marius Vetrici

Nasty JavaScript Errors in the Browser Console

Nikola Birisic

Error Establishing Database Connection

Carlos Alvarez

URL’s Not Working with Custom Taxonomies/Post Types

Pierre Saïkali

“Maximum Execution Time of X Seconds Exceeded” Error

Thomas Sultana

Parse Error: Syntax Error (….. on line 42)

Matt Bonacini

Edits on Design or Content Not Visible On Your Website

Marc McDougall

Corrupted Database Preventing WP Admin User Logins

Nikola Petrov

You’re Locked Out of Your WordPress Website

Milenko Radic

Error When Uploading SVG Files To WordPress

Giulio Daprela

“Are You Sure You Want to Do This” Error

Zeljko Skipic

WP-admin Not Working

Marcel Brown

cURL error 28

Nemanja Cimbaljevic

File Permission Errors

How to Secure Your WordPress Website Quickly

Best Themes to Use with Elementor? How the Experts Voted

A Closer Look at the 4 Top-Voted Elementor Themes (Including Both Paid + Free Elementor Themes)

1. Hello Theme

2. Astra

3. GeneratePress

4. OceanWP

Damian Urbaniec

Dhruv Pandya