Introduction
Let’s understand first what is Elementor and why is it getting so popular as the coolest WordPress plug-in.
Elementor is a website building plug-in for WordPress with a drag and drop interface. This means you don’t need to have any coding skills to create impressive page layouts/designs. It’s a fully loaded with features to build a professional website and that too for free. There’s a premium option also available, called Elementor Pro, offering some additional features
Elementor serves web professionals including developers, designers and marketers and boasts a new website created every 10 seconds on its platform. Since it’s launch in 2016, Elementor has more than 5 million active installs, and has 4.5K five-star reviews in the WordPress repository with reach extending to 180 countries.
Despite tough competition, it has gained popularity and has become the prevalent choice for visual page builders for WordPress, as it lets you create a fine-looking website with zero understanding of coding.
Features
Drag and drop editor – You can just move content like texts, forms, buttons, or images just by simple drag and drop.
Designer-made templates – Choose from over 300 beautifully crafted templates, designed to fit every industry and need.
Responsive Editing – This functionality allows you to build, tweak, modify your pages easily and review each outcome in real-time. You can switch to mobile view while tweaking every element to make it look perfect on any device.
Widgets – Elementor offers more than 90 widgets, including heading, Image, Text Editor, Button, Progress Bar, Price List, Flip Box, Search Bar, Site Title, Call to Action, Media Course, Share button, Countdown, and Facebook Comments, etc.
No coding – Yes, you read it right. Without knowing HTML or CSS you can create beautiful web pages without writing a single line of code.
Finder – It’s a search bar offering easy navigation between different pages and dashboard settings
Navigator – Lets you navigate between all page elements or layers, quickly glance custom changes and easily access them via indicators
Autosave – You can focus more on progressing your web page design rather than worrying about losing the progress, it will be continuously saved and backed-up automatically
Draft mode – You can continue working on a published page by saving it as a draft
In-line Editing – This feature allows you to type directly on-screen, and make a blog post and content writing an easy and intuitive process
Theme Builder – This lets you customize each and every page detail, be it fonts for titles, paragraphs, and even button text. You can add a distinguishing touch to your site’s design by defining colors
Form Builder – This lets you customize all your data forms in a matter of seconds, easily, with minimal effort
Background Videos – This lets you add interesting background videos to make you background come alive
Mobile friendly– Elementor has an option of Tablet and Mobile viewing version, along with the standard Desktop view. That way you can work simultaneously on all three versions, without one disturbing the other.
Version History –Like most of us, while trying to reach perfection, take it too far and the journey back can be difficult if we don’t know where to find the step to stop. With Elementor, you can track all the changes made and take it back to the version you want to have instead of wishing to ‘undo’ and not knowing until when.
Version Control – If you want to roll back to the previous version, you can do it easily with just one click.
WooCommerece Builder – WooCommerce is a great e-commerce platform. Elementor is 100% compatible with it and lets you add an online shop to your page, using the WooCommerce Builder. You get access to over 15 premium WooCommerce widgets as well, to customize and edit!
Role manager – You can assign roles based on which people you have given access can make changes. This saves the team from the mess as too many hands might spoil.
Elementor Experts is a network for web creators, letting them demonstrate their finest work, get hired, and hire fellow web designers, marketers, and developers.
I can keep listing the features and the list would seem unending. Above mentioned features are the main features. These are the most helpful features, according to my experience. There are loads of features, which I’ll give you the privilege and fun to explore!
What Types of Widget Elementor has?
Let’s first understand what a Widget is. These are the little building blocks you use to piece your content together. Elementor widget is a Design Element that gives freedom to design any type of website. Such widgets come with a simple drag at your desired section feature, letting you place any design Elements and functionality effortlessly.
Elementor has a quite big library to let you choose-
If you decide to go for the Elementor Pro version, you’ll have access to additional Widgets-
In case you couldn’t find the widget you need? Elementor offers two more options to explore-
- 3rd party widgets (add-ons)
- Build your own widget
Elementor Pricing
You can use most of Elementor’s features for free for a basic website. But there’s a Pro edition available as well which not only lets you use Elementor for multiple sites, there are a lot of features to add to Elementor’s awesomeness.
Let’s take a quick look at the additional features provided by Elementor Pro-
- 50+ additional content elements/modules.
- 300+ additional page templates.
- Theme Builder (this is a module which lets you can change the headers and footers of your current theme).
- WooCommerce Builder (this is a module which lets you restructure your WooCommerce product pages).
- Popup Builder (this is a module which lets you build pop-ups and have them integrated with either an opt-in form or some special offer/discount).
- Form Builder (it comes with integrations with popular marketing tools).
- You can create Global Widgets and later reuse them throughout the site.
- Add custom CSS to any Elementor block.
