Drag and drop page builders have become immensely popular with WordPress users over the last couple of years. This should not come as a surprise.
Page builders allow anyone to build stylish and professional looking articles and website designs using a user-friendly interface. It helps developers create pages quickly and helps beginners create stylish pages they could not create on their own.
As the name suggests, you can build pages using a drag and drop system. And since drag and drop page builders are WordPress plugins, they can be used with any WordPress theme. The first solution I recall reviewing years ago was Visual Composer. It is still popular to this day, however the market has become a lot more competitive. This is, of course, great news for WordPress users. [click_to_tweet tweet="The best drag and drop page builders that are available for the #WordPress platform" quote="The best drag and drop page builders that are available for the WordPress platform" theme="style3"] While the purpose of all of these page builders is the same (i.e. to help you create and style pages), they all work in different ways. It is down to you to determine which one fits your purpose. Two key factors to look at are:- Modules – Drag and drop page builders offer their own unique modules (sometimes referred to as blocks, elements, or widgets). It is important that you choose a solution that has everything you need, whether that be tables, styling, media support, or whatever.
- Interface – Many drag and drop builders take some time to understand how they work. However, some page builders with steep learning curves can prove to be the most efficient solution in the long term
1. BeaverBuilder
Price: $99+
BeaverBuilder is a drag and drop page builder that comes with over 15 page templates to help you build pages. It also has native support for custom post types and for WooCommerce. An import and export tool is available for transferring layouts to other websites.
The plugin comes packaged with a complimentary WordPress theme. Over 20 responsive content modules are available and there is support for widgets and shortcodes too. This helps you insert any type of content into your website.
A standard license for BeaverBuilder costs $99 and can be used on an number of websites. The pro license retails at $199 and comes with the Beaver Builder theme. It also offers support for multisite.
Features
- Live front-end editing
- Support for WordPress widgets and shortcodes
- Supports posts, pages, and custom post types
- Editor mode allows you to limit permissions of clients
- Uses a responsive design
- Support for WooCommerce, the translation plugin WPML, and WordPress Multisite (Pro and Agency plans)
- Built-in templating system
- Import and export functionality
- User-interface loads quickly and is very simple to use
- WordPress widgets are supported
- Good variety of professionally designed predefined templates
- Content modules look quite plain
- No undo or redo buttons so if you want to undo a change, you need to revert back to the last save of your layout
- Many alternatives are cheaper to purchase
- Visual Composer
Price – $34
Visual Composer is the best selling drag and drop page builder by a long way (it also holds the title of being the highest selling WordPress plugin on CodeCanyon). It is a feature packed page builder that allows you to style content in the frontend (i.e. your live website) or the backend (i.e. the post editor). The plugin is developer friendly and is responsive so all content looks great on mobile devices too.
Over 45 content modules are available in Visual Composer. This includes social media modules, post grids, media support, charts, and more. Widgets can be inserted into the content area too, which makes the possibilities of Visual Composer limitless. All modules can be styled using the included skin builder.
The core version of Visual Composer is fantastic, but you can extend it further by purchasing one of over 50 add ons that are available.
You may also consider the plugin Intense Site Builder, which retails at $30 on CodeCanyon. It offers 100+ shortcodes and 19 custom post types. 140+ animations and 5,000+ icons are also included.
Intense Site Builder does not use a drag and drop interface. However, if you have Visual Composer and Intense Site Builder installed, you can insert shortcodes from Intense Site Builder into the Visual Composer editor. It is a great way of extending the functionality of Visual Composer even further.
Features
- Backend and frontend editor
- Good selection of content modules
- Intuitive templating system
- Stylish responsive design
- Support for posts, pages, and custom post types
- Support for Yoast SEO, WooCommerce, WordPress Multisite, translation plugins, and more
- Includes a versatile role manager and a shortcode mapper for third party shortcodes
- Features a backend and frontend editor
- Boasts a huge amount of options, features, content modules, and premade layouts
- Support for over 150 unique Visual Composer addons greatly expands functionality
- Frontend editor is buggy
- The sheer amount of features makes the plugin feel bloated at times
- No native import and export functionality
- Divi Builder
Price: $89 Per Year for Elegant Themes Membership
Elegant Themes have always had a reputation for giving great value for money to their members. This continues to this day, however the company have changed their focus from releasing dozens of WordPress products every year to releasing just a few key products. This has allowed them to spend more time creating and refining their WordPress themes and plugins.
