Recommendations for Wordpress Theme Builders

Amitz

Dear all,

a friend of mine wants to build her own business website (small dog training company) based on Wordpress and stumbled across this service:
https://elementor.com

Are you aware of other (maybe free, maybe paid) services like that that help amateurs without much HTML/CSS/PHP knowledge to build an at least semi-nice site based on Wordpress?

It would be ideal if the end product can be used without any recurring payments and/or will be fully functional if the underlying service (Elementor in that case) deadpools. Recurring payments are okay if they provide (security) updates, but the website should not rely on anything that is externally hosted.

So, in fact, I am looking for a Wordpress Theme Builder, paid or non-paid.

Thank you very much in advance & kind regards
Amitz

seriesn

Any specific reason why she wants wordpress and not just use a traditional sitebuilder?

Ympker

I am using Divi (ElegantThemes) and it's been great
https://elegantthemes.com

Not free, but it's one of the Lifetime Deals I've been collecting. There is yearly pricing, too though.
@Unixfy has been giving it a try lately, too. Maybe he can chime in?

Amitz

Women. Is that enough of a reason?
Seriously, Wordpress == Website hosting for her.
She only knows Wordpress, she knows it well (from a user perspective) and she's happy with it.
No chance to change that, I guess...

Ympker

@Amitz said:
Women. Is that enough of a reason?
Seriously, Wordpress == Website hosting for her.
She only knows Wordpress, she knows it well (from a user perspective) and she's happy with it.
No chance to change that, I guess...

Btw. Divi comes with 110+ premade layouts . You can also try the builder in their live demo

level6

@seriesn said:
Any specific reason why she wants wordpress and not just use a traditional sitebuilder?

Please explain what you mean by "traditional sitebuilder." Thx.

seriesn

@level6 said:

@seriesn said:
Any specific reason why she wants wordpress and not just use a traditional sitebuilder?

Please explain what you mean by "traditional sitebuilder." Thx.

Something like this : https://sitepad.com/

mikho

From the Worpress forum I visit the most common names I read are Divi (https://elegantthemes.com/) or Toolset (https://toolset.com)

Harambe

Elementor is kinda the gold standard for theme builders at the moment. In terms of really extensible themes that work with Elementor, Jupiter is pretty popular and has some nice pre-made templates.

Mr_Tom

I've not used elementor yet, but would quite like to give it a try.

From past experience, Divi isn't that good. It's slow, and usually needs front end caching. Back end page editing is very slow too. Elementor looks more drag and drop, whereas Divi seems to be more "block" based and doesn't really give you a sense of what the page will look like. I don't really use page builders, but my experience is from coming into make changes into sites which already use them.

Wordpress's new Gutenberg editor is good, albeit sometimes needs a bit of tweaking, but with the right theme I've found this to be a perfectly good page builder - themes can specify back end styles so you can "see" how it will look better than just adding blocks of text. Possibly not the best option as unless you got a suitable theme (with backend styles) it's gunna need some work.

Ympker

@Mr_Tom said:
I've not used elementor yet, but would quite like to give it a try.

From past experience, Divi isn't that good. It's slow, and usually needs front end caching. Back end page editing is very slow too. Elementor looks more drag and drop, whereas Divi seems to be more "block" based and doesn't really give you a sense of what the page will look like. I don't really use page builders, but my experience is from coming into make changes into sites which already use them.

Wordpress's new Gutenberg editor is good, albeit sometimes needs a bit of tweaking, but with the right theme I've found this to be a perfectly good page builder - themes can specify back end styles so you can "see" how it will look better than just adding blocks of text. Possibly not the best option as unless you got a suitable theme (with backend styles) it's gunna need some work.

I didn't experience this slow loading yet. But obviously experiences can differ. I really like how you can "organize" your page before adding content with placeholders:

https://i.gyazo.com/f23bca0cf42ff5dce838f62abc783f5f.mp4

https://i.gyazo.com/56c064bb9017a26233ec97331f16e5d5.mp4

Plus Divi 4.0 Theme Builder looks very promising:

Anyway, I don't want to say Elementor is bad. In contrary, I believe it is probably as good as people say it is. I never used it though, so can only speak for Divi.

Amitz

I read around a bit and it seems as if Divi (4.0, everything before had mixed reviews) and Elementor are the two main competitors in the segment. I will tell her about Divi, maybe she likes it!

Ympker

@Amitz said:
I read around a bit and it seems as if Divi (4.0, everything before had mixed reviews) and Elementor are the two main competitors in the segment. I will tell her about Divi, maybe she likes it!

She can also try the live builder. Might be best to see if it's for her^^

Mr_Tom

Ympker said: I didn't experience this slow loading yet. But obviously experiences can differ.

I get that - but last site I worked on with Divi took about 2 minutes before the editor was usable in the edit page section. I'd just click "edit" from the pages list and it would freeze Firefox. Possible a browser issue, but wasn't ideal.

The placeholder layout is handy, I will agree there, but a rough idea of what the page will look like is nice as you're building it.

