When building and designing websites on WordPress, two names often come up: Elementor and Gutenberg. Both have their loyal followings and have significantly impacted the WordPress ecosystem. Our first post in this series highlighted the basics between the WordPress Gutenberg Block Editor and Elementor.
My post will provide a detailed comparison between these two giants, focusing on their usability, design capabilities, performance, and more.
Usability and User Experience
- Elementor offers a front-end, drag-and-drop interface, allowing users to see their real-time changes. Its learning curve is relatively gentle for beginners, and the visual builder particularly appeals to those with a design background.
Source: Elementor
- With its block-based editor, Gutenberg integrates seamlessly into the WordPress admin, offering a more streamlined experience for content creation. It’s less about design and more about efficiently structuring content, making it straightforward for those familiar with WordPress.
Source: Perfect Afternoon
Design Capabilities
- Elementor shines in its vast array of design options. With its wide selection of widgets, style options, and mobile editing capabilities, it’s geared toward users who want full control over their site’s appearance.
- Gutenberg is catching up, with an increasing number of blocks and third-party block libraries expanding its design potential. However, it remains more limited compared to Elementor’s extensive styling options.
Performance
- Elementor’s rich feature set can lead to heavier page loads, particularly if many elements and animations are used. It’s crucial to optimize Elementor sites for performance to ensure they remain fast and responsive.
- Gutenberg is inherently lightweight, given its core integration with WordPress. Sites built with Gutenberg tend to load faster and perform better, especially on mobile devices.
Extensibility and Ecosystem
- Elementor has a vast ecosystem of third-party add-ons and widgets, allowing users to extend its functionality beyond the core plugin.
- Gutenberg benefits from the WordPress community’s support, with many plugins and themes designed to enhance and extend the block editor’s capabilities.
Cost
- Elementor offers a free version with basic features, but accessing the full range of widgets and design options requires an Advanced or Expert subscription ($99-$199/year).
- Gutenberg is completely free and included in WordPress, making it an accessible option for our partners.
What’s Perfect Afternoon’s Choice?
Choosing between Elementor and Gutenberg comes down to your specific needs, skills, and the type of project you’re working on. Gutenberg offers a solid, cost-effective solution if you value simplicity, performance, and integration with WordPress.
Elementor could become a solution If you prioritize design flexibility and are willing to invest in a tool that can bring your creative visions to life, but with our website development & UX services, we prioritize the web design process just as much as the build process.
Both Elementor and Gutenberg are powerful in their own right, and understanding their strengths and weaknesses can help you make an informed decision that best suits your WordPress journey.
When building WordPress websites, Perfect Afternoon prefers and stands behind Gutenberg as our only choice.
Please contact our web design agency today to discuss your next WordPress project.