The end result of this change was Divi theme. Divi is one of the best selling all-in-one designs for WordPress. At the heart of Divi is a drag and drop page building feature called Divi Builder. Originally only available with Divi theme, Elegant Themes wisely released Divi Builder as a stand alone page builder in 2015.
Divi Builder contains over forty-six content modules. This includes pricing tables, post sliders, and email optin forms. The user-interface is displayed in your post editor and is really simple to understand. You can easily drag rows and columns into your page and you will find lots of useful options such as copy, paste, undo, and redo. You also have full control over margins and padding.
One of the best features of Divi Builder is the Divi library. It offers many pre-made layouts and it allows you to save layouts, sections, rows, and modules. These can then be used across your website.
Divi Builder is included in the Elegant Themes developer and lifetime access memberships. The developer license retails at $89 per year while the lifetime membership costs a one off fee of $249. Both licenses grant you access to all eighty-seven WordPress themes and six WordPress plugins.
Features
- Frontend and backend editor
- Full responsive design
- Professional looking interface, content modules, and templates
- Support for posts, pages, and custom post types
- 32 languages are supported
- Over 20 premade layouts are included
- Import and export functionality
- Offers a backend editor and a frontend editor
- Beautifully designed interface, content modules, and templates
- Elegant Themes membership offers fantastic value for money
- You are limited to the content modules available in Divi
- No option to buy Divi Builder on its own
- No way to remove data from the WordPress database when the plugin is deactivated
- Elementor Page Builder
Price: Free / $49+
Released in June 2016, Elementor has made a big impact in a short space of time by offering a feature set normally reserved to premium drag and drop page building solutions.
Elementor has a colourful user-interface that allows you to make changes to your website at the frontend. Twenty-eight elements are available in addition to the twelve default WordPress widgets. It supports third-party WordPress widgets too so you can use any of the thousands of widgets that are available for WordPress to add additional functionality.
The interface is easy to use and loads quickly and the included templating system lets you save your layouts and use them elsewhere on your website. Twenty premium templates are also included to help get you started.
Elementor Pro adds additional features such as a masonry layout, live custom CSS editing, support for WooCommerce, additional content modules for slides, MailChimp and Twitter, and a global option that lets you use a content module across multiple areas of your website. Pro users also get access to a host of professional templates.
A personal license for Elementor Pro retails at $49 and gives you one year of support and and updates. The business license costs $99 and increases support and updates from one website to three websites. The unlimited license that retails at $199 removes the website restriction.
Features
- Frontend editing
- A mobile-friendly responsive design
- Built-in templating system that supports importing and exporting
- Support for posts, pages, and all custom post types
- Premade templates to help you get started
- Support for WooCommerce (Pro version) and translation plugins
- An intuitive frontend editor that makes creating layouts a breeze
- Revision history lets you easily undo and redo changes
- Support for WordPress widgets
- Most major features are available in the free version
- Templating system needs to be refined
- No white label version available for developers
- Themify Builder
Price: $49
Themify Builder is a user-friendly drag and drop page builder that allows you to style content at the frontend or backend of your website. It offers a lot of tools for building pages quickly. Pre-built layouts allow you to quickly load a particular type of page and then modify it to suit your needs. Specific parts of a page can also be saved and used easily later and the import and export tool makes it easy to copy layouts to another website.
It has a lot of cool styling options such as video backgrounds, Google font support, and a wide range of animations. 16 content modules are available. This includes maps, sliders, videos, and portfolio items.
Themify Builder is responsive and developer friendly. It is available at $39 from Themify. 9 add ons are also available for the plugin that allow you to extend its functionality further.