Unixfy

Thanks @Ympker -- I started using Divi a few weeks ago at his recommendation.

In my opinion, Divi is the best page builder hands down. It's super easy to use, has a lot of great features and isn't feature-limited like Elementor (I played with the free version and it feels extremely crippled feature-wise, premium is almost like a must-have if one is to use Elementor). Elegant Themes has a ton of tutorials on their website for literally everything you can think of (whereas Elementor has very few) and like @Ympker said the prebuilt layouts are excellent. There are also many child themes and modules available for Divi which can make building a site even easier. Here is a showcase: https://unixfy.me I built this with Divi in about 2 hours of work

The point made about Divi being slow is somewhat true if you have a lot of plugins and things like that but with a properly configured cache plugin and / or Varnish it's fine. I noticed MXroute website is now built with Divi and it's quite fast (not sure if they are using caching though).

Divi has a neat Theme Builder function that lets you edit your website footer and header as well as other WP system pages (such as 404 page) using Divi Builder. For example: https://unixfy.me/404 was created with Divi.

And yes, Divi 4.0 editor allows you to edit your website on the front-end. It's awesome.

Edit: Video demo: https://share.unixfy.me/399kwdof.mp4

Ympker

@Unixfy said:
Thanks @Ympker -- I started using Divi a few weeks ago at his recommendation.

In my opinion, Divi is the best page builder hands down. It's super easy to use, has a lot of great features and isn't feature-limited like Elementor (I played with the free version and it feels extremely crippled feature-wise, premium is almost like a must-have if one is to use Elementor). Elegant Themes has a ton of tutorials on their website for literally everything you can think of (whereas Elementor has very few) and like @Ympker said the prebuilt layouts are excellent. There are also many child themes and modules available for Divi which can make building a site even easier. Here is a showcase: https://unixfy.me I built this with Divi in about 2 hours of work

The point made about Divi being slow is somewhat true if you have a lot of plugins and things like that but with a properly configured cache plugin and / or Varnish it's fine. I noticed MXroute website is now built with Divi and it's quite fast (not sure if they are using caching though).

Divi has a neat Theme Builder function that lets you edit your website footer and header as well as other WP system pages (such as 404 page) using Divi Builder. For example: https://unixfy.me/404 was created with Divi.

And yes, Divi 4.0 editor allows you to edit your website on the front-end. It's awesome.

Edit: Video demo: https://share.unixfy.me/399kwdof.mp4

Didn't even notice MXRoute was made with Divi. Wow Looks so clean and sleek. Jarland did a good job there.

Did you use uigradients.com for your 404 Error page?

king8654

@Mr_Tom said:

Ympker said: I didn't experience this slow loading yet. But obviously experiences can differ.

I get that - but last site I worked on with Divi took about 2 minutes before the editor was usable in the edit page section. I'd just click "edit" from the pages list and it would freeze Firefox. Possible a browser issue, but wasn't ideal.

The placeholder layout is handy, I will agree there, but a rough idea of what the page will look like is nice as you're building it.

Sounds like more of a hosting issue on your side, never seen that occur before with Divi.

Any backend WordPress slow down has Been the result of crappy shared hosting

Amitz

Is anyone aware of a discount coupon for the Divi lifetime edition?

Mr_Tom

king8654 said: Sounds like more of a hosting issue on your side, never seen that occur before with Divi.

Admittedly the slow backend issues I saw were on a shared server, but I've seen plenty of front end slowness on divi based sites running on dedicated servers.

I'm happy to try looking into the new versions, but as said for me the new wordpress editor does the job nicely for me (when implemented correctly - which I get isn;t the correct thing for this example).

Ympker

@Amitz said:
Is anyone aware of a discount coupon for the Divi lifetime edition?

The Cyber Monday deal is still on it seems (187$): https://www.elegantthemes.com/discount/cyber-monday-2019/

Alternatively, I can also pm you with the builder/theme and a lifetime API key of mine (basically what is sold on Fiverr for 5-10€ or Ebay these days, just from a trusted source) . If you like it you can donate some, if not..there's that

alexxgg

What about Zakra: https://wordpress.org/themes/zakra/ Elementor based, free and paid for premium features. Easy to manage.

Unixfy

@Ympker said: Did you use uigradients.com for your 404 Error page?

I did! UIGradients is literally my best friend :')

vyas

@Amitz From what I understand, Elementor and Divi are the Nike and Reebok of the web page builder space. Of course if you are looking for other options:

a. The Brizy Cloud deal on Appsumo is awesome. They are a static page builder but have a wordpress plugin- to export to WP.
Here's a dummy (dumb!) Page I created- non WP- using Brizy cloud and hosted on MrVM Singapore NAT https://sg.gaatha.net . At $ 49 for three hosted sites "Lifetime" + WP plugin this is a good deal. Have bought two of those so yes, $ 98 of my own money. Deal on upto Midnight US East Coast Time I believe, Dec 15th). Haven't used the WP plugin myself but happy to test it out after 9 AM GMT if that makes the cut.
https://appsumo.com/brizy/

b. Page Builder Pro - came through a newsletter, haven't used myself. https://pagebuilder.pro/cyber-monday/ standard offerings, pages look good. $ 49 for 3 years / $ 59 for "Lifetime" is not bad. CM deal- so limited time.

c. Carrd.do - not WP, no blog, but amazing pagebuilders. If the CM deal still works, the basic plan is $ 9 for 10 sites for 1 year. I suggested to a friend that she create 5 or 6 subdomains and host a site there each - for a design project- and she took it up.

