Elementor Review 2024: Is It Really All That Good?

Are you a beginner who is looking for an in-depth WordPress Elementor review? Then, you land on the right page.

Elementor is one of the most popular WordPress page builder plugins on the market, and for good reason. It’s easy to use yet powerful enough to create complex and professional-looking websites.

But is Elementor really the best page builder plugin?

In this hands-on Elementor review, we’ll help you understand:

  • How Elementor can benefit you
  • Who should use Elementor
  • How does it work
  • Key features that help Elementor stand out from the competition
  • How much does elementor cost

By the end of our Elementor review, you should have everything that you need to make an informed decision about whether or not Elementor is the right tool for your WordPress website.

What Is Elementor & What Does It Offer?

Elementor is a drag-and-drop page builder for WordPress. It allows you to customize your WordPress blog posts, pages, and overall web design without writing code.

Elementor Homepage

Since Elementor offers a visual drag-and-drop interface, you can see the front end of your page in real-time while dragging and dropping content and design elements to create custom page designs.

The Elementor page builder has a lot of options for customizing your WordPress site. We’ll go through these in more in detail later, but for now, here are the notable features:

  • Multiple Content Elements – Elementor’s widgets and modules are the building blocks of your page. You can drag and drop them to make your design.
  • Responsive Design – Most users browse the internet from mobile devices, so your website should look good on any device. Elementor is mobile responsive by default, giving you many options for adjusting your design to different screen widths.
  • Templates Library – You won’t have to start using the Elementor plugin from scratch. It has hundreds of professionally designed landing pages and templates, giving you a solid foundation to customize.
  • Customization – It offers many customization options for styling your website without using custom CSS or HTML. But you can if you want to.
  • Theme Builder – Elementor Pro offers functionality for designing your entire WordPress theme.
  • Popup Builder – Elementor Pro also allows you to design custom popups to boost website conversions.
  • Dynamic Content – With a few clicks, you can include dynamic content from custom fields and other WordPress plugins and add-ons.
  • WooCommerce Builder – If you’re creating an eCommerce website, Elementor allows you to design your WooCommerce store and add products to your existing designs.
  • Third-party integrations – The plugin supports third-party integrations such as MailChimp, Drip, ActiveCampaign, etc.

Elementor Review: Who Is Elementor For?

Before diving deeper into our Elementor review, we’d want to discuss the types of people who will benefit the most from it.

Bloggers

If you’re a blogger, affiliate marketer, or SEO expert looking to design your own site, Elementor page builder is for you. Simply install any WordPress theme of your choice and use the Elementor plugin to create and customize your site however you like.

Web Developers

If you’re a freelance website designer looking for a perfect solution to create professional-looking websites for your clients, Elementor Pro is a great option.

Digital Marketers

Elementor is popular among digital marketers since it offers many tools for optimizing website conversions.

You may use the form builder to build lead generation forms and connect them to your email marketing service to expand your email list. Additionally, the popup builder enables you to target specific audiences with popup campaigns.

Furthermore, the landing page templates and WooCommerce builder help you create sales and product pages to increase leads and sales.

Now that you know what Elementor is good for, let’s look at how it works.

Interface: How Does Elementor Work?

Elementor, like any other WordPress plugin, must be installed and activated on your WordPress site. You can then either configure the Elementor settings or start customizing your site.

If you’re new to Elementor, we suggest leaving the default settings.

Creating a Page with Elementor

To create a new page using Elementor, go to Pages » Add New from your WordPress dashboard. Then, click the Edit with Elementor button from inside the WordPress editor.

Edit a WordPress Page With Elementor

Elementor automatically pulls the styling from your current WordPress theme for a consistent look. In our case, we’re using the Astra theme.

The Elementor interface consists of two parts. On the right side is a live preview of your website, and on the left are elements that you can drag and drop onto your design.

Elementor Interface

When you click the plus (+) icon, you will be asked to choose a content structure for your new page. As shown in the screenshot, there are 12 different section types to choose from.

