Beaver Builder

November 22, 2023

6 Best WordPress Theme Builders for 2024 (Compared)

Are you looking for a theme builder for your WordPress site?

With a theme builder, you can customize every part of your website without having to learn and use any code. These builders are super flexible and can help you create a unique theme that matches your branding and style.

In this article, we will share our list of the best WordPress theme builders that you can use to customize your website.

Why Use a Theme Builder in WordPress?

If you have a WordPress website, then using a theme builder gives you more creative freedom over your website. It allows you to create a design that perfectly matches your niche and brand.

Most theme builders come with premade templates that let you easily create a header, home page, footer, blog page, and contact us page for your blog with just a few clicks.

For example, if you run a furniture store, then you can easily use a theme builder’s premade template to launch your business website in a few minutes.

Using theme builders is also super cost-effective and saves you a lot of time, as you won’t have to spend hours coding your theme.

Plus, these tools are often beginner-friendly and come with a drag-and-drop builder, letting you create responsive and unique themes for your website.

Note: You may confuse a theme builder with page builders, but they are quite different. A theme builder lets you customize your whole website, including headers, footers, and different pages.

By contrast, a page builder only lets you customize and create a single page at a time. For details, you can see our glossary article for what a page builder is.

Having said that, here is our list of the best WordPress theme builders on the market.

1. SeedProd

SeedProd is the best WordPress theme builder on the market. It comes with hundreds of premade templates, an easy-to-use drag-and-drop builder, and 90+ pro blocks.

The tool allows you to launch a unique theme for any niche, like a fashion blog, in just a few minutes using its premade designs. You can then easily edit the home page, archive, header, footer, single post, single page, archive, sidebar, and more.

Plus, the tool also offers advanced blocks for WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads, making it a great choice if you have an online store.

Other than that, SeedProd can integrate with popular email marketing services like Constant Contact or Brevo to help you build an email list or generate leads.

The WordPress plugin also lets you add animations, custom scripts, controls access, and even lets you do domain mapping, making it the ultimate choice.

For more details, you can see our tutorial on how to create a custom theme in WordPress.

Pros

SeedProd also allows you to design single landing pages for your website. For more information, you can see our tutorial on how to create a landing page in WordPress.
It has a free version.
Its layout navigation feature can easily rearrange sections, rows, columns, and blocks.
It has over 20 color schemes, font combinations, shape dividers, smart sections, and bloat-free code to decrease your website load time.
With SeedProd, you can add dynamic content to your website.
It allows you to create a maintenance, coming soon, or login page for your website easily.

Cons

To unlock some of its advanced features, you will have to buy the premium plan.

Why we recommend using SeedProd: SeedProd is the best theme builder on the market. It comes with 300+ templates specifically designed for unique niches, an easy-to-use interface, and third-party tool integrations. SeedProd is also a great option if you have an online store due to its integrations with WooCommerce and EDD and advanced blocks created specifically for these plugins.

For more details, you can see our complete SeedProd review.

2. Thrive Theme Builder

Thrive Theme Builder is a popular drag-and-drop plugin that allows you to create custom and fully mobile-responsive themes for your website without having to learn any code.

It is part of the Thrive Suite and comes with a library of prebuilt templates that you can use to easily build custom pages, headers, and footers for your theme.

Plus, the tool offers 100+ design elements, including icons, fonts, fancy dividers, page blocks, content elements, conversion tools, and global color management.

Pros

Thrive Theme Builder can integrate with third-party tools like WooCommerce, Zapier, email marketing services, webinar platforms, and more.
It can easily connect with other Thrive Suite plugins like Thrive Leads, Thrive Architect, Thrive Optimize, and Thrive Automator.
It offers conversion-focused features like opt-in forms, lead magnets, and social media share buttons.

Cons

Thrive Theme Builder does not have a free version.
It has a limited number of premade templates compared to other tools on this list.

Why we recommend using Thrive Theme Builder: If you have a WordPress blog and want to build your email list, then we recommend using the Thrive Theme Builder. The plugin offers a number of conversion-focused tools that can help you capture your users’ email addresses.

3. Divi Theme Builder

Divi is one of the most popular WordPress themes on the market. It comes with a theme builder and 800+ site templates that you can use to customize your website according to your niche.

The Divi builder is super beginner-friendly and comes with a drag-and-drop interface, WooCommerce integration, and responsive designs that help optimize your website speed.

It even offers built-in SEO features that can help your website rank higher and get more traffic.

Pros

Divi offers a huge range of customizable elements, including text modules, image modules, modules for displaying social media feeds, pricing tables, and more.
It lets you nest different layouts within other templates to create layered designs.
It supports dynamic content and allows you to create conditional templates for your theme.

Cons

Divi does not allow you to directly add custom CSS code for theme customization.
It has caused performance issues for some websites. This is because Divi is a heavier theme builder compared to some other plugins.

Why we recommend using Divi Theme Builder: Overall, Divi is a great theme builder if you have a small business site. The tool has about 800 premade templates for different niches, and you can use it to launch your business site easily. Plus, Divi is super affordable, making it a cost-effective solution.

4. Beaver Builder

Beaver Builder is a well-known page builder plugin that allows you to customize landing pages for your website. You can install the plugin’s Themer addon and use the same visual drag-and-drop editor to customize entire themes.

It is a super developer-friendly tool that enables you to create custom headers, footers, archives, blog pages, and home pages. Plus, you can add dynamic data through the plugin’s field connectors.

Pros

It comes with custom WooCommerce layouts like WooCommerce Shop, Checkout, Cart, and My Account pages.
It has 30+ design modules.
Beaver Builder offers dynamic content support.

Cons

It does not have a free version, and its paid plans can be expensive for some users.
It has a bit of a learning curve and can be difficult to use for beginners.

Why we recommend using Beaver Builder: If you want to create a simple theme for your blog, then we recommend using Beaver Builder. Its visual interface and various premade modules can help you launch a blog and customize its appearance in no time.

5. Brizy

Brizy is a great website builder that offers a drag-and-drop interface, front-end editing, and a library of premade templates to help you build a custom theme without using any code.

It lets you create responsive designs, integrates with email marketing services, and has a variety of customizable options, including text and image modules.

Plus, Brizy even comes with a display conditions feature that lets you control where and when certain elements of your website appear. This can be useful if you want to hide certain content from users who are not logged in or display different content based on the user’s location.

Pros

Brizy has 36+ elements, offers a free plan, comes with a mega menu feature for your navigation menu, and even lets you view your theme editing history.
If you run multiple WordPress sites, then the tool allows you to sync content between them easily.
It comes with a ‘Global Blocks’ feature that lets you add the same headers and footers to different pages of your website.

Cons

It offers limited third-party tool integrations.
Brizy’s library of templates is not as comprehensive as some of the other tools.

Why we recommend using Brizy: Overall, Brizy is an excellent theme builder. We recommend this tool if you have multiple WordPress sites and want to sync them to share popups, blocks, or whole pages between them.

6. Elementor

Elementor is a popular WordPress theme builder that comes with many different premade templates, customizable elements, and the global styles feature that can apply to all the pages on your website.

It has a drag-and-drop interface, a huge community, and is super lightweight, helping your website’s speed and performance.

With Elementor, you can create mobile-responsive themes, add nested layouts, and even use dynamic tags to add personalized content to your website.

Pros

Elementor comes with a WooCommerce builder that lets you customize the layout of your online store.
It also has a popup builder, form builder, and loop builder that you can use.
The tool allows you to set conditions for when to display certain elements on your website.

Cons

Elementor does not have undo/redo options for theme customization.
It gives you limited control over the code on your website.
It can be a bit difficult to navigate for beginners.

Why we recommend using Elementor: Overall, Elementor is a good choice if you have an online store because it comes with a WooCommerce builder and premade templates, along with a huge community of users.

Which Is the Best Theme Builder for WordPress?

In our expert opinion, SeedProd is the best WordPress theme builder on the market because it comes with 300+ premade templates for specific niches, integrations with email marketing services, dynamic content, and over 20 color schemes. Plus, the tool also offers a free version.

However, if you have a WordPress blog and want to build an email list, then Thrive Theme Builder is a good choice because it offers different conversion-focused features.

Similarly, if you own a small business, then Divi is also a great option because it has about 800 templates for different niches.

You can also opt for Brizy if you have multiple WordPress sites or use Elementor if you run an online store.

Frequently Asked Questions About WordPress Theme Builders

Here is a list of some of the frequently asked questions from our readers about theme builders.

Why use a theme builder instead of a theme in WordPress?

There are many great WordPress themes that you can use on your website. However, by opting for a theme builder, you get more control over your design and can see all your changes with a live preview feature.

Plus, theme builders are more flexible, allowing you to create different custom designs for all your pages without having to learn and write any code.

Which is the best free theme builder for WordPress?

The average cost for theme builders is about $49 per year for a single-site license, and up to $249 per year for a multi-site license.

However, if you are looking for a free solution that lets you create custom themes, then we recommend SeedProd’s free plan as it has most of the features required to customize a whole theme for your website.

What factors should I consider when picking a theme builder?

When choosing a theme builder, you should consider factors like ease of use, customization elements, impact on website speed, integrations, pricing, and customer support. All of these elements will help you pick the best theme builder for your website.

Best WordPress Guides to Help Design Your Website

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The post 6 Best WordPress Theme Builders for 2024 (Compared) first appeared on WPBeginner.

July 16, 2022

How Much Does a Custom WordPress Theme Cost?

Do you want to know how much it costs to build a custom WordPress theme?

Creating a custom theme gives a lot of freedom and flexibility over the layout and design of your WordPress site. However, many people don’t opt for a custom theme because they think it will be expensive.

In this article, we will share how much does a custom WordPress theme cost, as well as a few tips on how you can save money and avoid overpaying.

What is a Custom WordPress Theme?

A custom WordPress theme has a unique design, layout, and set of features that are made specifically for your business needs.

There are many free and premium WordPress themes available, but a custom WordPress theme helps your company or brand to stand out with a unique look.

The benefit of getting a custom WordPress theme is that you’re not limited by the constraints of a pre-existing template or layout. You have full freedom to customize your website and get any specific functionality built into your theme.

Create Custom Themes Using a Plugin vs Hiring a Designer

You now have lots of options to choose from when creating a WordPress theme. There are DIY theme builders that you can use on your own, or you can hire a freelance designer and agency to create a WordPress theme.

Let’s take a closer look at which is better, using a plugin or hiring a professional.

Using a WordPress Theme Builder Plugin

To create a custom WordPress theme, you no longer need to depend on someone who can design and code your theme for you.

SeedProd is a WordPress page builder that has made it super easy to create a custom theme from scratch without coding. It offers pre-built templates that you can use to get started quickly or use a blank template to create a custom theme.

Using the DIY drag and drop page builders, you can then easily customize every element of your theme.

Simply add and remove blocks from your theme, rearrange their order, edit the color, size, font, background image, add your logo, and change anything in the template.

Using SeedProd is the best choice if you want to create your own custom theme on a budget.

Hiring a Designer and Developer to Create a Custom Theme

On the other hand, you may be able to find an individual who can do both designs and develop the site depending on your needs. However, it’s hard to find a person who’s excellent at both design and code.

When you go with a full-service agency, it’s a one-stop-shop because they have designers and developers on their team. This is also the reason why agencies are usually more expensive. Alternatively, you can hire an individual freelance designer and developer separately and manage the project yourself.

However, design and development is a creative process, so the project cost varies based on expertise, experience in the field, and creativity.

Well reputed WordPress development agencies may cost more than an individual developer or freelancer. A well-known WordPress developer can sometimes charge even more than an agency. Plus, placing change orders to make revisions to a theme can make it more expensive to develop.

Keep Costs Low by Having a Clear Scope of the Project

Whether you choose to hire a professional or choose a theme builder plugin, a pro tip for keeping costs low is by having a clear scope of the project.

For instance, when you’re building a house, you typically have a list of features that you want, such as 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a living room, etc.

You need to make a similar list for your WordPress website and list down all the things that you would like to have such as:

Editable home page with a testimonial slider and services list
Contact page with a contact form and a Google map with the ability to find directions
Gallery area to showcase the work
Blog section with social media share buttons

Having a detailed list makes it easier for someone to give you an accurate quote. It also helps limit revisions or change-order fees and helps you keep within your budget.

