With WordPress switching permanently into the Gutenberg editor There’s no question about it: page builders aren’t being the new standard for Web design or the creation of content. They’re the present.
For many it’s not new. WordPress Page builders are in use for a long time. However you and your clients may not have had much consideration to their use at the time they were an alternative for developing websites.
Looking at where we are now using the page builder as the main tool for content creation within WordPress the entire process has changed.
When you, or clients aren’t finding the brand-new WordPress editor helpful in the way you work, then it might be time to think about using one of the page builders plugins. Of course, you could you could always go back to the old editor, but it will place you and your customers at a disadvantage, as you’re taking the wrong step instead of forward.
Take a look at your options for page builders and choose one that will make your life simpler.
This is why we’ll pay attention to Beaver Builder and Elementor today. Other page building plugins to choose from such as this review by WP Shout demonstrates — however we’d like to provide you with the top choices for web designers and customers today.
In the context of Beaver Builder vs. Elementor The following guide will provide the side-by-side comparisons of:
- The history of the plugin
- Pricing
- Usability
- Maintenance
- Review of Plugins
Beaver Builder vs. Elementor
This introduction will offer you a clear understanding of the reason these plugins are still at the top of on the market of WordPress page builders of today.
An Introduction to Beaver Builder
The Beaver Builder* was added to the WordPress ecosystem in 2014.
The Beaver Builder Lite (free) plugin is available on the WordPress repository with more than 500k downloads and a five-star rating.
The story behind the founding of Beaver Builder is one that agency and designer alike can identify with. In fact, Robby McCullough, Co-founder and co-chairman Beaver Builder, the co-founder Beaver Builder, recounted this in a blog post in early 2015:
Key Points
- His web-base company offered the service of a low-cost web design which require clients to pick a pre-design template that was craft from a collection of themes that the agency worked with. When a brand new theme was add to the market, it led to an issue that could have been a more efficient and more efficient process.
- McCullough’s agency began to receive many requests from clients wanting to create custom websites that they could edit their own.
- In the wake of this new complexity introduced, the agency switched to a mix of Advanced Custom Fields and page templates to build their websites. This resolved one aspect of the issue -the time commitment but not the usability component.
- They needed a foundation they could build each website on and that customers could easily adopt.
This is the place Beaver Builder, formerly FastLine Page Builder came into the arena.
It was originally an expensive page builder plugin was later rebranded to a freemium version so that users could access the free version available from the repository. Additionally, they converted to GPL to allow other developers could enhance the capabilities of what it can accomplish. One excellent example can be seen in Themer Pro* created by Eric Hamm and Cobalt Apps* which enhances abilities of Beaver Themer.
It was a wonderful conversation and in the interview, Robby discusses how he is planning to travel around the world for an entire year while aiding in the running of Beaver Builder. Absolutely an inspiring interview.
It’s worth mentioning that the Beaver Builder Community is awesome, too. They have an awesome Facebook page with more than 13,000 members who are available to solve any questions you might need to ask.
An Introduction to Elementor
Elementor* came out two years following Beaver Builder in 2016.
The no-cost Elementor plugin is available on the WordPress repository, which has more than 1 million downloads, and a five-star rating.
Regarding Elementor’s beginning story You can learn the entire story by reading the story of CMO Ben Pines. While you wait, I’ll provide a brief overview of how this page-builder came to be.
In 2015 the Elementor’s founders Elementor were operating the WordPress theme business. When they looked around the CMS landscape they were astonished to discover solutions like Wix and Weebly that had amazing page builders tools, while WordPress seemed to be falling in comparison. They recognized the necessity for such a tool in the current market however, they were divided over how to tackle it , given the fact that there are various kinds of users:
- The designer doesn’t need to program however they would like control over all aspects in the creation.
- The developer wants to embed everything in your page. That is operating with a simple interface.
- The customer isn’t looking to code, and they don’t wish to manage all aspects of their website. They simply want a straightforward method of building or managing their site.
Beaver Builder vs. Elementor Reviews
Elementor has twice the number of users as Beaver Builder and accumulated them in half the amount of time, as well. There are two main reasons for this.
One involves more aggressive advertising from the side of Elementor. Beaver Builder played it very cautiously in its first year of operation and that’s understandable considering it was the company which paved the way for the plugins for page builders that followed.
After spending time in both it’s clear that the person who’s in the middle may have something to do with it, too.
If you’ve been spending a considerable amount of time reading WordPress reviews of plugins You can quickly develop an understanding of several things:
- What are its best points.
- What are its main weaknesses.
- Which type of user often is it that uses it.
- How responsive the business is in offering support
- How responsive is the company in defending its brand image.
Beaver Builder Reviews
Only one percent from Beaver Builder users have left reviews about the plugin in the WordPress repository. The overwhelming majority of them are favorable.
The most frequently cited awards are:
- Clean Coding – A lot of users praise the plugin as a quality product. In general, there appear to be few things to be unhappy about when it comes to bugs or issues with usability.
- Incredible Support – For users who have run into issues, most users say that their support staff has been very helpful*. Even if you examine the complaints that are one-star about support, they’re probably unsubstantiated or related to a Beaver Builder plugin.
- A dedicated Beaver Builder resources like Pro Beaver help make the support better , since it gives the option of self-support for developers looking to know more about the insides and outsides and functions of this plugin.
- Developer-Friendly – If you take a look through the reviews, you’ll see many developers discuss how they’ve constructed a number of websites over time using Beaver Builder. It also talks about how it reduces the time they’ve spent creating websites for clients.
Although novice users may make use of Beaver Builder, it appears to be a huge hit for developers — particularly those who are contemplating expanding their business to create themes or sell managed hosting or even provide ongoing maintenance for their sites.
Beaver Builder vs. Elementor Maintenance
Another thing to note is to ensure the maintenance of the maintenance of a WordPress website constructed using Beaver Builder or Elementor.
Security
As Abhijit Rawool states, Beaver Builder hasn’t had any security problems of any significance. This doesn’t mean there’s no vulnerability. As this one that was discover in 2016 shows, but there’s not anything that is of concern regarding the security of this plugin.
Elementor however, on contrary has faced major problems over its short existence, as Rawool mentions. Jetpack shares this view.
Elementor is awarded an “Good” rating because the current version is the only one that Jetpack believes is suitable for use.
Performance
There is a clear distinction between the ways Beaver Builder. And Elementor affect the speed of a website site built using these tools. Thanks to Pagely We have side-by side speed tests to illustrate this distinction.
The page is created by Elementor.
It was loaded in 489 milliseconds.
This is the exact page created in Beaver Builder.
It loaded in 655 milliseconds.
This is a significant distinction regarding loading times however. It’s crucial to note the amount of HTTPS requests executed by Elementor and database queries. While Beaver Builder loaded more slowly, Elementor was more taxing on the server.
Wrapping Up
There’s plenty of data to consider when making the right choice in between Beaver Builder and Elementor. It’s obvious there’s a difference. Beaver Builder is a more user-friendly and developer-friendly plug-in however. This doesn’t mean Elementor isn’t a good choice for developers. — Particularly in the event that clients find it to be more user-friendly. It’s important to consider the whole picture and decide what’s the best for your workflow and the management of your clients of content they create themselves. If you need further assistance, take a look at our care programs for help on your website.
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