Elementor Columns and Page Structure

After selecting your page’s structure, you can select a section layout and drag the element into the section’s columns.

Here, you can change everything from the editor on the left side and see the changes live within the content area.

Elementor Builder Example

However, if you want to use pre-made templates for your page, click the Folder icon next to the Plus icon. The Elementor library has over 100+ pre-designed templates.

Elementor Templates Library

You may easily insert a template from the library, customize it, and publish it.

Elementor Review: Other Useful Interface Options

One of the things we enjoy about Elementor is that it has a lot of interface enhancements to help you work more efficiently.

First off, you have right-click support, which makes it simple to duplicate stuff, copy and paste content, or even change settings, among other things.Elementor Right Click Support

You may also use navigator mode to get a high-level view of your design, including the ability to give names to sections to help you keep organized.

Elementor Navigator Mode

To switch between various designs or settings areas, you have a useful “Finder” feature that allows you to find and access almost everything on your site.

Elementor Finder Tool

Overall, we feel that the Elementor interface makes it simple to work effectively and build custom designs without coding.

Some Key Features That Help Elementor Stand Out

Now that you understand how the Elementor interface works in general. Let’s look at some of the features that set Elementor apart from other visual, drag-and-drop page builders.

1. Huge Widget Selection

Elementor offers a huge collection of widgets across the core plugin and add-ons, giving you lots of flexibility when designing your designs.

Elementor Pro Widgets

It’s not only the 60+ widgets that come with Elementor and Elementor Pro. There’s also a vast range of widgets from third-party developers.

For example, Ultimate Addons for Elementor offers 40+ additional widgets that you can use on your design. This includes a popup model, content toggle, videos, etc.

With so many widgets available, you can easily find a widget that does the exact function you need.

Also, check out some best Elementor addons for your site.

2. Lots of Design and Style Options

Another notable feature of Elementor is its abundance of design options, especially with Elementor Pro.

You get more built-in styling options than most other page builders. However, Divi Builder is one of the few builders that can match Elementor’s design flexibility.

You can control colors, typography, spacing, and more. With the Elementor Pro version, you also get access to custom positioning, eye-catching motion effects, and other options to create unique designs.

3. Responsive Design

Elementor allows you to adapt the style of your web pages according to the devices your visitors use. This ensures that your website is 100% responsive, which means that it will look excellent on all devices, including desktops, mobile devices, and tablets.

Responsive Design Options in Elementor

The plugin also has a feature that ensures responsiveness. When editing an element, look for the Responsive option under the Advanced menu. This allows you to hide a widget for a specific device. This is helpful when you don’t want to show the same piece of content on every device.

4. Huge Template Selection

If you don’t want to start from scratch, Elementor has many templates organized into two categories: Blocks and Pages.

A block template lets you create specific sections of your website. However, a page template is a full-page template that you may apply to the entire page rather than just a specific section.

Elementor Templates

Like widgets, you can also find Elementor templates from third-party sources.

Check out some of the best Elementor themes and templates for your site.

5. Form Widgets and Integrations

With Elementor Pro, you have access to a Form widget, which is a form builder that you can use from within Elementor.

You can build custom forms with as many fields as you need. You may also set post-submission actions, such as sending an email or showing a confirmation message. Alternatively, you can connect your forms to popular email marketing services.

Elementor Form Widget

For most individuals, this eliminates the need to install a separate WordPress form plugin. It’s ideal for contact forms, lead generation forms, etc.

However, if you want more complicated forms with conditional logic, calculations, and so on, you will still require a separate form plugin.

6. Theme Builder

With Elementor Pro, you can create your complete WordPress theme with Elementor rather than just posts and pages. You can create headers, footers, single templates, archive templates, and so on.

Elementor Theme Building interface

For example, you could create a custom post type and then use Elementor to design the template for that post type rather than messing around with theme template files directly.

The really powerful thing here is that you can bring in dynamic content from custom fields that you create with plugins like ACF.