Factors that Affect the Cost of a Custom WordPress Theme

Since each custom WordPress theme is built specifically for the individual client, the cost of the project varies based on the requirements.

Below are some of the factors that will impact the cost of your custom WordPress theme:

Features, Functionality, and Expectations

Adding more features and functionality to your custom theme will increase the development time and cost. Usually, clients have higher expectations than their budget allows.

High-quality work with custom features will take more time, and hence it will cost more.

Similarly, you may require premium WordPress plugins to get the functionality you need for your website. This will add to the cost of developing a custom theme.

Change Orders and Revisions

If you change the scope of your custom WordPress theme project in the middle of the process, then this can significantly increase your cost.

While minor changes are ok, freelancers and agencies often charge change-order fees for major change requests.

Hosting, Maintenance, and Support

A custom WordPress theme does not include WordPress hosting, website maintenance, or offering support after the delivery of the project.

Some agencies and freelancers might offer these services at an additional cost.

How Much Does a Custom WordPress Theme Actually Cost?

Previously, it was extremely difficult to explain how much a custom WordPress theme costs in fixed numbers because there were several factors to consider.

However, if you select a drag and drop WordPress page builder, then the cost of building a custom WordPress theme drops considerably.

For example, SeedProd offers its theme builder in the Pro plan, which starts at $199.50 per year. You can simply use the plugin to create a custom WordPress them yourself. Plus, if you add that with the cost of web hosting, domain, and SSL certificate, you can easily make a custom theme for under $500.

These days, even the large numbers of freelancers use drag & drop page builders now to create custom WordPress themes because it helps them build custom websites faster.

You can see our detailed guide on how much does it really cost to build a WordPress website for more details.

On the other hand, when you hire a freelancer or an agency, then a the cost of a custom WordPress theme for a business / personal website could cost between $1,500 – $5,000. A custom WordPress theme with additional built-in features or companion plugins can cost anywhere between $6,000 – $10,000.

If you have a complex enterprise-level project, then it is not uncommon for custom theme project prices to go above $30,000.

Therefore, we would highly recommend using a page builder to create a custom theme because the total cost will be lower, and you won’t have to spend a lot of money on freelancers and agencies.

How to Avoid Overpaying for a Custom WordPress Theme?

With over a decade of experience in the WordPress industry, we have a few tips that you can use to avoid overpaying for a custom WordPress theme.

Find Live Website Examples for Inspiration when Possible

Going along with a detailed scope and having a list of inspirations really help with the design process.

You can have a list of websites and list out what you like about each of them.

This gives the designer a clear idea of what you’re looking for this reduces the revisions and overall cost.

Use Premium Plugins vs Custom Built Functionality

Most reputable WordPress professionals will always choose a premium WordPress plugin vs building it out from scratch because it’s more efficient and saves cost.

However, as a customer, we always recommend that you do your own research as well. Often the developer that you choose may have other suggestions, and it’s important that you understand why they decide to choose one plugin over another.

Customize Premium Themes vs Build from Scratch

One of the ways to significantly reduce cost while still getting a ‘custom’ look and feel is to find an existing theme that has 90% of what you want. While this cheats the custom theme concept, it can significantly reduce the overall cost.

Powerful drag and drop WordPress page builders like SeedProd, Beaver Builder and Divi have given birth to an entirely new industry of Website Assemblers. They come with various templates, so you can easily choose one and customize it according to your needs.

Professional website assemblers use existing WordPress plugins combined with a drag & drop page builder to build you a custom-looking WordPress site at a much more affordable price.

Find the Right Developer or Agency for a Custom WordPress Theme

Due to its ease of use and low barrier of entry, there is a wide range of people and companies offering custom WordPress theme services.

Finding a developer or agency with the right experience and skillset can be a bit difficult. Especially because a lot of ‘website assemblers’ also call themselves developers.

Here are some places where you can find experienced developers for your custom WordPress theme project.

Codeable – This is our #1 pick for finding high-quality WordPress developers that are vetted by an expert team. You can post your project there and get a free estimate.

WPHired – This is a job board where you can post your WordPress jobs. Developers can then apply for the job, and you can discuss your project with them. You’ll have to look for developers with relevant experience and skills.

WordPress Jobs – Another WordPress-specific job board where you can post jobs and interview developers.

Upwork – An online freelancing website where you can post your job and interview developers from all over the world. This would allow you to find developers with lower rates. It is an enormous community with designers and developers of varying skills and expertise.

A custom WordPress theme can make your website stand out with its unique design and custom features. However, not all beginners and small businesses can afford that right away.

If you are just starting out, then you can use a page builder like SeedProd or a premium multipurpose theme to build your website theme at a fraction of the price.

With a custom theme, you get unique branding, custom design, and tailor-made functionality to help you grow your business faster and give you an edge over your competitors.

We hope this article helped you understand how much does a custom WordPress theme cost and how you can avoid overpaying. You may also want to see our guide on the best free business name generator and how to register a domain name.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How Much Does a Custom WordPress Theme Cost? first appeared on WPBeginner.

December 12, 2020

How to Create a Full Width Page in WordPress (Beginner’s Guide)

Do you want to create a full width page in WordPress, so you can stretch your content across the screen?

Most WordPress themes already come with a built-in full-width page template that you can use. However if your theme doesn’t have one, then it’s easy to add it.

In this article, we will show you how to easily create a full width page in WordPress and even create fully custom page layouts without any code.

Method 1. Use Your Theme’s Full Width Template

If your theme already comes with a full width page template, then it’s best to simply use that. Almost all good WordPress themes do.

Even the best free WordPress themes often come with a full width template, so there’s a good chance you already have one.

First, you need to edit a page or create a new one by going to Pages » Add New in your WordPress dashboard.

In the right hand ‘Document’ pane of the content editor, you need to expand the ‘Page Attributes’ section by clicking the downward arrow next to it. You should then see a ‘Template’ dropdown.

If you have a full width template for your theme, it will be listed here. It should be called something like ‘Full Width Template’:

The options you see here will differ depending on your theme. Don’t worry if your theme doesn’t have a full width page template.

You can easily add one using the methods below.

Method 2. Create Full Width Page Template Using a Plugin

This method is easiest and works with all WordPress themes and page builder plugins.

First, you need to install and activate the Fullwidth Templates plugin. If you’re not sure how to do that, check out our beginner’s guide to installing a WordPress plugin.

The Fullwidth Templates plugin will add three new options to your page templates:

These options are:

FW No Sidebar: removes the sidebar from your page, but leaves everything else intact
FW Fullwidth: removes the sidebar, title, and comments, and stretches the layout to full width
FW Fullwidth No Header Footer: removes everything that FW Fullwidth does, plus the header and footer

If you’re going to simply use the built-in WordPress editor, “FW No Sidebar” will likely be the best choice.

While this plugin lets you create full-width page template, you’ve limited customization options.

If you want to customize your full-width template without any code, then you need to use a page builder.

Method 3: Design a Full Width Page in WordPress using a Page Builder Plugin

If your theme doesn’t have a full width template, then this is the easiest way to create and customize a full-width template.

It allows you to easily edit your full width page and create different page layouts for your website with a drag & drop interface.

For this method, you will need a WordPress page builder plugin. In this tutorial, we’ll be using Beaver Builder. It is one of the best drag and drop page builder plugins, and it allows you to easily create page layouts without writing any code.

First, install and activate the Beaver Builder plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Once you’ve activated it, either edit an existing page or create a new one.

In the ‘Document’ pane on the right-hand side of your screen, go to ‘Page Attributes’ and select a full width template from the dropdown.

Next, click the ‘Launch Beaver Builder’ button in the center of your screen.

Now, use Beaver Builder’s drag and drop interface to create your page.

A good way to begin is by clicking on Templates tab at the top. Select one of the pre-made templates to use as the basis for your full width page.

Click on a template to select it and the page builder will load it. You can then edit any of the elements, such as images, that you want to change.

Beaver Builder layouts are built with rows and modules. Each row can have multiple columns and inside each row you can add content modules and widgets.

To edit a row or a module in the layout, you just need to click on it. In this case, we’re editing the Heading module:

Beaver Builder will open the item details in a popup where you can edit its settings. You can change the text, change fonts and colors, add or change background images, and more.

You can add modules and widgets at any time to your layout. Beaver Builder comes with many basic and advanced content modules that you can just drag and drop into your page.

Once you are finished editing, click ‘Done’ at the top of the page. You can then save your draft or publish it.

You can now visit your page to see your finished full width page.

Method 4. Create Completely Custom Full-Width Landing Pages with SeedProd

While Beaver Builder is a neat solution, it does have the potential to slow down your website.

If you’re looking to create a completely custom landing page where you want to customize the header, footer, and all areas of the page, then we recommend using SeedProd.

It is the best landing page plugin for WordPress, and it comes with a very easy to use drag & drop page builder interface.

First, you need to install and activate the SeedProd plugin.

After activation, simply go to SeedProd » Pages to add a new landing page. You can simply select from one of their many pre-built templates or create a custom landing page from scratch.

The best part about SeedProd is that it is extremely fast, and it comes with built-in conversion features for Subscriber management, email marketing service integration, and more.

Method 5: Create Full Width WordPress Page Template Manually

This method is a last resort if none of the above methods work for you. It requires you to edit your WordPress theme files. You’ll need some basic understanding of PHP, CSS, and HTML.

If you haven’t done this before, then take a look at our guide on how to copy / paste code in WordPress.

Before going further, we recommend that you create a WordPress backup or at least a backup of your current theme. This will help you easily restore your site if something goes wrong.

Next, open a plain text editor like Notepad and paste the following code in a blank file:

<?php
/*
*
Template Name: Full-Width
*/
get_header(); ?>

Save this file as full-width.php on your computer. You may need to change the ‘Save as type’ to ‘All Files’ to avoid saving it as a .txt file:

This code simply defines the name of a template file and asks WordPress to fetch the header template.

Next, you will need the content part of the code. Connect to your website using an FTP client (or your WordPress hosting file manager in cPanel) and then go to /wp-content/themes/your-theme-folder/.

Now you need to locate the file page.php. This is your theme’s default page template file.

Open that file and copy everything after the get_header() line and paste it into the full-width.php file on your computer.

In the full-width.php file, find and delete this line of code:

<?php get_sidebar(); ?>

This line fetches the sidebar and displays it in your theme. Deleting it will stop your theme from showing the sidebar when using the full width template.

You may see this line more than once in your theme. If your theme has multiple sidebars (footer widget areas are also called sidebars), then you will see each sidebar referenced once in the code. Decide which sidebars you want to keep.

If your theme doesn’t display sidebars on pages, you may not find this code in your file.

Here is how the whole of our full-width.php code looks after making the changes. Your code may look slightly different depending on your theme.

<?php
/*
*
Template Name: Full Width
*/
get_header(); ?>

	<div id="primary" class="content-area">
	<main id="main" class="site-main" role="main">
		<?php
		// Start the loop.
		while ( have_posts() ) :
			the_post();

			// Include the page content template.
			get_template_part( 'template-parts/content', 'page' );

			// If comments are open or we have at least one comment, load up the comment template.
			if ( comments_open() || get_comments_number() ) {
				comments_template();
			}

			// End of the loop.
		endwhile;
		?>

	</main><!-- .site-main -->

	<?php get_sidebar( 'content-bottom' ); ?>

</div><!-- .content-area -->

<?php get_footer(); ?>

Next, upload the full-width.php file to your theme folder using your FTP client.

You have now successfully created and uploaded a custom full width page template to your theme. The next step is to use this template to create a full width page.

Head to your WordPress admin area and edit or create a new page in the WordPress block editor.

In the ‘Document’ pane on the right, look for ‘Page Attributes’ and click the downward arrow to expand that section if necessary. You should see a ‘Template’ dropdown where you can select your new ‘Full Width’ template:

After selecting that template, publish or update the page.

When you view the page, you’ll see that the sidebars have disappeared, and your page appears as a single column. It may not be full width yet, but you are now ready to style it differently.

You will need to use the Inspect tool to find out the CSS classes used by your theme to define the content area.

After that you can adjust its width to 100% using CSS. You can add CSS code by going to Appearance » Customize and clicking ‘Additional CSS’ at the bottom of the screen.

We used the following CSS code in our test site:

.page-template-full-width .content-area {
    width: 100%;
    margin: 0px;
    border: 0px;
    padding: 0px;
}

.page-template-full-width .site {
margin:0px;
}

Here is how it looked on our demo site using the Twenty Sixteen theme.

