For a long time, my preferred website toolkit was very straightforward: WordPress and Elementor. That was it. They both were enough to make my visions come alive.
About 43% of all websites currently run on WordPress. It’s pretty much the standard for good reason. The CMS is just top notch. But here is the thing that everyone who uses WordPress knows: the vanilla design experience leaves a lot to be desired.
They have made plenty of improvements. They got themes. They added the Gutenberg editor.
But trying to build something that looks good with base WordPress. That’s a challenge.
That’s where the page builders come in. And for the longest time. Elementor was my go-to solution.
Elementor was a game-changer when I first started using it. Drag-and-drop editing was the solution to all my problems. It had built-in responsive designed elements that allowed me to design without having to use code.
The pricing was great as well. You can use the free version or upgrade to Elementor Pro for $99, which gives you more widgets and the ability to work on more websites.
As someone who understood the basics of HTML and CSS but wasn’t trying to become a full-time developer, it was ideal. I could focus on marketing and content without stressing over the code.
And for a while, it worked really well.
Fast forward to 2025, and I’ve moved on from Elementor. The purpose of this article is not to bash Elementor by any way, shape or form. Elementor is a very solid tool for many webmasters. If it works for your needs, that’s great.
But for my own use case, it became increasingly frustrating to use.
My biggest pain point with Elementor was the editor itself. Load times were horrendously slow. I tried numerous database optimization strategies. I tried finding plugin conflicts. Nothing seemed to make a difference with the editor load times.
For me, “Open Elementor editor in safe mode” became a common occurrence. It will eventually load, but by the time it did my patience was already starting to wear thin. The overall impact was minor but over time it made website management feel like more work than it should be.
Over time, I slowly realized that Elementor Pro’s built-in widgets are simply not enough for the complex projects I wanted to work on.
I found myself needing and eventually getting additional plugins just to create a good functioning archive page.
WP Rocket is a plugin that is essential when running Elementor. Elementor generates code that’s heavy on Javascript and doesn’t use inline CSS. Out of the box this causes Elementor websites to have pretty significant loading speed problems, hurting user experience and SEO performance.
WP Rocket helps fix a lot of these issues, but that comes with careful configuration. Set up lazy loading or CSS deferment wrong and your website can display or behave erratically. This adds another layer of technical management as well as another $99 to your budget.
In practice, I wanted to create an autocomplete form field that would redirect users to a custom landing page based on their selection. Elementor Pro’s forms don’t have autocomplete functionality out of the box.
I purchased JetEngine to add this feature. That was another $100 worth of plugins. After hours of setup and testing, I had to abandon the project because the implementation was much more difficult than what it should be.
Now let’s get into mobile performance because it matters for SEO purposes. My sites performed well on desktop as my PageSpeed scores were always solid. But when running a PageSpeed test for the mobile performance of my Elementor sites, it always scored pretty low.
I couldn’t solve the LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) issue despite several optimization attempts. I even checked established companies that use Elementor on their sites and reviewed their scores for mobile performance. They scored poorly just like me.
Here’s the main problem. People only test their sites using desktop. But the majority of their website visitors browse on mobile devices, and Google’s crawlers use smartphone bots. Mobile performance directly correlates on how well Google evaluates your site. And Elementor just doesn’t get you where you need to be in that category without sacrifice.
After searching for alternatives and testing different options, I switched over to Breakdance. The experience has been night and day.
The code is much cleaner. There’s less JavaScript involved. When I checked Google Search Console, the amount of JavaScript being crawled virtually decreased to zero natively. Elementor had so much JavaScript that the crawler was using close to 40% of its budget.
Site performance improved. Not just on desktop but on mobile as well.
The editor is much better as well. I’m spending less time troubleshooting issues and more time on actually designing and making content.
In my opinion, the websites look much better as well. The design process feels more intuitive for my use case.
This isn’t meant to discourage anyone from trying or using Elementor. It’s still a great option. There are many successful, well-designed websites running with Elementor.
The key is finding what fits your specific needs and technical ability.
This is what I think about the page builder options out there in 2025:
For web developers: Custom builds or Webflow gives you the best flexibility and control.
For advanced users who need more control: Bricks is worth exploring. It’s powerful but has a learning curve.
For people who need simplicity: Wix and Squarespace are solid choices. As you become more comfortable with website management, you might need to migrate as you will desire more flexibility. But they’re great starting points.
For users comfortable with basic code and want efficiency: Breakdance has been the right fit for my needs. It’s technical enough to be powerful and efficient to the point that I’m not spending hours troubleshooting technical problems.
The best page builder is the one that matches your skill level and doesn’t create unnecessary friction in your workflow.