Features
- Frontend and backend editing
- Responsive design
- Over 40 predefined layouts
- Supports posts, pages, and custom post types
- Has support for major plugins such as WooCommerce, Yoast, WMPL, ~Contact Form 7, and more
- WordPress Multisite and localised languages are supported
- Uses its own built-in cache system to reduce server load and improve performance
- Frontend editor and backend editor lets you edit pages wherever you like
- Interface has lots of useful features such as copy and paste, undo and redo, and import and export
- Features over 60 animations, a cool custom styling system, premade layouts and layouts designed by the community
- Not everyone will like the way the interface displays content modules at the bottom of the page
- The 22 additional content modules that are available for an additional $39 should be included in the core version
- ThriveThemes Content Builder
Price: $67+
ThriveThemes Content Builder is a quality frontend drag and drop builder that has a user-friendly editor. It was developed specifically for online marketers, therefore it has a lot of unique features.
A total of twelve content elements are available in Content Builder. All of these content elements are designed to help you create landing pages and sales pages. Elements include opt-in forms, video embedding, countdown timer, and a visual table builder.
The plugin can also be used to create home pages, professional blog posts, video pages, contact form pages, and more.
A single license for Content Builder retails at $67 and comes with unlimited updates and one year of support. A five license pack will set you back $97 while a fifteen license pack costs $147. If you want to use the plugin on your own websites and client's websites, you need to upgrade to the agency license at $588 per year ($47 per month).
Features
- Frontend editing
- Mobile-friendly responsive design
- Boasts many marketing features such as call to action boxes, lead generation tools and landing pages builder
- Built-in template system lets you save and load layouts
- Content module sidebar simplifies selecting style of modules
- Features many unique content modules
- Comes packaged with its own suite of landing pages
- Revision history and undo and redo buttons makes correcting changes a breeze
- Plugin does not adhere to the GNU General Public License and cannot be used until you enter your license information
- Very few settings
- Lacks advanced features that are provided with other drag and drop page builders
- MotoPress
Price – Free / $29+
MotoPress is an easy to use drag and drop page builder that has responsive layouts that look good on any device. The plugin also supports custom post types.
Once you launch the MotoPress content editor, your post editor will be replaced with a visual interface that allows you select from up to six different categories. 20 modules, such as post grids, Google Maps, and sharing buttons, are available in the first five categories. The last category allows you to insert widgets.
A personal license for MotoPress costs $29 and offers support and updates for one year for one website. The business license costs $79 supports up yo five websites and the developer license at $139 supports unlimited websites
For more information about MotoPress, check out my recent review.
Features
- Frontend editing
- Mobile-friendly responsive design
- Supports posts, pages and custom post types (MotoPress Pro only)
- 30+ content modules
- Premium addons available that extend functionality further
- Style builder
- Predefined layouts
- Support for WordPress Multisite, WordPress translation plugins, WooCommerce, and more
- Available in 11 languages
- Frontend user interface is fast loading and easy to use
- All content modules and most functionality is available in the free version of the plugin
- Only $28 to upgrade to MotoPress Pro
- Only default WordPress widgets are supported; widgets added from WordPress plugins are not made available
- The six predefined layouts that are provided are only available when your page is blank; they cannot be selected if your page has content
- Not as stylish as competing drag and drop page builders
- Page Builder by SiteOrigin
Price: Free
Page Builder is a fantastic free drag and drop page builder solution that helps you create multi row and multi column pages on your website.
The concept behind Page Builder is that you can use the plugin to insert WordPress widgets into your pages. Six basic widgets are included with the plugin to help you get started: Gallery, image, video, post loop, button, call to action, list, price box, animated image, and testimonial. A SiteOrigin Widgets Bundle can also be downloaded free of charge from WordPress.org to add more widgets to your disposal.