If you want to use the manual method and want to make further customization, then you can also use the CSS Hero plugin which lets you modify CSS styles with a point-and-click editor.

For most users, however, we recommend using your own theme’s full width template, or using a plugin to create one.

We hope this article helped you learn how to easily create a full width page in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on the best WordPress plugins to grow your website, and our comparison of the best WordPress LMS plugins to create & sell courses.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Create a Full Width Page in WordPress (Beginner’s Guide) appeared first on WPBeginner.

October 1, 2020

Virtual WordPress Page Builder Summit Kicks Off October 5

From October 5 through October 9, the first Page Builder Summit will open its virtual doors to all attendees for free. Nathan Wrigley, the podcaster behind WP Builds, and Anchen le Roux, the founder and lead developer of Simply Digital Design, are hosting the five-day online event that focuses on the vast ecosystem of page builders for WordPress.

The summit will include 35 sessions spread out over the event schedule. Each session will last around 30 minutes, so it will be easy to pop in and watch one in your downtime. Sessions will cover a range of builders, including the default WordPress block editor, Elementor, Beaver Builder, Oxygen, Brizy, and Divi.

“It’s an event specifically for users of WordPress page builders, or those curious about what they can do,” said Wrigley. “I feel like a page builder style interface for creating websites is the future for our industry. WordPress itself is moving in this direction with the block editor (a.k.a. Gutenberg). With that in mind, it seemed like a good idea to create a dedicated event to share knowledge about this side of WordPress. We’ve tried to include presentations from as many page builders as we could.”

Wrigley made sure to point out that it is not all geared toward developers, discussing the inner-workings of builders. Some of the sessions focus on marketing, optimization, and conversion, which provides a wider range of topics for potential attendees.

The summit hosts created an online quiz for those who are unsure about which sessions to watch.

There is a small catch. The sessions will be freely available only from the time they begin and the following 24 hours. After that, accessing the videos will come at a premium. Attendees can gain lifetime access to the PowerPack for $47 if they purchase within 15 minutes of signing up. Then, prices will rise to $97 until the event kicks off on October 5. Beyond, the price jumps to $147. The lifetime access includes access to the presentations, transcripts, a workbook, and other bonuses from the speakers.

For those unsure about forking over the cash, they can still watch the sessions during the 24-hour window.

The proceeds from the event will go out to paying affiliate commissions to speakers and partners. Some of it will go into planning and investing in a second summit down the road.

“Both myself and Nathan have specific charities that we want to donate to after the event,” said le Roux. “It was part of our goals to be able to do this, but we didn’t want to make this an official contribution.”

Why a Page Builder Summit?

Both Wrigley and le Roux have their preferred builders. But, the goal of the summit is to offer a wide look at the tools available and help freelancers and agencies better streamline their businesses and create happier clients.

“I’ve been a user of page builders for many years, but only at the point where they truly showed in the editing interface something that almost perfectly reflected what the end-user would see did I get really immersed,” said Wrigley. “Having come from a background in which I built entire websites from a collection of text files (HTML, CSS, PHP, etc.), I was fascinated that we’d reached a point where the learning curve for building a good website was significantly reduced.”

He pointed out that it is not always so simple though. While the same level of coding skills may not be necessary, people must figure out how to navigate their preferred page builder, which can come with its own learning curve.

“You need to learn their way of doing things and how to achieve your design choices,” he said. “It’s always going to work out better if you know the code, but the WordPress mission of democratizing publishing certainly seems to align quite nicely with the adoption of tools, like page builders, which mean that once-difficult tasks are now easier.”

For le Roux, her interest in hosting the Page Builder Summit falls back to her design studio.

“As a developer, my main reason for switching to page builders was around streamlining and creating more efficient but quality websites in the shortest amount of time,” she said. “Especially now that we focus on day rates, creating the best possible website that clients would love fast would not have been possible without page builders.”

The Hosts’ Go-To Builders

“We prefer using Beaver Builder with Themer at Simply Digital Design,” said le Roux. “We use Gutenberg for blog posts or where possible with custom post types or LMS software. However, we’ve also taken on a few Elementor projects where that’s the client’s preferred option.”

Wrigley uses some of the same tools. His main work is on the WP Builds website where he hosts podcasts.

“I have used Beaver Builder’s Themer to create templates for specific layouts, but for content creation within those layouts I’m using the block editor,” said Wrigley. “My content is mainly text and the WordPress editor is utterly remarkable in this situation. I kept the classic editor installed for a few months after WordPress 5.0 came about, but I soon realized that this was folly and that the editing interface of Gutenberg is superior. The ability to insert and move text, buttons, etc. is such a joy to work with, and the iterations that have been made in the last two years make it, in my opinion, the best text editing experience on the web.”

Wrigley sees a future in which the WordPress block editor takes over much of the work that page builders are currently handling. However, that future is “still over the horizon.”

“I’m excited about this future though, and we’ve got a few crystal ball-gazing presentations; trying to work out what that future might look like,” he said.

March 20, 2020

7 Best Wix Alternatives in 2020 (More Powerful and Reliable)

Are you looking for the best Wix alternatives?

Wix is a website builder that people use to create a website when they first start out, likely because they saw a TV commercial or heard one of the many ads.

The challenge is that their free version is quite limited in functionality, and it gets really expensive when you try to upgrade.

The good news is that many other website builders provide better functionality and features, at a lower cost. In this article, we’ll share our expert pick of the best Wix alternatives that are more powerful and reliable.

Why Are People Switching Away From Wix?

Wix is a popular website builder that’s advertised to have a simple drag and drop builder which makes it easy to build websites quickly.

However, they limit users to specific features, and you will need to pay for every third-party app or plugin to add more options to your site. With the growth in your business, it becomes more expensive to use and still limited in terms of features.

It also limits you in your website template or theme selection. This means you cannot switch to a different template after your website is live on the internet.

With these limitations, Wix is upsetting a lot of users and giving them a reason to switch away to other more powerful and reliable solutions.

Luckily, there are many Wix alternatives with better features, flexibility, and prices.

Best Wix Alternatives

There are multiple website builders that you can choose for your site. We have handpicked the best Wix alternatives for your small businesses, blogs, online stores (eCommerce businesses), etc.

Here are the best Wix alternatives that you can use.

1. WordPress

WordPress is the most popular website builder and a perfect alternative to Wix. Over 35% of websites in the world are using WordPress which makes WordPress the de-facto market leader.

There are two different versions of WordPress which often confuses beginners. WordPress.com, is a hosted solution (ranked #7 – we’ll talk about it later in this article), and WordPress.org, which is a self-hosted and free solution (ranked #1).

For more details, you should check out our complete guide on the difference between WordPress.com vs WordPress.org.

WordPress is very easy to set up and it gives you maximum control of your website. It is highly flexible and comes with thousands of themes and plugins to start a blog, create an online store, build a community forum, or more.

Unlike Wix, it is an open-source website builder with a simple admin panel for customization. You can also use the WordPress customizer with live preview to make changes to your site.

To use WordPress, you’ll need a WordPress hosting platform (where you’ll store your files) and a domain name (the URL that your users will use to browse your site, like wpbeginner.com or google.com) to set up your website.

Price: WordPress is a FREE website builder. But, you need to purchase a domain name and web hosting that costs 14.99/year and $7.99/month, respectively.

Bluehost offers WPBeginner users a 65% discount on web hosting, free domain name, and free SSL certificate. It is a popular web hosting company, and an official WordPress hosting partner.

This lets you make a WordPress website as low as $2.75 per month, which is a lot cheaper than Wix or any other website builder in the market.

→ Click here to Claim this Exclusive Bluehost offer ←

If you are looking for a Bluehost alternative, then you can check out SiteGround or another recommended provider from our best WordPress hosting list.

2. Constant Contact Website Builder

Constant Contact Website Builder is fast and A.I. based to create powerful websites without writing any code. It is an alternative to Wix and lets you set up a custom website in a few minutes.

It integrates with Unsplash to provide over 550,000 professional-quality images that you can use to engage your website users.

Constant Contact offers a CDN (content delivery network) to load your website pages super fast in any part of the world. It also improves your website SEO rankings.

Other notable features include a logo maker, website analytics, eCommerce support, engaging visual effects, customizable layouts, and more.

If we talk about features, Constant Contact is one of the most powerful and professional website builders in the market.

Price: Constant Contact has a FREE plan that lets you make a website, blog, or an online store.

Their premium plans start as low as $8 per month, and the paid version includes customer support, free domain name, free SSL certificate, and more features.

For online stores, they offer a business plan that costs $18.29 per month. It includes advanced integrations, unlimited products, no transaction fees, and priority customer support.

3. Gator by HostGator

Gator is a leading website builder by HostGator. Since it is built by a popular hosting company, it is an ultimate website builder solution and a perfect alternative to Wix.

It comes with over 200 fully customizable templates to design a website easily. These templates are beautiful and stylish to make a powerful first impression on your website visitors.

Gator is a hosted solution, which means they take care of your website backups, updates, and software. This allows you to focus on the growth of your business.

It also offers multiple tools, social media integration, live Instagram feed, and support for eCommerce stores. Moreover, it has premium-quality stock photos that you can use on your site.

Price: Gator has premium plans starting from $3.46 per month, making it affordable for small businesses and startups. Each plan comes with a free domain name, free SSL certificate, website analytics, and premium 24/7 live support.

4. BigCommerce

BigCommerce is an excellent eCommerce builder for your online store. It is a 1-stop solution to create powerful eCommerce shops and fully scalable to take your business to the next level.

It is a hosted platform, and their team of experts will take care of your website speed, security, updates, and any other technical issues.

BigCommerce has a strong affiliation with WordPress, which means you can combine the features of 2 most powerful platforms to set up an excellent eCommerce solution for your users.

When it comes to payment solutions, BigCommerce supports PayPal, Stripe, Apple Pay, Amazon Pay, Chase Pay, Visa Checkout, and more. It doesn’t charge any transaction fees, which means you get the complete profit of your sales.

It is a perfect eCommerce solution for online store owners, and far better than the Wix eCommerce builder.

Price: It offers a 15-day free trial to test all features of the BigCommerce platform. The premium plans starting from $29.95 per month. For more conversion optimization features, you can upgrade to a better plan as your business grows.

5. Divi

Divi is an ultimate theme and a drag and drop page builder for WordPress websites. It comes with 100+ layout packs for different business niches.

It also includes 800+ pre-made designs, custom page templates, and website elements that you can use to create any website or online store easily.

With its point and click tools, you can start editing any section of your site from the frontend. Divi is easy to use, and it gives you complete control of everything, including fonts, colors, shapes, background, etc.

It offers advanced editing features like multi-select and bulk editing, find and replace styles, powerful color manager, copy and paste styles, and more.

Divi is better and faster than Wix. And, it combines with WordPress to offer a more robust and powerful solution for building any website, blog, online store, or membership site.

Price: The starting price is $89 per year with 1-year of premium support and product updates. You can also pay a 1-time fee of $249 and take benefit of all their features, lifetime premium support, lifetime software updates, and more.

Both plans include risk-free 30-day money back guarantee (no questions asked). So, you can get familiar with the platform without worrying about your money.

6. Beaver Builder

Beaver Builder is a powerful WordPress page builder plugin that combines with other WordPress features to let you launch your website quickly.

It comes with dozens of beautiful landing page and content page templates that are ready to add on your site. You can replace the demo text and images with your original content and publish the pages.

Unlike Wix, Beaver Builder lets you create fully customizable pages with a drag and drop builder for the setup. You can also use the WordPress customizer to make changes to your site.

Price: The standard plan costs $99 that includes 1-year of support and updates, premium modules, templates, and more for unlimited websites.

If you are looking for more advanced features like support for WordPress multisite network, dedicated Beaver Builder theme, etc., then you can select the Pro plan for $199.

For enterprise users who want white labeling to get full control of the software, they offer an Agency plan for $399.

Beaver Builder also comes with a Beaver Themer addon that allows you to create completely custom WordPress themes from scratch without writing any code. This is great for aspiring developers and / or agencies who want to build websites faster.

7. WordPress.com

WordPress.com is a hosting solution for WordPress blogs and websites. It is built by Matt Mullenweg, the co-founder of self-hosted WordPress and founder of Automattic.