- Deploy Elementor elements in sidebars and widgets.
The Pro version is an annual subscription and there are three price options available. All three versions consist of similar features offered, and the variation in pricing is because of the number of sites on which you wish to use Elementor. The three packages are:
- Essential – $49/year, with a license across a single site only.
- Advanced – $99/year, with a license valid across three sites.
- Expert – $199/year, subscribing to which, the license is valid across twenty-five sites.
Key difference between plan
The Pro version is an annual subscription and there are three price options available. All three versions consist similar features offered, and the key difference between the plans is in how many sites you want to use Elementor. The three plans are-
- Essential – $49/year, with a license across a single site only.
- Advanced – $99/year, with a license valid across three sites.
- Expert – $199/year, subscribing to which, license is valid across twenty-five sites.
Expert plan offers an added feature of Elementor Experts Network profile, this feature will get you access to Elementor Experts network for web creators, where you can showcase your finest work and get hired, or you can hire fellow web designers, marketers, and developers. (Note: Experts Network is in Beta. At this stage support will be available on best effort basis.)
Which plan should you choose?
Depending on the number of websites you would want Elementor support in, you can choose from the above-mentioned plans.
Otherwise, Elementor free version offers enough features to let you design your website.
Pros and cons of Elementor
Pros–
The strongest point of Elementor is that it lets you visually customize any part of any WordPress theme along with offering lots of elements that can be used to quickly create impressive page designs and templates
Elementor is 100% compatible with WooCommerce and with Elementor’s WooCommerce Builder, you can design and sell products on your site.
It’s so easy to use! You just need to install it and start building your page without going through much documentation reading
Elementor is fully responsive and you can see the real-time view of how your website would look to the user and not just on desktop but also on tablet and mobile.
Cons–
The major missed out option of a “lifetime” plan is quite bothering, which could have allowed you to pay a one-time fee and then be able to enjoy the page builder as much as you need.
Various Elementor reviews consist of criticism on their support for their unwillingness to put the customer first and solve problems that take extra effort.
Why will you select Elementor?
There are several benefits, for both those who know to code and even those who don’t, to create a website
If you are one of those website owners who aren’t savvy in front-end web development, you should definitely install and create your website with clean hands. As Elementor doesn’t require any coding knowledge, you can use it without worrying and just drag and drop your elements, play around with themes and colors. This will also save lots of money spent on Web development services.
If you are a web developer with multiple sites, Elementor is for you too. I can assure you of feeling the sigh of breath that comes with not spending countless hours in tweaking the site and instead focus on content. You can save your design templates and reuse them in the future. So, saving a lot of your time.
FAQ
Is Elementor the Best WordPress Page Builder?
Well, it is definitely among the best tool of its type in the market as of now. Elementor is easy to use, reliable, and a saviour for people completely new to designing templates.
Is Elementor Open-Source?
Yes, Elementor is a free and open-source plug-in available in WordPress. There are lots of Elementor addons and a big and growing community of users that have built around it in the short time since the launch of the Elementor plug-in.
Does it work with all the themes?
It works with all the themes which respect the coding standards of WordPress set by its Codex.
Does it work with other WordPress plugins?
It works with almost all the plugins. If you experience an incompatibility issue, please report it to us and to the plugin which conflicts with Elementor.
What Happens to your Site when Deactivating Elementor?
Unlike most of its competitors, Elementor doesn’t leave messy code on your site once deactivated. Elementor leaves you with clean code, though of course, you’d lose the visual aspect and styling of your pages, but you won’t end up with a complete mess of shortcodes.
Elementor Alternative
Its main competitors are Divi and Beaver Builder. Others include Gutenberg, Brizy Builder, Visual composer, Builder pro, Visual composer, etc. We’ll quickly view the main ones-
Divi is cheaper (starting at $89 for unlimited use) and comes with its own theme.
Beaver Builder (starting at $99 per year – free lite version available) Free version comes with a generous number of features, but the pro version is fairly priced and can be used on unlimited websites
Gutenberg is completely free since it is part of WordPress.org.
Brizy Builder has 500+ content blocks and 40+ pre-made website layouts that you can fully customize.
The free version includes most features and the Brizy Pro plan is competitively priced.
Summary
In a nutshell, Elementor is the most competitive and reliable plug-in for WordPress with its tons of features and easy to use, letting you keep your hands clean and design a cleaner, impressive page/site. Most things work with drag-and-drop — you can take any element and move it to a new spot simply by dragging it across the screen. It can be used by even a beginner with ease. It has most of its features as free if you want to go for a basic site but if you want additional features you can go for the Elementor Pro license which works with most of the WordPress plug-ins and create terrific sites bringing in huge traffic. ?
Also, Elementor has really helpful video tutorials to help you get started. You can check them out here.