Features
- Frontend and backend editing
- Responsive design
- Posts, pages, and custom post types are supported
- 13 premade layouts included with plugin
- Selection of free themes are available that are optimised for Page Builder
- Supports 17 languages
- Free to download
- Premium addon bundle can be purchased for $29
- Supports WordPress widgets
- History browser lets you undo changes easily
- Drag and drop interface runs smoothly
- Feels very basic compared to other alternatives
- Only a small selection of content modules (widgets) are provided with the core version of the plugin
- Not as many styling options are other drag and drop page builders
Price: Free
Live Composer is a beautiful responsive drag and drop page builder that allows you to style pages using a frontend editor. The main editor is displayed at the bottom of each page. From here you can style your page, insert modules, and load and save templates. Once you are familiar with the interface, you will be able to create complex pages in minutes.
Over 30 content modules are available including an accordion post box, sliders, galleries, and comments. Widgets can also be inserted into the page. Modules can be used to build dedicated pages such as blog indexes, staff pages, and testimonial pages.
Features
- Frontend editing
- Mobile-friendly responsive design
- Colourful user-interface
- Over 30 content modules are included
- Built-in templating system lets you save, load, import and export
- 10 premade layouts provided with plugin
- WordPress widgets can be inserted with the use of sidebars
- 100% free to download and use
- Small selection of extensions and designs available at very low prices (some are free)
- Sections, layouts, and pages, can be imported and exported
- Role manage and feature control lets you dictate what users can use features
- Uses a quick loading colourful design
- Apart from a few affordable extensions, all functionality is available is available in this free to download WordPress plugin
- Support is provided free of charge with priority support available at $9 per ticket
- An advertisement bar with affiliate links and news is displayed at the bottom of the live editor
- No options to uninstall plugin data
- Page Builder Sandwich
Price: Free / $39+
The bizarrely named Page Builder Sandwich is a premium frontend page builder solution that offers theme customisation and content building features.
The frontend editor lets you easily adjust styling such as text formatting and rows and columns. Where it falls behind many other page building solutions is its lack of built-in content modules. There are only around a dozen basic content modules including a table, carousel, and newsletter. Thankfully, the plugin supports widgets, which puts thousands of possible content options at your disposal.
Page Builder Sandwich is competitively priced. The personal license retails for $39 per year and gives support and updates for one year. Opting for the premium license at $89 per year allows support and updates for an unlimited number of websites.
Features
- Frontend editing
- Mobile-friendly responsive design
- Supports posts, pages and custom post types
- Unique interface that displays a WYSIWYG editor at all times to help you make quick edits
- Shortcodes and WordPress widgets supported
- Global shortcode mapping
- Four languages supported
- Pro version offers 10 page templates and over 40 premade sections
- User interface runs smoothly and the fixed WYSIWYG editor lets you format your content easily
- Useful undo and redo buttons are provided
- Support for WordPress widgets helps you extend functionality of available content modules
- Free version offers very few content modules and no premade templates
- No templating system to allow you to use save layouts and use them in other areas of your website
- Lacks advanced functionality available in other drag and drop page builders
- Conductor
Price: From $99
Conductor is a fantastic WordPress plugin that works in conjunction with the WordPress theme customizer to allow you to make changes to the frontend of your website.
It can be used to change page layouts, modify the look of WordPress templates, and insert widgets into content. The plugin is more suited to customising themes than creating stylish pages, however there are add-ons available that allow you to add a slider, custom fields, and tables.
Pricing starts at $99 per year for a personal license. Upgrading to the professional license at $99 adds the Baton Pro WordPress theme and increases domain usage from 100 domains to unlimited. Baton Pro retails at $59 on its own so unless you need to use Conductor in over 100 domains, stick with the personal license.
The lifetime license offers the same features as the professional license, but by paying a one-off fee of $399 you never have to worry about renewals again.