For more details, you should check out our article on how are WordPress.com and WordPress.org related.

Unlike self-hosted WordPress.org, you don’t need to worry about software updates and backups with WordPress.com. It is a fully custom website builder for beginners and bloggers.

WordPress.com doesn’t come with a drag and drop builder. But, you can use the native WordPress live customizer to make changes easily.

Price: It offers a free basic plan with limited features. The personal plan costs $4 per month, including a custom domain.

Their premium plan for freelancers costs $8 per month. For small business websites, they offer a business plan costing $25 per month.

If you want to run an online store with custom features and WooCommerce extensions, then it has an eCommerce plan for $45 per month. All their plans are billed annually.

Other Wix Alternatives

You may also find other Wix alternatives that are ideal for different types of use cases.

Shopify

Shopify is an eCommerce software that integrates with your website builder to set up an online store. You can use Shopify as a Wix alternative.

Unlike BigCommerce, you need to pay transaction fees for every sale you make using Shopify. It also becomes expensive when you want to add more features and extensions to grow your online store.

Related: Check out our comparisons between Shopify vs WooCommerce and BigCommerce vs WooCommerce to find out the perfect Wix alternative for eCommerce stores.

Squarespace

Squarespace is a premium website builder and an alternative to Wix. It is easy to use for beginners to add content anywhere on the site without editing any code.

However, Squarespace has limited third-party integrations, which can be a hurdle in the growth of your business. It can be ideal at the start, but as your business grows, you need to move to a better platform like WordPress.

You can read our complete article on Squarespace vs WordPress for more details.

Weebly

Weebly is a flexible website builder for any type of website. It is an alternative to Wix for a long time and ideal for small businesses and startups.

It restricts you to the limited features and doesn’t let you add third-party tools to set up a powerful site. If you plan to run an online store, Weebly also charges 3% transaction fees for every payment.

Conclusion: Which is the Best Wix Alternative?

If you are looking for a perfect Wix alternative at an affordable price, then WordPress is the right choice. It is highly flexible and easy to use.

You can use Bluehost for WordPress websites to get the maximum discounts and start as low as $2.75 per month.

After that you can either use Divi or Beaver Builder, which are powerful WordPress drag and drop page builder plugins, to design beautiful website layouts without writing any code.

If you’re looking for a non-WordPress solution that’s hassle-free with better support than Wix, then look at Constant Contact Website Builder. It is perfect for small businesses that are looking for a FREE website builder. It is fast, intelligent, and A.I. powered making it a direct Wix alternative.

In case, you want to build a powerful online store to replace the Wix eCommerce solution, then you’ll need BigCommerce or Shopify. It comes with all the essential features and both offer way more powerful eCommerce solutions than Wix.

We hope this article helped you choose the best website builder for your project. You may also want to see out list of best email marketing services and best business phone services for small business.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post 7 Best Wix Alternatives in 2020 (More Powerful and Reliable) appeared first on WPBeginner.

January 17, 2020

Blocksy WordPress Theme Provides a Solid Block-Editor Experience

Screeshot of the Blocksy theme blog posts page. — Screenshot of the Blocksy theme blog posts page.

Creative Themes dropped version 1.6.8 of its Blocksy WordPress theme yesterday. It was an update to a theme that is quickly becoming popular, having garnered 58 five-star reviews and one thousand active installs since it first went live in the WordPress theme directory. The theme is specifically built to work with the block editor and is a nice example of what is currently possible with blocks.

Blocksy is billed as a general-purpose theme and also works with other popular page builders like Elementor, Beaver Builder, and Visual Composer. The truth-test is whether it handles the block editor, especially given its primary audience (it is named Blocksy, after all). Aside from a few trivial quirks, the theme handled nearly every bit of test content I threw at it.

Blocksy is one of the better-designed free themes for the block editor that I have seen.

I want to use this theme for a project. Unfortunately, I have no site to use it on at the moment. I do not say this about many free, repository-hosted WordPress themes. The quality of work is on par with themes from the majority of commercial theme shops I have tested or used over the years.

The theme is not without a few issues, which we’ll get to, but it is a solid offering.

Block Design

With a name like Blocksy, I went into this review with a mindset that the theme better handle every test block I dropped into the block editor with grace. I wanted to make sure it lived up to its name.

I am happy to report that it handles block design as good as or better than most themes designed for showcasing the block system. It adds just enough stylistic flair, such as a unique pull-quote design, without getting in the way of the content.

One problem area is the font in the editor does not match the font on the front end completely. This is a minor issue that should be easily fixed in an update.

You can find some good examples of block design on the theme’s Gutenberg demo page.

Block Editor Sidebar

Screenshot of the Blocksy theme editor sidebar. — Custom block editor sidebar for post meta.

The latest update of the theme includes additional integration with the block editor. The team moved its old meta box, which sat below the post content editor, to a new sidebar panel. This change is refreshing.

I did not know the meta box existed until the theme developers pointed out this change in feature (I first started testing the previous version of the theme). At this point, I never look at the bottom of the block editor for meta boxes. I expect any additional settings to be placed firmly in the right sidebar area. I applaud this move. It could confuse old theme users when updating, but it feels more natural in its new home.

The team has done a nice job with this custom sidebar for the most part. The biggest issue is with the button for switching to it. By using both an icon and the “Page Settings” text, it uses more room than necessary. To fit in line with the existing UI, it should simply display an icon. The button text is also hard to read when selected, which is a minor CSS issue that can be corrected in an update.

Customizer Options

Screenshot of the Blocksy theme's customizer control panel design. — Custom-designed customizer control panel.

For users who like to have full control over the site’s display, this theme won’t disappoint. For users who dislike by many options, the number of design settings will likely feel overwhelming.

Blocksy has more design options than most people will ever need. Some options, such as letter-spacing and line-height controls for fonts may be going overboard. Ideally, those things would be automatically adjusted based on the chosen font family.

The theme also uses a custom design for the customizer control panel. In general, the custom design looks nice. However, is not good practice for themes to customize a shared WordPress UI element. Plugins with options in the customizer could break. It is best to stick with the default design.

Blocksy Companion Plugin

The theme promotes an additional plugin named Blocksy Companion. The add-on plugin provides users with additional widgets, a cookies-consent feature for the front end, and integrations with Mailchimp, Instagram, and WooCommerce. It also provides an avenue for importing custom-made demo content.

Most of the companion plugin’s features are fairly routine compared to similar themes in the WordPress theme repository. The cookies-consent feature is something I haven’t seen before as part of a theme add-on plugin.

My biggest complaint with the plugin is that it makes the “Blocksy” admin menu item a top-level item. It is a waste of valuable real estate in an already-cluttered admin menu. Plus, there is no good reason for a single theme/plugin screen to take a top-level spot when it has no sub-menus.

How Does the Code Look?

If I were describing the code in one phrase: average but gets the job done.

The theme has a lot of PHP code. Most of it is dropped into a single /inc folder and not organized nearly as well as it could be. It feels like a giant mish-mash of functions with almost non-existent inline documentation for most of them. It’s not something a developer who is not intimately familiar with the theme would want to dive into.

This is not an argument that the theme’s code is bad. It passed the official WordPress.org review process and made it into the theme directory, so it is at least doing the minimum necessary. It’s simply unimpressive, which is par for the course when it comes to most WordPress themes. Code architecture seems like an afterthought, which could make it tougher to maintain over the long haul. With a theme as much code as this one, this is more important than it is for simpler themes. It can also easily be remedied with a week or so of dev time strictly devoted to architecture.

Final Thoughts

Blocksy is a well-designed theme that does the job it sets out to do. It is ideal for users who are working with the block editor or a third-party page builder. The theme is packed with far more options than I could cover in this review. If customizability is your thing, you will likely enjoy this theme.

The team shared some of their future ideas. They have plans to add conditional headers, footers, and sidebars; a sticky header; AMP support; and more. They seem excited about the future of the theme.

Overall, I would recommend this theme for users who want a clean, relatively fast, block-ready WordPress theme.

January 9, 2020

The Best Free BuddyPress Themes (Updated 2022)

Finding a free BuddyPress theme for your online community is a lot easier than you think.

Because, as we state in our Complete Guide To BuddyPress For WordPress, the vast majority of regular free WordPress themes work just fine as a BuddyPress themes:

A few years ago, you could only use a BuddyPress-compatible theme if you wanted to run BuddyPress, and if you wanted to use the plugin with your own theme, you’d have to add some extra theme template files to make BuddyPress work. If you’ve been told that you still have to do this, don’t worry: you don’t. Since version 1.7, BuddyPress will work with any well-written theme, although there will always be some themes whose layout and design suit BuddyPress better than others.

So, if you’re searching online for free BuddyPress themes and are having a hard time finding themes that are still supported, don’t worry.

Many WordPress themes will work with your BuddyPress installation!

Free WordPress Directory BuddyPress Themes

And to help you out we did a search for “BuddyPress” in the free WordPress theme directory, found the ones we liked, installed and tested them with BuddyPress and hereby present them to you, updated for 2020:

Spacious

Spacious is a free WordPress Theme you can use with BuddyPress for a clean-looking site or blog. The theme includes a number of customization options that allow you to tweak its design. These options include a slider, boxed and wide layouts, light and dark color skin, and various widgets. The theme is WooCommerce compatible, translation-ready, and offers RTL support.

A Pro version is available with additional features, including unlimited slides, support for Google Fonts, font size options, 35+ theme colors, social icons, header text, footer copyright editor, additional custom widgets, and many other features.

Square

Square is a free WordPress theme that features an angular and minimal design suitable for business or corporate-themed BuddyPress sites. The theme is WooCommerce-ready, flexible, responsive, compatible with all browsers and devices, and offers a number of customizable features, including general settings, colors, menus, widgets, social icons, BuddyPress Nouveau settings, and more. A Pro version is also available with many additional features, such as video background, sliders, mega menu, and advanced settings and layouts.

Woostify

Woostify is a lightweight theme that integrates WooCommerce with BuddyPress and can be used to offer products to your online community. The theme lets you customize various features via the Theme Customizer, such as layout, color, buttons, menus, widgets, and BuddyPress Nouveau settings, and works with page builders like Elementor, Beaver Builder, SiteOrigin, Thrive Architect, Divi, and Visual Composer.

If BuddyPress with eCommerce is what you’re after, the theme’s Pro version offers additional features to enhance eCommerce functionality on your site, such as a mega menu, Ajax WooCommerce search, size guide, advanced shop widgets, ‘Buy Now’ buttons, countdown urgency, and sale notifications.

Free BuddyPress Themes Are Everywhere

As explained earlier, most WordPress themes by default are BuddyPress-compatible nowadays. You just need to experiment a little. Install a theme you like and see how it looks on your BuddyPress activity and members’ pages. Some themes allow you to customize and configure settings, some themes offer more limited customization options, and some will just be plainly not suitable for use with BuddyPress.

December 5, 2019

Gutenberg: One Year Later

As we quickly head into the final weeks of 2019, we also pass the first anniversary of WordPress 5.0 and, subsequently, Gutenberg coming headlong into our lives.

Love it or hate it, Gutenberg is here to stay. If you had asked my thoughts on it last December, I would have probably sided with a large portion of other WordPress users.

What are you doing?

WordPress is fine, leave it alone!

Stop forcing me to use this!

Here we are, twelve months later, and you know what? I LOVE IT. And, I am not alone.

When it comes to writing content, I cannot imagine using the Classic Editor anymore. Sure, for a few paragraphs, the Classic Editor is fine. However, when you need to make a 4,000+ word post, Gutenberg and the new block system make things a lot easier.

Yes, the UI is a struggle for someone brand new to WordPress. We have all heard the “Wait, I thought you said this was like Word?” line. A good onboarding process would tackle that going forward. For the rest of us, if you have not adopted Gutenberg yet, you should take another look at it.

The Need for a New Editor

Let’s be honest. The Classic Editor was great for short posts, a couple of headlines and paragraphs, job done. But, how often were you going into the Text tab to remove an extra line break, fix a shortcode, or cut and paste a section to somewhere else in the post? At best, it was a struggle. Often, it was excruciating to get your post just right before publishing.

Not only will I not miss this, but I am pleased that new users will not be exposed to it anymore either.

Screenshot of the classic WordPress text editor. — Classic Editor – Text tab in action

When I first heard of Gutenberg — before it was released in WordPress 5.0 — I installed the plugin and was immediately confused and slightly bewildered at the options. I wondered how I would edit in the future.