I know you said "women" but you are Amitz. We believe in your powers of pursuation.

d. SSocial has Visualmodo deal for websites- their pagebuilder is not too bad though a little sluggish. $39 for 15 different prebuilt templates is worth a try. I have used them in the past- also for the current landing page for our main site while the rest of the site undergoes a makeover. for a starter site they do the job well, not too heavy on resources. I have the plan still- happy to send the theme + plugins "gratis" - if your friend likes she can buy from Stacksocial otherwise just delete the files.

https://deals.androidauthority.com/sales/visualmodo-wordpress-themes-lifetime-membership

5. WP One pager- Thought of adding to the list even though I haven't used it. $ 49 "LT" . Reviews are limited and mixed.
https://appsumo.com/wponepager/

6. Added later: I thought I would throw this one in the list as well- 10web.io - their CM deal recently focused on web hosting- and they are a web host (Google Cloud Platform) + Page builder + theme /plugin manager. We had built a site quickly when our main site had some issues) - to demo to investors. Their BF/CM deal was for $ 69 /year normal pricing is $ 20/month https://10web.io/pricing/ Not sure if the deal is still on (Edit: Regular prices apply, maybe a Christmas special will come!)

Note: Mixed reactions so far, the guys behind 10web also created Krisp - audio recording/ noise cancellation software that we love and use for our podcasts extensively.

Cheers,

p.s: great list of options already posted by @ympker @Unixfy in this discussion. Was not aware of a few of them myself!

edit: Not my typical way of writing: but this post ended up having too many links..Which was not the intention or not by design either! Had added "nofollow" tags to the links to avoid any heartburn or any other burn but I see that does not work in Markdown. Of course, happy to add ref links to AS/ SS if that is the chosen path.

Unixfy

@Ympker said: Didn't even notice MXRoute was made with Divi.

After playing with Divi a LOT it's easy to recognize the typical run-of-the-mill Divi sites (the ones that don't change their font or anything)

That being said, Divi is incredibly customizable, for example https://professionelle-webseite.ch/ was built with Divi yet looks nothing like the standard Divi theme.

AK_KWH

divi, Elementor alternative is oxygen it's the best one and cheap as compared to elementor

_MS_

GeneratePress, and its paid plugin called GP Premium, which comes with Site Library.
Or you can use the Astra theme, which also has free site library that one can access using their Astra Starter Sites WordPress plugin.
The third performance-frienly theme is OceanWP.
There are a few more themes that work great with Page Builders and work as Page Builders Themes but these three take top spots in all comparison tests done for speed and performance.

You can use all of the above mentioned themes with Elementor Free.

exp

Hahaha hey @Ympker and @seriesn

I also have Divi but Im really confused on how it works. I already chose a theme from Divi's list but the Home page looks different from it and there is a right pane thingy.

I tried Brizy cloud and I think it will be much easier to just build from scratch using the premade blocks and export that to html.

Imho Elementor is easier to use than Divi and I think Brizy cloud will be easier than both. Ahhh

Ympker

@exp said:
Hahaha hey @Ympker and @seriesn

I also have Divi but Im really confused on how it works. I already chose a theme from Divi's list but the Home page looks different from it and there is a right pane thingy.

I tried Brizy cloud and I think it will be much easier to just build from scratch using the premade blocks and export that to html.

Imho Elementor is easier to use than Divi and I think Brizy cloud will be easier than both. Ahhh

Well, you can also build sites from scratch with Divi, you know that? Anyway, good to see you found something for you hehe

Btw. another great, free, Pagebuilder (non wp) is Mobirise @Amitz

dahartigan

Elementor for WordPress, Mobirise for static (although the code it outputs is horrendous)

Sitepad is another good one for static sites if you can find hosting that includes the premium version (one of the deadpooled CC shit hosts did on their 99c/year cpanel and sitepad alone made it a keeper until it deadpooled lol)

poisson

If static, I hand code. Ok that's not going to work for most people..

NoComment

Elementor is definitely the biggest player around so if you went with elementor, you can be sure most plugins that require elementor support would have elementor support. That's basically the biggest advantage when you go with elementor.

Page builders are all going to add a LOT of tags, slow down your site, and make it crazy difficult to migrate/change to other themes/builders. Oxygen apparently is the most lightweight, but it has few features as it is a new player. Divi is probably comparable to elementor in many ways, but it is going to have less built-in compatibility with many plugins.

tl;dr Elementor is probably the best option for someone new to wordpress and only ever plans to build one website. (Or you could recommend your friend to look for a theme with a prebuilt site design she likes so she won't have to touch site builders much)