With this dynamic feature, you can create fully custom sites and harness WordPress’ power as a flexible content management system.

7. Popup Builder

Elementor Popup Builder allows you to create your own custom popups by using the Elementor interface.

Since you can use any widget or content within the popup, you can use these popups for anything. These include email opt-ins, contact forms, login forms, etc.

Elementor Popup Builder

Furthermore, you have complete control over the “canvas” of your popup, allowing you to build many types of popups. These include lightbox popups, notification bars, slide-ins, and so on.

Furthermore, when you publish a popup, you’ll have a set of targeting and trigger rules that allow you to manage where and when your popup appears:

Elementor Popup Targeting and Trigger Option

Overall, Elementor popup builder fully eliminates the need for a third-party popup or lead generation plugin. However, the one thing that it lacks is built-in A/B testing and Google analytics.

8. WooCommerce Builder

If you’re building a WooCommerce store, Elementor Pro offers full WooCommerce support, allowing you to create your store using Elementor’s interface.

You get a lot of WooCommerce widgets that you can use to insert your store’s content in one-off designs.

Elementor WooCommerce Widget

Additionally, you can create the layouts for your WooCommerce store using Theme Builder.

Elementor Pro also has its own dedicated widgets for the WooCommerce cart, checkout, and my account pages. These widgets offer various options for totally customizing all of those core pages.

Overall, Elementor Pro allows you to design every aspect of your store using the Elementor interface.

Elementor Performance Review

The downside to all of Elementor’s features is that it adds weight to the page. There is no way around that. It’s heavier than the native WordPress editor and slightly heavier than some of the lighter page builders, such as Beaver Builder.

First and foremost, the Elementor team understands the importance of performance. Thus, they’ve been working hard to reduce Elementor’s impact. For example, they are streamlining Elementor’s DOM tree and experimenting with dynamic asset loading to ensure that Elementor only fetches the components required for each page.

Second, the most important thing to understand here is that you can absolutely build a fast-loading site with Elementor.

If you follow WordPress performance best practices (maybe by using a plugin like WP Rocket), we are confident that you can still use Elementor to build sites that pass Core Web Vitals tests.

In Short, while Elementor’s performance is not an advantage, it also shouldn’t be a dealbreaker. If you follow best practices, you can still create fast-loading sites while using Elementor’s amazing features.

Elementor Hosting Review: One Place For All Your Website Needs

So far, we have covered Elementor as a WordPress plugin.

But what if you don’t have a WordPress website yet? Or what if you’ve built a WordPress site but are completely overwhelmed with running and maintaining it?

In those cases, you may be interested in Elementor Cloud Hosting, which is a somewhat unique service among WordPress builders.

In a word, Elementor Hosting provides everything you need to get from scratch to a running WordPress site where you can start building with Elementor.

That is, it creates and hosts your WordPress site for you. It also pre-installs all of the Elementor tools, allowing you to get started straight away.

Elementor Hosting Home Page

As for price, it starts at $2.99/mo and offers 10K monthly visits, 5 GB storage, 10GB/mo bandwidth, premium SSL, and other features.

Learn more in our complete Elementor Hosting review. Or simply click the button below to get started right away.

Get Elementor Hosting

Elementor AI: A New Approach to Website Design

Elementor AI is the most recent feature offered in the Elementor page builder.

Basically, it’s like having an AI assistant right in your editor. The tool allows you to generate and improve text, custom codes, and images within seconds.

Similar to ChatGPT, you only need to enter a few prompts to get most of the job done.