I, among many others, probably gave out the same noises as when Facebook and Twitter reveal a huge overhaul of their UI, agreeing with everyone that things would never be the same again. This was a mistake. Of course, I was both right and wrong at the same time. I just didn’t know it. Editing would not be the same again. Instead, it would be a lot better (with some adjustment).

I also know that many people will not agree with me and do not like the way Gutenberg looks or behaves to this day. But, if you give it some time and understand how it can make your life easier, it will do just that.

First, take the time to work out the difference between Blocks and Document. On the left you have all the blocks for your post or page, inserting them in merrily as you go. On the right, the Document panel controls everything else, handily changing when you need to fine-tune a block.

Screenshot of the block-based Gutenberg editor. — Gutenberg block editor in action

One of the most common complaints I have read is people struggling with the toolbar that appears as you hover over each block. There is a simple solution to this, and when it is enabled, the majority of people suddenly start to love it! Make sure you set the view to “Top Toolbar” in the Gutenberg options. Now you have a distraction and clutter-free editing environment to work with.

Gutenberg vs. Page Builders

Gutenberg is not a page builder, and it is a common argument thrown out by people on why they refuse to use it. They are right, it is not a replacement for the likes of Elementor or Beaver Builder. If you remove the comparison to page builders from your mind, you will find adapting to it is much easier.

My peers and I regularly chat about Gutenberg and agree it is already great for writing. The post creation process is a breath of fresh air. Others have great stories from their clients about being able to produce content and edit it with ease, and the number of editor-related support requests is down, which can only be a good thing.

However, many of us would not use it for designing pages. Instead, we still prefer to use one of the many page builders for that complete control.

Gutenberg Phase 2 will allow editing of the site to areas outside of the main content (e.g., headers, footers, sidebars) and will creep further into the page builder category, which means we will have a strange blend of Gutenberg and page builders living side by side on many sites soon.

Will it remove the complete need for themes? Who knows? I suspect we will have people further divided into opposing camps going forward, but what a great opportunity for us to collectively work on for a better overall experience in the end.

By the Numbers

Let us take a quick look at Gutenberg and its penetration to date.

Currently, 63.8% of all WordPress installs are running 5.x onward according to WordPress.org, which means Gutenberg is available natively on nearly two-thirds of all WordPress installs.

But, it is not all red roses when it comes to adoption.

The Classic Editor plugin has over 5 million active installs (and a rather biased 723 five-star reviews, such as “Keep this forever” and “Never going to give it up!”). It is also currently in the top five of the most popular plugins.

Is this the backlash against Gutenberg or incompatibility with older themes forcing users to use the Classic Editor for now? At a guess, a good majority is probably the latter combined with some diehards.

But, look at the graph below from the Classic Editor plugin page.

Screenshot of the Classic Editor plugin's decline in growth.

Growth is declining. That is not a movement of people who continue to install Classic Editor on new installs and refuse to adapt.

Classic Editor adoption will likely continue falling, and perhaps the original date of it being supported until 2022 isn’t that far-fetched after all (note: they have said they will continue to support it longer if needed).

On the flip-side, the Gutenberg plugin has 200,000 active installs and a whopping two-thirds of reviews (2,003) are a paltry one star. However, many are merely unhelpful complaints (e.g., “This is junk” and “Destroy it”). They do not tell the true story to novices.

As you can see from the graph below for the Gutenberg plugin, active install growth is up and continues to climb. It is not at the same pace as the decline with the Classic Editor, but that is probably because it is bundled with WordPress now.

Screenshot of the Gutenberg plugin's increase of active install growth.

One thing people seem to forget is Gutenberg is a plugin in and of itself. It is updated frequently, whereas the majority of users only see changes to it when there is a WordPress core update.

If you can see past the fields of one-star reviews and install the plugin, you will be rewarded with more frequent updates to the experience.

For example, version 7.0 recently added in the Navigation block as stable, allowing users to quickly create a menu of links. Don’t get me wrong; this does require theme integration for it to work, but you can get a better idea of where it is heading on a more frequent basis this way (7.0 is expected to ship with WordPress 5.4 in March/April 2020).

Block Party

Compatibility with Gutenberg continues at a quick pace. With over 21 pages of block-enabled plugins available on WordPress.org, pretty much all the popular plugins have solutions in place. A fair amount of plugin updates these days are also adding new and enhanced blocks as standard.

If those are not enough for you, we also now have a new breed of block-specific plugins. There is a growing trend of plugins devoted to purely enhancing the style and number of blocks you can add to your site.

Popular Gutenberg-focused plugins such as Stackable and EditorsKit add further styling and editing abilities, bringing you another step closer to full-page design and enhancing your content.

Screenshot of the EditorsKit plugin settings. — EditorsKit – a purely Gutenberg plugin.

Because no one knows how far Gutenberg will go and which toes it will step on, block plugins may have a fight on their hands in the future. At the pace they are being released and updated, it is a good sign of a committed global collective who not only believe in the future of blocks but is excited about it too.

What Does the Future Hold?

Gutenberg is here to stay, and I don’t think any of us have ever denied that. It is probably not an issue for anyone who started using WordPress for the first time this year.

Thankfully, for those already deeply embedded in WordPress, things are getting easier (and I would say more enjoyable) with the growth of the new Gutenberg-specific plugins.

With the advent of platforms such as Wix and Squarespace, it was obvious that WordPress needed something to make it more user-friendly and Gutenberg is a solid attempt at that. It is still a bit rough around the edges, but the days we look back nostalgically at the Classic Editor are likely numbered.

How will it look at the end of 2020? Will you still be using the Classic Editor?

August 16, 2019

The Top 13 WordPress Page Builders Compared (2019)

Say you’re planning to bake a pizza. What will the base, sauce, cheese, and toppings be? Thin or thick crust? Marinara or pesto sauce? Mozzarella, cheddar or Parmesan cheese? Pepperoni, mushrooms, anchovies? And let’s not even talk about pineapple here!

There are so many variations to choose from. If only there was a way to mix and match them to get exactly what you want. Oh wait…there are several food chains who’ve exploited this very need.

If you’re planning to customize your WordPress website, using a page builder is similar to customizing a pizza. You choose the elements you want in your page, add content, set their alignment, background, colors, fonts, etc. And voila! Your page is ready to be published, for the entire world to savor.

What is a WordPress Page Builder?

In WordPress, a page builder is essentially a plugin that lets you design your site’s pages and posts without any coding involved. It’s a given nowadays for most page builders to come with drag-and-drop functionality. Thus, you can create detailed web page layouts pretty fast, like building a complex structure out of legos.

Why Use a Page Builder for WordPress?

There are many advantages of using a page builder. Here are the 4 primary ones:

No Coding Knowledge Required

Many website owners find it difficult to make even minor changes to their website’s page layouts or styles. You may know exactly what you want to change, but may not know how. With a page builder, you don’t need to learn HTML, CSS, JavaScript, or PHP to make these changes.

This enables you to achieve high-end web pages without any coding involved. What would’ve taken days or weeks earlier, including hiring a professional web developer, can now be done by yourself in a matter of hours, if not minutes.

Feature-Rich

Another amazing advantage of page builders is that they come loaded with tons of on-page widgets and features: Sliders, image carousels, galleries, content grids, social sharing buttons, pricing tables, charts, CTA buttons, forms, animations, etc.

Want the same functionalities without using a page builder? You’d have to install quite a few dedicated plugins, premium or otherwise. First, you’d need to research to find the right plugins. Then, you’d have to learn how to use them. And after that, you’ll have to make sure that they’re all up-to-date and work perfectly with one another and all the other plugins you’ve installed.

Imagine doing that with half a dozen plugins, or even more. A page builder eliminates that hassle and helps you keep it simple.

Pre-Built, Attractive Templates

Most page builders come with beautifully crafted templates for standard website pages such as Home, About, Services, Products, Contact, etc. These templates are a great way to kickstart your designing process.

Some page builders also allow you to mix and match sections from multiple templates, thereby giving you virtually unlimited page design options to choose from.

Easy Customizations

Page builders are fast and intuitive. With user-friendly features such as drag-and-drop support and a live preview mode, you can add modules to your pages easily, and then rearrange and resize them quickly as you like. You can also change their styles such as background, font, color, padding, margin, and border effortlessly.

Any changes you make will be reflected immediately in the live preview section, helping you fine-tune your site.

With so many page builders for WordPress out there, we decided to compare the top ones and list them all, so that you can decide which will be the right fit for you.

Let’s begin!

The Top 13 WordPress Page Builders

Beaver Builder
Elementor
Divi
Visual Composer Website Builder
WPBakery Page Builder
Oxygen
SiteOrigin Page Builder
Themify Builder
Themeum WP Page Builder
Thrive Architect
Generate Press Premium
MotoPress Content Editor
Brizy

Beaver Builder markets itself as “a complete design system.” It’s a flexible drag-and-drop page builder that works on the front-end of your WordPress website, so you can see the changes live as you’re making them. You can also click on individual elements to edit their properties.

If you’re new to page builders, Beaver Builder also includes an intuitive onboarding tour that will explain all its features one by one, helping you get familiarized with its user-friendly interface.

There are modules for adding almost any element you may want on a page, including content sliders, maps, testimonials, galleries, slideshows, accordions, pricing tables, etc.

And if you want to get a headstart with your designing process, it also includes more than 50 finely-crafted templates for landing and content pages. They’re all mobile-friendly, responsive layouts. You can even save your custom templates for use in other sections of your website, or on a different website altogether (all WordPress developers say yay!).

Beaver Builder plugin works great with almost every WordPress theme and Gutenberg. And if you want to uninstall it for any reason, it doesn’t leave behind a mess. If you’re a WordPress developer or an agency, you’ll appreciate how Beaver Builder can help you build some flexibility into your workflow.

Take Beaver Builder for a spin here and see for yourself whether it’s the right fit for you. There’s also a lite version of the plugin available for free on WordPress.org repo (with limited features though).

Pricing: Starts at $99/year (Unlimited Sites) / Lite Version Is Free

*Check out the WPMU DEV members-only discount!

Elementor

Elementor is another front-end focused page builder plugin for WordPress. It prides itself on its fast live design and inline editing capabilities. And deliver it does, which probably accounts for its 3 million+ active installations!

With Elementor, you make changes to the page and instantly see exactly how it looks like. It makes the whole process of designing and editing web pages a seamless experience. Elementor also works perfectly fine with or without Gutenberg.

While the free version of Elementor plugin includes over 100 designer-made templates and just 30 basic widgets, the Pro version takes it to a whole new level with 300+ pre-built templates and 50+ advanced widgets.

Elementor Pro also tacks on a theme builder, a popup builder, a visual form builder with popular marketing integrations, WooCommerce builder with 15+ shop widgets, dynamic content & custom fields capabilities, and motion effects.

It’s certainly one of the most ambitious page builders for WordPress out there.

Since Elementor is released under Open Source and GPL, other developers are free to create their own extensions for it. Check out these amazing add-ons for Elementor on WordPress.org repo.

Elementor Pro pairs well with free themes such as Hello Elementor, Astra, OceanWP and GeneratePress.

Pricing: Starts at $49/year (1 Site) / Free (Only 30 Basic Widgets)

*Check out the WPMU DEV members-only discount!

Divi

Divi labels itself as “the ultimate WordPress theme and visual page builder.” Its visual page builder has a pretty slick, easy-to-use interface and comes loaded with tons of features out of the box.

While the Divi Builder plugin works best with the Divi All-in-One theme, you can also pair it up any theme of your liking. It works just fine. And just like Beaver Builder and Elementor, Divi Builder employs a front-end, drag-and-drop WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor.

It comes with 40+ website elements and 800+ pre-made designs, including 100+ full-website packs. Furthermore, Elegant Themes adds brand new layouts to Divi Builder almost every week. All these features come together to help you create amazing designs with surprising ease.

When it comes to pricing, Divi has the sweetest deal of all the premium page builder options out there. Not only does it come with a great theme and the standalone page builder plugin, it also includes all the other products by Elegant Themes.

Try the Divi Builder Demo and see it in action for yourself.

Pricing: Starts at $89/year (Unlimited Sites), $249 for lifetime access

Visual Composer Website Builder

Visual Composer Website Builder is a drag-and-drop solution to create websites you’ve always wanted. Just like the options mentioned above, it sports a live front-end editor, which allows you to make changes to your website instantly and see how it looks before hitting the publish button.