Features
- Frontend editing
- Mobile-friendly responsive design
- Supports posts, pages, custom post types and custom fields
- Designed specifically for WordPress professionals
- Works with the WordPress theme customizer
- Several integration addons provided for AgentPress, WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, and more
- Lots of advanced developer features not found in other drag and drop page solutions
- A query builder is included to help build complex queries
- Uninstall option provided in the settings area to let you remove all plugin data
- Designed for WordPress developers, not end users, so not everyone will like the way Conductor works
- You are limited to using WordPress widgets as no custom content modules are provided
Price: Free / $39+
Forge is a versatile frontend drag and drop page builder that can be downloaded free from WordPress.org. It features a number of useful responsive content modules such as a featured block, login form, and pricing tables. Import and export functionality is provided to help you transfer content and designs between different websites.
Whilst Forge is free to download, you need to pay to unlock all of its features. The advanced elements add-on that retails from $24 adds a further thirty content modules. You can also add a global templating system from $19 and a layout library from $29. All of these add-ons are available as a bundle for $59.
Please note that the prices stated above are for a single website license. You need to pay more for a license for two to three websites and for an unlimited website license.
Features
- Frontend editing
- Mobile-friendly responsive design
- Built-in templating system lets you save and load layouts
- Layouts can be imported and exported at any time
- Over 30 content modules are available if you purchase the pro version of Forge
- Pro version also adds premade layouts
- The user-interface works really well with all content modules displayed on the left-hand side of the page
- Undo and redo functionality means that you can quickly switch back between changes
- WordPress widgets and sidebars can be inserted into the canvas area
- Free version provides very few content modules
- No premade layouts provided in the free version
- No role manager means that you have no control over what features are available to users
Theme Page Builders vs Plugin Page Builders
Ten years ago it was popular for theme developers to include content shortcodes in their theme. These shortcodes could be used to insert tables, add columns, style content, and more. It was a user-friendly way of letting WordPress users make their websites more professional.
One of the themes that helped push this idea forward was Headway. The theme featured a drag and drop layout creator that allowed you to easily create your own custom layouts. Without a doubt, earlier theme page builders such as Headway were a source of inspiration for all-in-one themes such as Divi.
All page builders and content styling solutions are developed in a unique way. This means that the code used to create content with one solution is different to another. For example, one developer may use the shortcode [ cols ] for adding columns to a page, whilst another developer may use [ columns ]. There is no agreed upon standard for shortcodes within the WordPress community so the code that is used is decided by the developer.
The problem with using theme page builders and theme content shortcodes is that all custom styling is tied to the theme itself. If you later decide to use another WordPress design, all of the custom styling you created will be lost.
In contrast, if you customise your website using a plugin page builder, any custom styling you add to blog posts and pages will remain when you change design.
This explains why theme page building solutions have become less common over the last few years and the market for plugin page builders has exploded.
If you create unique pages using a plugin, you can change your WordPress theme as many times as you wish and the content will not be altered.
Please be aware, however, that styling your website using a plugin page builder has some limitations too. For example, if you use a plugin page builder to change your website header, the layout will be affected if you change WordPress theme (though as noted previously, custom styling added to content will be unaffected).
Changing your page building solution means starting from scratch too. Therefore, if you had to style content for a year using Divi Builder and then decided to use Visual Composer instead, you would have to re-apply all of the styling you added previously as there is no way to transfer custom designs from one solution to another.
Due to the reasons stated above, I believe that most WordPress users will find a plugin page building solution more suitable. I recommend looking closely at different page building solutions and then choosing one that fits your needs.
Choosing a plugin to style your content means that you can change your WordPress theme in the future with minimal inconvenience; though please be aware that plugin page builders are by no means perfect.
When developers create a plugin page builder, they need to spend a lot of time ensuring it works with every single WordPress theme. This can be a difficult task as every WordPress theme is coded differently.
With a theme page builder, the developer can cater the page building options specifically to their theme. This normally means less bugs and a more refined product.
Final Thoughts
The developers of drag and drop page builders recognize the importance of testing their products before buying. That is why they provide demos of their plugins.
If you want to find the right solution for your project, you need to do the necessary research and spend time building a page using the plugin in question. This will help you see firsthand what the plugin can do:
You should therefore take advantage of the demos provided by developers and check whether:
- You understand the visual interface and like the way it works
- The plugin includes the modules you need
Thanks, Danish M Mir
Posted from my blog