It comes with 200+ premium templates and content elements, enabling you to design spectacular landing pages or page sections in minutes. To give you an idea of its extensive customization options, just its button element comes in 30 unique styles.

While Visual Composer sports a clean and minimalistic interface, its actual user experience leaves much to be desired. It does need some getting used to, but once you’ve figured it out, it’s a breeze from there on.

Unlike with other page builder plugins listed above, it also lets you edit the header, footer, sidebar, and other theme features. This is why it’s called a website builder, rather than a page builder.

Visual Composer Website Builder is made by the same team behind WPBakery Page Builder plugin, which confusingly enough was named Visual Composer before. They had to rebrand their old product to avoid trademark restrictions set by Envato marketplace. In case you were confused about this, now you know!

Pricing: Starts at $59/year (1 Site), $349/year (Unlimited Sites)

WPBakery Page Builder

WPBakery is both a front-end and back-end page builder plugin for WordPress. Its front-end user interface is quite similar to that of Visual Composer Website Builder, which isn’t surprising as it’s made by the same team.

Some users prefer its old-school back-end editor to the new front-end ones. You can also move back and forth between the two editing interfaces as needed.

It includes 50+ premium content elements, 100+ pre-built layouts, 200+ 3rd party add-ons, 40+ grid design templates, and much more. And it works with any theme, making it a comprehensive page builder solution.

However, you should note that WPBakery is a shortcode-based plugin, which means that all your customizations through it are tied to clunky shortcodes. It can slow down your website considerably if not used smartly.

WPBakery originally started its journey on Enavato’s marketplace CodeCanyon, where it’s still available. It’s also the most sold WordPress plugin on there. If you’ve ever bought a premium theme from ThemeForest, chances are high that it came preloaded with WPBakery Page Builder plugin.

Pricing: Starts at $45 (1 Site)

Oxygen

Oxygen is the new kid on the block of WordPress website builders. It’s designed from the ground up to be a full site builder, as opposed to being just a page builder. Oxygen’s templating engine lets you design every part of your WordPress site – headers, footers, pages, any post type, and any taxonomy.

With Oxygen, you’re essentially building a custom WordPress theme from scratch (though the team behind it doesn’t like to call it as such). But instead of hand-coding it, you’re using an intuitive, live visual editor to do it. This makes the process much simpler and quicker.

The elements in Oxygen are “more flexible, more customizable, and more powerful.” In a way, it lets you do more, but with less! It sounds counter-intuitive, but that’s how I can describe Oxygen in a nutshell.

The Oxygen design library includes premade design layouts for almost everything you can imagine. You can import complete websites from it with just a single click. Not happy with the existing designs? You can mix and match sections from any website template to create beautiful pages with a uniform style.

The end result is an optimized WordPress website with minimal bloat, thus making it load faster.

With that being said, Oxygen is meant for advanced, professional website designers. You need to have at least some knowledge of HTML/CSS/JavaScript, and a rudimentary understanding of PHP and WordPress CMS to make the most out of it.

The best part about Oxygen though is its current pricing, which seems almost too good to be true.

Pricing: $99/lifetime for Unlimited Sites (limited-time introductory pricing)

SiteOrigin Page Builder

SiteOrigin Page Builder boasts almost 2.5 million downloads and 1+ million active installs on WordPress.org repo. While its user interface isn’t that easy to use, it’s nonetheless a highly popular page builder plugin. This can be attributed mostly to its price (which is free), while still delivering full-fledged page builder features.

It works with any theme, supports live editing, row and widget styles, and is available in 17 languages. Page Builder uses standard WordPress widgets as its content elements, so combined with its widgets add-on bundle (also free), it should take care of most of your page designing needs.

One cool aspect of this plugin is its History Browser feature, which lets you roll forward and back easily through any changes you make. This gives you the freedom to experiment with your page layouts and designs without worrying about breaking the content.

While I wouldn’t recommend SiteOrigin Page Builder to anyone, especially newbies, it still needs to be acknowledged as it’s used by many out there.

Pricing: Free / Premium Add-ons start from $29/year (1 Site)

Themify Builder

Themify Builder is both a front-end and back-end page builder plugin for WordPress.It is included with all Themify themes as part of the Themify framework, but the standalone Themify Builder plugin works with all WordPress themes and is available for free.

Its compact back-end interface lets you to drag-and-drop modules around quickly and easily, while the front-end interface allows you to preview your design live (WYSIWYG).

Themify Builder comes with 40+ professional pre-designed layouts for various website types such as blogs, shops, portfolio, services, etc. All of these website templates can be imported with just a single click.

Most of the standard modules are included for free (text, post, gallery, video, widget, menu, slider, button, map, icons, etc.). However, you can extend its capabilities further by purchasing an add-on bundle which includes 25 extra premium modules.

If you’re looking for a free page builder for WordPress with a simple, easy-to-use interface, you should give Themify Builder a try.

Pricing: Core Plugin is Free / $39 for Add-on Bundle

Themeum WP Page Builder

Themeum is known for its high-quality, user-friendly themes, and their WP Page Builder plugin is no different. Its sleek and simple front-end interface is easy to understand, even if you’ve never used any page builders before.

WP Page Builder calls its modules add-ons, and they’re all unique and perform a specific task. As of now, it includes 30+ add-ons, with more slated to be coming soon. All your WordPress widgets can also be used as an add-on. Apart from that, you have plenty of pre-designed blocks and page layouts to choose from to get started.

Its library feature lets you save any part of your page design as its own template, which you can replicate on other pages or websites easily with just a single click. You can also import or export entire page layouts.

The free version of the plugin includes everything you need to get started. The Pro package gets you 15+ premium layout bundles, that also includes 83+ readymade page layouts. And if you ever want to create custom add-ons or add custom blocks and layouts to WP Page Builder, you can do that easily by following their developer guidelines.

Wanna see it in action? Try the live demo of WP Page Builder.

Pricing: Core Plugin is Free / Pro starts at $39/year (1 Site)

Thrive Architect

Thrive Architect is an intuitive drag-and-drop front-end page builder for WordPress. What sets it apart from the rest of the page builders is that it’s focused on building landing pages that convert.

Want to change something on your page? Just click on it and start editing instantly. Wanna move something? Click to select, and then drag and drop where you want it to be.

Thrive Architect comes bundled with 300+ beautifully designed landing page templates that are 100% focused on conversion. And to eliminate the WordPress plugin hellhole, it includes conversion-focused elements such as attractive CTA buttons, dynamic actions and animations, pricing tables, testimonials, lead generation forms, countdown timers, and more.

Plus, all of these features integrate with your favourite marketing tools, so that you can concentrate on growing your business, and not how your website looks and works.

Thrive Architect works with any WordPress theme. If you’re looking to create professional looking sales pages, webinar pages, or opt-in pages, this is the solution you’re looking for.

Pricing: $67 (1 Site), $19/month (25 Sites)

GP Premium by GeneratePress

GeneratePress is one of the most popular and well-reviewed free WordPress themes. It’s built with a focus on speed and user-friendliness. And thanks to its strict adherence to WordPress coding standards, it works well with all major page builders, including Beaver Builder and Elementor.

Now, you might be wondering why a free WordPress theme is included here. Well, that’s because GeneratePress also offers a premium package called, well, GP Premium.

GP Premium builds on GeneratePress theme and adds 14 premium modules, including the Site Library, from which you can import entire demo sites with just a click. Its Sections premium module acts as a tiny page builder, allowing you to build complex web page layouts with a basic back-end interface.

While it’s not the most intuitive page builder solution mentioned here, it still needs a mention due to its performance advantage.

Most page builders add considerable bloat to your site’s frontend, but GP Premium retains its fast and lightweight nature, thereby giving your site a boost in page load speed and performance.

Pricing: $49.95/year (Unlimited Sites)

MotoPress Content Editor

MotoPress Content Editor is a drag-and-drop page builder plugin for WordPress that’ll help you create better websites with any theme. With its front-end editor, you can easily design your site’s posts, pages, or custom post types.

It includes 30+ content modules and various styling options for you to choose from. However, if you want to display videos, Google Maps, pricing tables, or add a simple contact form, you need to purchase those add-ons separately.

Its straightforward page builder interface can help you streamline your website building process, helping you design your pages swiftly. The designs you build with this plugin are optimized for all viewports, meaning they’re all responsive and mobile-friendly layouts.

This plugin also lets you create custom reusable sections, widgets, and pages. Thus, you can transfer your designs to other websites in no time, saving you a lot of hassle.

There’s no shortcode lock-in with MotoPress Content Editor, which means that even if you choose to deactivate the plugin, your content will still be safe.

Try MotoPress Content Editor here and see for yourself whether it’s the right fit for you.

Pricing: Core Plugin is Free / Premium Add-ons Available

Brizy

Brizy is a relatively new entrant to the WordPress page builder plugins scene. Built from scratch and focused on usability, its intuitive and clutter-free interface ensures that you only see what’s needed for the task at hand.

Like Elementor, Brizy is an ambitious venture and has set its goals pretty high. The first thing you’ll notice about Brizy is its modern, minimalistic design.

It works pretty much like any other front-end page builder plugin for WordPress. You set your page layout, and add or remove page elements as needed. But the area where Brizy truly sets itself apart is how you customize on-page elements. This is where it shines.

For example, if you’re using Beaver Builder or Elementor, you’ll be doing it via a sidebar or a popup. But Brizy lets you edit the element properties inline, right where it is, which seems more intuitive and natural.

Another area where Brizy trumps other page builders is its cloud save feature. You don’t have to worry about saving your changes anymore. It’s all taken care of automatically. And if you ever want to roll back any changes, you can do it easily.

Brizy works with all WordPress themes.

Pricing: Starts at $49/year (3 Sites) / Lite Version is Free

Other Notable Mentions

These page builder plugins were shortlisted, but just missed the mark from making the cut. You can check them out if you’re curious.

How to Choose the Best WordPress Page Builder for You?

With all being said and done, you’re still left with picking a WordPress page builder from a pretty big list. To lock down on any one plugin that’s the best fit for you, look out for these five main factors:

Ease of Use – how intuitive and fast is the builder interface to use?
Compatibility – is it compatible with your existing setup (theme, plugins, etc.)?
Flexibility – does it let you create layouts and apply design styles that you want?
Price – is it within your budget?
Final Output – does the end result look good, is responsive, and is optimized for performance?

Start with Your Dream Site Today

WordPress has always been a platform that promotes openness and DIY. With a page or website builder, you can start building a powerful website in minutes, without compromising on design, flexibility, or functionality. This saves you a lot of time and money, as you don’t have to hire a professional web developer or designer.

Using the right page builder, you can create websites that can compete with many professionals out there. Get started with building your dream site today!

*The discounts for our members that we mention in this post are there because they are products that we know our members love. No affiliate links, kick-backs, special treatment, or anything like that :)

August 14, 2019

How to Choose the Best Web Design Software in 2019 (Compared)

Are you looking for the best web design software to make beautiful websites? Most experienced web designers have their own preferred software for different design tasks.

However, if you’re just starting out, then it can take some time to find that perfect combination.

In this article, we will show you the best web design software for different use-cases, so you can make the right decision for your need.

Why You Need The Best Web Design Software?

Due to common misconceptions about web design, many beginners feel that it would take them years to make decent and professional website designs.

While it’s true that you get better overtime, the right web design software can help you easily create beautiful designs with minimal skills.

That’s because some web design software automate the entire process which allows even absolute beginners to create beautiful websites.

Let’s take a look at some of the best web design software that will help you design like an expert web designer.

Different Types of Web Design Software

There isn’t a single web design tool that would do all the tasks related to web development and design. As a designer, you will need to choose a combination of different software to make your own toolkit.

We have divided our selection into different categories, so you can evaluate the best available options for each task.

Best web design software for building websites
Best web design software for eCommerce
Best web design software for graphic designers
Best web design software for marketers
Best web design software for HTML sites

Let’s start with the basics first.,

Best Web Design Software for Building Websites

Many beginners ask us if they need to learn coding to make a real website.

While knowing how to code gives you an extra advantage in creating websites, many website builders like WordPress has made it easy for anyone to create custom websites without learning how to code.

This is the reason why WordPress now powers over 34% of all websites on the internet.

1. Beaver Builder

Beaver Builder is a user friendly page builder for WordPress. It allows you to simply drag and drop design elements to create your own custom design without writing any code.

To get started with Beaver Builder, you’ll need a WordPress website.

We recommend using Bluehost. They are an officially recommended WordPress hosting provider and one of the biggest hosting companies in the world.

The best part is that they are offering WPBeginner users discount on hosting and a free domain name. Basically, you’ll be able to get started for $2.75 per month.

→ Click Here to Start with Bluehost ←

For details, see our guide on how to make a website with step by step instructions.

Once you are up and running, you need to install and activate the Beaver Builder plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

After that, you can edit WordPress posts or pages using the Beaver Builder.

Simply point and click on any item to edit it or load from dozens of ready-made templates to use as a starting point. For instructions, see our guide on how to create custom layouts using Beaver Builder

Beaver Builder also comes with a Theme Customizer which allows you to create custom WordPress themes using the same drag and drop interface. Unlike editing pages, you can create a complete theme with your own design.

For more information, see our tutorial on how to create custom WordPress themes without writing any code.

2. Divi

Divi is another excellent option if you want to design a WordPress website. It is one of the best WordPress page builders and comes with dozens of ready-to-use templates to choose from.

After you have setup your WordPress site, simply install and activate Divi on your website and start editing. It works with almost any WordPress theme, and you can also use the Divi theme which comes with enhanced features for the builder.

It is a drag and drop tool which means you can simply point and click on any item and change its appearance. You can add images, videos, sliders, contact forms, widgets, and more.

Most importantly your design changes are fully responsive and would automatically adjust for mobile devices.

3. Constant Contact Website Builder

If you are looking for a fully-hosted website builder, then Constant Contact Website Builder is a good WordPress alternative for beginners. This smart website builder comes with beautiful website designs that you can edit using a simple user interface.

Simply start by answering a few questions, and the website builder will pick up design, images, and demo content for your site. You can then just point and click to replace it with your own images, text, videos, and more.

4. Gator by HostGator

Gator is another website builder that allows you to design complete websites without any coding. Gator is made by HostGator, one of the best web hosting companies in the world.

It is a fully hosted platform, which means you don’t need to worry about updates, security, or backup. It not only includes the builder and website hosting, but you also get a free domain name for your website.

The builder software itself features an intuitive drag and drop interface with more than 200+ professional web design templates. Each template is fully customizable using a simple point and click tool.

You can edit any item on a page or drag and drop commonly used items like images, videos, photo gallery, text, columns, maps, and contact forms.

Gator also comes with a built-in stock photo library, so you can find and add beautiful photos on your website.

Best Web Design Software for Ecommerce

The eCommerce industry is expected to reach $4.9 trillion by the year 2021. There is an enormous demand for eCommerce web design in the market.

Following are our top picks for the best web design software for eCommerce that will allow you to break into this market without any coding skills.

5. WooCommerce

WooCommerce is the best eCommerce platform in the world. It runs on top of WordPress, which means you’ll need a WordPress website to design an eCommerce website using WooCommerce.

You can sign up with Bluehost to get started. They are offering WPBeginner users discount on hosting + free domain name. Basically, you can start with $2.75 per month.

For detailed instructions, see our complete guide on how to start an online store.

6. BigCommerce

BigCommerce is a popular eCommerce platform. It is available as a fully-hosted solution and the best part is that it can be easily integrated into a WordPress website.

Creating an online store with BigCommerce is quite simple. It comes with beautiful storefront designs and fully customizable themes for your online store. It automatically handles product images, crops them, and displays them in beautiful gallery layouts.

Wondering how it stacks up against WooCommerce? See our article on BigCommerce vs WooCommerce for side by side comparison of the two platforms.

7. Shopify

If you are looking for a fully hosted eCommerce solution, then Shopify can be a good fit for you. It comes with professionally designed templates to create almost any kind of online store.

All eCommerce design tools are highly intuitive and allow you to just drag and drop items to create beautiful pages. You can easily upload custom logos, images, videos, and more.

Shopify takes care of hosting, software, and backups, so you can just focus on creating a beautiful online store.

For more details, see our detailed comparison of Shopify vs WooCommerce.

Best Web Design Software for Graphic Designers

A big part of web design consists of graphics to create custom logos, background images, featured images, and more. For all these, you will need graphic design tools.

These tools require some basic know-how of how to use them. Luckily, there are tons of online resources to quickly get you up to speed.

8. Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is the industry leader in photo editing and graphic design software. It is available for Mac and Windows operating systems.

It is one of the oldest and the easiest to use graphic design software on the market. Due to its massive popularity, there are plenty of online resources to learn Photoshop for free.

Adobe Photoshop is a bit more expensive than some other software. It is available on a subscription basis and each plan comes with different apps and addons.

9. Sketch

Sketch is a powerful vector design tool which allows you to create scalable high-quality designs. Sketch makes it super easy to create icons, illustrations, prototypes and mockups for apps, websites, and print.

It comes with an intuitive design that’s easy to learn for beginners. It also comes with tons of learning resources to help you quickly familiarize yourself with the software.

10. Affinity Designer

Affinity Designer is an incredibly easy to use and powerful graphic design tool. Suitable for beginners and advanced users alike, Affinity Designer is packed with all the tools you would want in a graphic design tool without any of the complicated stuff.

It also allows you to easily switch between raster and vector modes. This makes it easy to design illustrations with a powerful combination of tools.

Affinity Designer is available for simple pricing of $49.99 one-time payment.

Basically Affinity is a perfect combination of both Adobe photoshop and illustrator.

11. Adobe Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator is Adobe’s vector graphic design tool. Popular among graphic design professionals, Illustrator lets you create logos, icons, drawings, typography, and illustrations for print, web, video, and mobile.

It is easy to use but comes with a slight learning curve to take full advantage of the software. However, Adobe offers plenty of resources to help you get started. You’d also be able to find free tutorials online.

Adobe Illustrator is available on monthly subscription plans, which makes it a bit more expensive than other software.

12. Gimp

If you are looking for a free web design software, then Gimp is an excellent free option. This open source design software is a good alternative to Adobe Photoshop and allows you to easily edit images and create graphics for your websites.

Gimp is available for MacOS, Windows, and Linux. It may not look as polished as some other paid software, but it is a full-featured and powerful design software with much to offer.

Best Web Design Software for Marketers

Web design doest not just end with the launch of a website. Marketers regularly need to design graphics, social media images, icons, infographics, banners, and more.

There are plenty of tools that allow you to design professional-grade marketing material with very little effort and skills. Here is our pick of the best web design software for marketers.

13. Canva

Canva is a graphic design tool for marketers and bloggers. It is a web-based tool and doesn’t require installation of any additional software.

It comes with many ready-made design templates for different types of graphics. You can pick a template and then use Canva’s drag and drop tool to edit those images for your own website.

4. Balsamiq

Balsamiq is a powerful design tool to create mockups, wireframes, and websites. It comes with an easy to use interface that helps you learn UI design as a beginner. Advanced users would find it immensely helpful in quickly building mockups for products pages, marketing material, and more.

15. Moqups

Moqups is another wireframe and mockup design tool. It allows easy sharing and team collaboration without downloading any files.

The intuitive user interface makes it easy to use for beginners and powerful enough for advanced users. It comes with a built-in library of thousands of icon sets, fonts, and style library.

16. Piktochart

Piktochart is an easy design tool to create presentations, infographics, flyers, and posters. It comes with dozens of templates to use as a starting point.

You can use it in your browser, so there is no need to install any software. Simply drag and drop to add icons, elements, photos, shapes, lines, and arrows. Rearrange items and add your own text to create professional designs for your marketing campaigns.

Best Web Design Software for HTML Sites

Need to quickly design static HTML sites? These web design software will help you easily design HTML sites without writing any HTML at all.

17. Adobe Dreamweaver

Adobe Dreamweaver is one of the most beginner friendly web design software. It allows you to easily create mobile-friendly static HTML websites, stand-alone landing pages, or quick HTML docs.

It is easy for beginners to simply drag and drop to create web pages. Advanced users would find it equally useful with smart coding, autocomplete, compilers, git support, and more.

18. Google Web Designer

Google Web Designer is another intuitive and easy to use tool to create HTML-5 based designs, motion graphics, and animations. It can also be used to design banner ads, video ads, and other marketing materials.

You can start from scratch or choose from dozens of templates available in different layouts. Google Web Designer is available as a free download for Mac, Windows, and Linux operating systems.

We hope this article helped you find the best web design software for your design toolkit. You may also want to see our list of the best CRM software and the best business phone services for small businesses.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Choose the Best Web Design Software in 2019 (Compared) appeared first on WPBeginner.

June 4, 2019

How to Use WordPress Theme Customizer Like a Pro (Ultimate Guide)

Did you know that WordPress comes with a built-in theme customizer that allows you to easily make changes to your website design in real time.

While every theme has some level of support for the default customizer options, many themes include additional tabs and options to the WordPress theme customizer, so you can easily customize your theme without any coding knowledge.

In this article, we’ll walk you through the default panels and show you how to use the WordPress theme customizer like a pro.

How to Access the WordPress Theme Customizer

Theme customizer is a default WordPress feature, and it is part of every WordPress website.

You can access it by logging into your WordPress admin area, and then going to Appearance » Customize from the left sidebar of your WordPress admin panel. This will open the Customizer interface with your current theme.

You can also use the WordPress theme customizer page for any of the installed themes on your website even when they are not active.

This allows you to see a live preview of that theme and make changes before you activate it.

To do that, you need to head over to Appearance » Themes page.

Next, hover your mouse cursor over on any installed theme and click on the Live Preview button to open the WordPress theme customizer page.

How to Use the WordPress Theme Customizer

After opening the WordPress theme customizer, you’ll see all customization settings on the left side of your screen, and the live preview of your website on the right side.

WordPress theme customizer comes with a set of default panels regardless of the theme you’re using.

You need to click on the individual panels to make changes to it. You can also click on any of the blue pencil icons on the right side of your screen to open the settings for that particular item.

Note: advanced WordPress themes will add additional setting panels for extra customization options (more on this later).

Let’s take a look at the default options available in the WordPress theme customizer.

Site Identity Panel: Add Title, Logo, and Favicon

The Site Identity panel in the WordPress theme customizer allows you to add or change the title and tagline of your website.

By default, WordPress adds “Just Another WordPress Site” as the site tagline.

It’s recommended to change it after installing WordPress on your site. You can also keep it as blank if you want.

Site Identity panel in the WordPress theme customizer also allows you to add your site logo. Simply, click on the Select logo option to upload the logo of your website.

Want to add a favicon to your site? You can do that by clicking on the Select site icon option. For detailed instructions, you can follow our guide on how to create and add a favicon to your site.

WordPress Theme Customizer: Change Colors on Your Website

The controls on the Colors panel will mostly vary depending on the WordPress theme you’re using.

For example, the Twenty Seventeen theme allows you to choose the header text color and select a color scheme for your entire website.

Other WordPress themes may offer different color options for site elements like: headings, links, body text, background of your website, etc.

Adding Navigation Menus in Theme Customizer

The Menus panel allows you to create navigation menus and control their location on your website.

On this tabl, you’ll find all existing WordPress menus that you’ve created previously. You can click on the “View All Locations” button to check the available menu locations that your theme supports.

To create a new menu, you need to click on the Create New Menu button.

After that, you will need to give a name to your menu, so you can easily manage it later. You can also select the menu location and then click on Next to proceed.

To add items to this menu, you need to click on the Add Items button to open a new panel. You can now add custom links, pages, posts, categories, and tags as menu items.

To reorder the items, you can click on the Reorder link and then use the arrow icons to adjust the menu items.

Control Widgets on Your Website in Theme Customizer

The Widgets panel allows you to add and manage the widgets on your site.

Clicking on it will show you the different locations where you can add widgets. This will vary depending on the theme you’re using.

For example, the Twenty Seventeen theme offers 3 widget locations, whereas the Twenty Nineteen theme comes with just one location.

When you click on any one of them, you’ll see the widgets that you’ve previously added to that location.

To add a new widget, you need to click on the “Add a Widget” button. This will open a new panel where you’ll see a list of all available widgets.

You need to click on the one that want to add. You can also make changes to the newly added widgets and adjust its position by dragging them up or down.

Homepage Settings Panel in Theme Customizer

By default, WordPress displays the latest blog posts on your homepage.

However for business websites users prefer to use a custom homepage. It allows you to have a proper landing page that displays your products and services.

To use a custom home page, you need to select “A static page” radio button on the Homepage Settings panel.

This will open up two new dropdown menus that you can use to select a page for your homepage and another for displaying your blog posts.

In case you don’t have the pages on your site, you can create a new one by clicking on the “+ Add New Page” link present below the dropdown menu. This will create a blank page with the name of your choice.

Additional CSS Panel for Adding Custom CSS

Do you want to add custom CSS code to style your website? You can do that in the Additional CSS panel.

Intermediate and advanced WordPress users often customize their site by adding CSS code directly to the style.css file of their theme. This adds additional steps like having FTP access to your WordPress hosting, modifying theme files, etc.

An easier solution for beginners is to add your custom CSS code to the Additional CSS panel in the WordPress theme customizer. This will allow you to make changes to your site and see them live on the right side of your screen.

When you start writing some CSS code, WordPress will automatically suggest attributes to you based on the letters you type. It will also display error messages if you have not written a proper CSS statement.

Note: If you want to customize your website without writing any code, keep reading. We will share two beginner friendly options that will allow you to easily customize your theme and even create a custom WordPress theme.

Other Theme Customizer Options

Some free and premium themes offer more theme customizer options.

Depending on the theme you’re using, you may be able to change the font style, add a background image, change the layout, modify colors, add random header images, and much more.

You can also add specific features to your theme customizer with the help of plugins. For example, you can add custom fonts in WordPress using the Easy Google Fonts plugin.

Preview Your Website on Different Screen Resolutions

It’s important for every website owner to make sure that their website is mobile responsive and looks good on all screen sizes.

Thanks to the WordPress theme customizer, you can easily check how your website looks on different screen sizes.

At the bottom of the Theme Customizer panel, you’ll find three icons and the “Hide Controls” link.

These icons allow you to test your site on different screen resolutions like desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.

The Hide Controls link is useful for hiding the WordPress Customizer panel so that you can view your site properly on the desktop mode.

Publish, Save, or Schedule Your Customizer Settings

Once you have made the necessary changes, you need to apply them to your site. Otherwise, all your hard work will be lost.

Go ahead and click on the Publish button to apply the changes. Once done, you can click on the close button, present at the top-left corner of your screen, to exit the theme customizer.

What if you need more time to finalize your new design? In that case, you can save it as a draft and even share your new design with someone without giving them access to your admin area.

To do that, you need to click on the gear icon right next to the Publish button. This will open up the Action panel.

Here you’ll find three options: Publish, Save Draft, and Schedule.

You need to select the Save Draft radio button on the Action panel and then click on the Save Draft button to store your changes.

You can now copy the preview link and share it with others to get feedback.

On the other hand, the Schedule option allows you to publish your changes on a specific date and time. You can use this option for scheduling your theme changes to go live at the time when you receive the least traffic.

Lastly, if you want to reset the unpublished changes, then you can click on the Discard changes link on the Action panel.

Preview Different Themes Without Going Live

There are times when you want to check how a new theme would look on your site. However, you don’t want to activate them on your live website.

In that case, you can open the WordPress Customizer to test new themes without going live.

On the Customizer panel, you’ll find the name of your active theme and the Change button.

If you click on that button, then WordPress will display all your installed themes on the right side of the page.

To check a particular theme, you need to click on the Live Preview button.

You can also preview themes from the WordPress Themes Repository. To do that, you need to select “WordPress.org themes” checkbox on the left panel.

This will show themes from the WordPress.org directory. You can click on the “Install & Preview” button to check the theme you like.

You can also filter the themes by clicking on the Filter Themes button present at the top-right corner of your screen.

Note: we recommend using a WordPress staging website to test out new themes instead of using the customizer on a live site.

Import or Export Theme Customizer Settings

Did you know that you can import and export your theme customizer settings?

This is extremely helpful when you are making changes to your theme on your local server or a staging site. Instead of copying the settings manually to your live website, you can simply export the theme customizer settings to save your time.

For detailed instructions, you can follow our guide on how to import and export theme customizer settings in WordPress.

WordPress Theme Customizer Alternatives

Although WordPress Customizer allows you to make changes to your site, the number of controls will vary depending on the theme you’re using.

What if you like your theme, but wish that it had extra customization options?

In that case, the best solution is to use one of the two customization plugins that works alongside the WordPress theme customizer.

CSS Hero

CSS Hero is a WordPress plugin that allows you to customize your site without writing a single line of code. You have the freedom to style every element of your site without any hassle.

Do you want to customize the login page of your WordPress site? CSS Hero allows you to do that within a few minutes.

You can also edit and preview the changes in the frontend to make sure that your design looks perfect on every device.

Beaver Builder

Beaver Builder is one of the best WordPress page builder plugins in the market. It allows you to build stunning pages for your site using a drag and drop interface.

The best part is that Beaver Builder works with almost every WordPress theme. This allows you to use it with your current theme.

Beaver Builder supports the use of shortcodes and widgets. It also offers different types of modules that you can use to easily style your website. See our guide on how to create custom layouts in WordPress for detailed instructions.

You can also use Beaver Builder to create a completely custom WordPress theme without writing any code.

We hope this guide helped you to learn how to use the WordPress Theme Customizer like a pro. You may also want to see our guide on the best WordPress plugins and tools for your website.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for more WordPress video tutorials. You can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Use WordPress Theme Customizer Like a Pro (Ultimate Guide) appeared first on WPBeginner.

January 21, 2019August 13, 2022

WordPress Block Editor vs Page Builders: What’s the Difference?

As the WordPress block editor adds more site editing features, we have been asked if it is meant to be a replacement for drag and drop WordPress page builder plugins?

The WordPress block editor is quite intuitive and can be used to create beautiful content layouts. However, it is still no match for the powerful page builder plugins.

In this article, we’ll compare WordPress block editor vs page builder plugins to help you understand the difference.

The difference between block editor and page builder plugins

WordPress Block Editor vs Page Builders (Explained)

The block editor is the default editor in WordPress. It uses blocks for common website elements (hence the name, Block Editor).

When creating posts and pages on your WordPress site, you can use the block editor to add and edit your content. The block editor is also used for all your widget areas. And now, some themes called ‘block themes’ even support using the block editor for every area on your website.

Since the block editor allows you to use blocks for creating content layouts, it is easy to confuse it with a drag-and-drop page builder.

However, it is still nowhere close to being called a page builder.

WordPress page builder plugins are drag-and-drop design tools allowing you to create custom WordPress website designs without writing any code.

SeedProd a popular WordPress page builder plugin

Top WordPress page builders like SeedProd, Beaver Builder, Divi, Elementor, and Visual Composer are significantly more powerful.

They come with ready-made templates that you can use and offer much more design flexibility than WordPress block editor.

To understand better, let’s take a deeper look at the differences between WordPress block editor and Page Builders.

Key Differences Between Gutenberg and Page Builder Plugins

The biggest difference is that the block editor comes built-in with WordPress core software as the default editor.

On the other hand, page builder plugins are created and supported by third-party developers.

WordPress.org team does not call the default editor a page builder. Instead, they call it the block editor, and it’s presented as a modern way to edit your website in WordPress.

There’s a big reason for that, and it’ll become very clear as you read the differences between the two.

1. Theme Compatibility & Support

The WordPress block editor relies heavily on your theme styles. It does add some of its own CSS and even allows you to add custom CSS for blocks, but it doesn’t override your theme styles and settings.

While page builder plugins can work with your theme styles, they also give you the option to completely take over a page and override your theme’s styles.

Some WordPress page builders like SeedProd are completely theme agnostic. This means that pages created with SeedProd would look the same even if you change your WordPress theme.

This is extremely helpful if you want to create custom layouts for all website pages.

2. Blocks and Widgets

WordPress block editor comes with a decent set of default blocks covering all the commonly used content elements. You can also save and reuse blocks in other posts and even on other WordPress websites.

It has a powerful API allowing plugin developers to create their own blocks. All top WordPress plugins also have their own WordPress blocks that you can use.

On the other hand, WordPress page builders come with even more blocks.

They offer advanced content elements, including carousels, sliders, call-to-action buttons, contact forms, countdown timers, and more.

You can also save individual blocks, rows, or entire templates to reuse later.

3. Formatting & Styling Options

The blocks in the WordPress block editor come with their own styling and formatting options. However, these options are limited.

For more styling and formatting, you’ll have to add your own custom CSS for a block.

Page Builders, on the other hand, offer more styling options by default.

You can change the background colors of blocks, use gradients, use font-icons, select fonts, line height, adjust the width of elements, use styles on images, and more.

4. Templates, Patterns, and Sections

The block editor comes with patterns, which are sets of blocks to quickly insert commonly used areas on a WordPress blog.

For instance, you can use block patterns for headers, call-to-action buttons, columns, and more.

Your WordPress theme may come with its own patterns. You can also find and install patterns from WordPress.org’s patterns library.

If you are using a block theme (themes that support full site editing), then you can also edit theme templates. Your WordPress theme may come with templates you can edit using the block editor.

However, these templates are generic and provide functionality to display common pages of a typical WordPress website.

WordPress page builder plugins come with more pre-made templates and sections or patterns.

Unlike block editor, these sections and templates don’t rely on your WordPress theme for styling.

Most WordPress page builder plugins come with dozens of ready to use templates that are highly optimized for conversions.

Plus, you also get templates for specific business types and websites which makes it much faster to customize them for your own needs.

5. Drag and Drop Features

The WordPress block editor is not a drag and drop design tool (at least, not in its current form).

You can add blocks and move them up and down, but you cannot adjust their width/height using your mouse, move blocks next to each other, or create complex layouts.

The block editor comes with group and column blocks that can be used to create beautiful page layouts.

On the other hand, page builders allow you to drag and drop blocks/widgets, adjust their height and width, create columns and add blocks inside other blocks.

These drag and drop allow you to design your pages and complete websites easily.

6. Full Site Editor vs WordPress Page Builders

You can also use the block editor to edit your WordPress theme. However, you’ll need a WordPress theme that supports the full site editor to try this out.

The WordPress full site editor comes with sitewide blocks like query block, site logo, navigation menus, and more.

You can edit your theme templates like header, footer, homepage, and more.

However, the full site editing feature requires using a supported theme. Your changes will disappear if you change your WordPress theme.

On the other hand, WordPress page builder plugins allow you to create individual pages to create your website. They can work with any WordPress theme, and you can change your WordPress theme.

WordPress theme builder plugins SeedProd can even help you create custom WordPress theme without writing any code.

You can easily edit any section or page of your theme with the drag and drop builder. It even lets you select conditions for displaying each template. For example, you could display different sidebars for different sections of your site.

7. Development Goals

The default WordPress block editor is developed to make it easier for users to create content and edit their websites. It is intended to be used by everyone including bloggers, writers, photographers, and businesses.

The page builder plugins offer ability to create conversion and sales oriented pages without much effort. They are intended to be used by small businesses, aspiring designers, WordPress agencies, eCommerce stores, and more.

While the block editor helps you create better content, page builder plugins help you create better landing pages that help you increase sales, boost subscribers, and grow your business.

Can or Will the Block Editor Replace WordPress Page Builders?

In its current form, the block editor is a good content editor and an easy way to edit and customize your WordPress theme.

However, it is currently not a replacement for powerful drag and drop page builder plugins.

With that said, it is in the WordPress roadmap to expand block editor functionality and promote full site editing features.

We will have to wait and see the improvements to determine if block editor will ever come close to the powerful WordPress page builder plugins.

Which Page Builder Plugin to Use with the Block Editor?

All top WordPress page builder plugins work well with the WordPress block editor. You can take a look at our pick of the best WordPress page builder plugins, and how they stack up against each other.

If you’re looking for an easy-to-use and powerful WordPress page builder, then we recommend SeedProd. It offers a drag and drop builder and over 200+ built-in themes to create any type of landing page without coding.

The plugin is lightweight and ensures that your pages load quickly, helping your rank higher in SEO. It also integrates with popular email marketing services such as Constant Contact, Drip, ConvertKit, and more.

We hope this article helped you understand the difference between block editor vs WordPress page builder plugins. You may also want to see our guide on how much does it cost to build a WordPress website, or see our expert pick of the best AI chatbots for small business.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

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