Here is what you can do with Elementor AI:

  • Generate Text: Write page titles, headings, paragraphs, lists, SEO descriptions, etc.
  • Edit Text: Check the spelling and grammar, make your content shorter, longer, easier to read, and so on.
  • Translate Content: Translate your content into 25 languages with the click of a button.
  • Create New Images: Tell the AI what type of image you want, and it will immediately generate custom images that match your description so you can choose from them.
  • Modify Images: Change your images in new ways, add filters, change the dimensions, and more.
  • Write Custom CSS: Want to design your website elements and change the appearance of your website in new ways but don’t know how to code? Elementor AI can write CSS for you.
  • Write Custom HTML & JavaScript: Tell the AI what kind of code you want, and it will create it for you, from Analytics snippets to entirely customized new elements.

As for the price, it costs 3.99/mo for 24,000 credits or $8.25/mo for 50,000 credits.

Get Elementor AI

Elementor Pricing

Short answer: It’s Free.

The basic version of Elementor, which is available in the WordPress Plugin repository, is absolutely free to use. There is also a pro version that offers more flexibility and features.

Check out our article on Elementor Free vs Pro if you want to get a detailed review of both.

Elementor is a feature-rich plugin that works on all websites. However, there are certain limitations.

Elementor Pro, for example, allows you to customize your header, footer, posts page, single post page, and product pages.

The Elementor basic version gives you the basics for designing and customizing your website. However, if you want the flexibility of building the entire site, Elementor Pro is the ideal option.

Let’s see what the pricing options are for Elementor Pro.

Elementor Pro Cost

The Elementor website offers four pricing plans for Elementor Pro:

Elementor Pro Pricing

  • Essential: Cost $59/year for one website.
  • Advanced: Cost $99/year for three websites.
  • Expert: Cost $199/year for 25 websites.
  • Agency: Costs $399/year for 1000 websites.

Get Elementor Pro

Elementor Pros And Cons

As we reach the end of our Elementor review, let’s go through some of the pros and cons of using Elementor.

Pros

  • It offers a drag-and-drop builder that is simple to use.
  • It’s also free (although their Pro version offers even more features and modules).
  • Allows you to access a plethora of ready-made page templates.
  • Compatible with any theme.
  • It is compatible with WooCommerce (in fact, it includes custom WooCommerce content elements).
  • It offers mobile editing controls (and anything you create with Elementor is mobile-friendly and responsive).
  • Premium support in all pro plans.

Cons

  • If you use Elementor Pro, there is no lifetime pricing option. You have to pay every year.

Elementor User Reviews and Ratings

Let’s look at user ratings from popular review sites.

On G2, Elementor got 4.5 out of 5 stars from more than 340+ reviews.

Elementor User Rating on G2 Review Site

On TrustRadius, Elementor got 8.6 out of 10-star ratings from more than 100+ reviews.

Elementor User Rating on TrustRadius Review Site

On Capterra, Elementor got 4.7 out of 5-star ratings from more than 800+ reviews.

Elementor User Rating on Capterra Review Site

Elementor Alternatives

Elementor is a powerful page-building tool, but it is not for everyone. Usually, if you need more than one license, Elementor Pro plans can be expensive.

Furthermore, it might not be optimized for speed. When these issues arise, it might be good to look for an alternative tool.

1. Beaver Builder

Beaver Builder

Beaver Builder isn’t as flashy or feature-rich as Elementor. However, its core plugin, which only creates individual pieces of content, offers a solid and consistent experience.

Beaver Builder is a full-page design suite that includes all of the tools and components needed to create any type of website. It has elements like headings, buttons, sliders, contact forms, testimonials, etc.

In terms of design and performance, it competes with Elementor. However, Beaver Builder doesn’t have as many addons as Elementor.

Price:

A free version is available, while a premium plan starts from $99 per year for unlimited sites.

Get Beaver Builder

2. Divi

Dviv WordPress Theme and Page Builder

Divi is one of the best Elementor alternatives. This page builder offers a complete design framework that you can use to design your whole website. Divi’s drag-and-drop interface is suitable for website owners of all skill levels.

In comparison to Elementor, Divi offers similar design components, such as pre-made templates. You may, however, access over 800 templates and 100 layout bundles. This can give you more options if you don’t want to build your own layout from scratch.

Furthermore, Divi may be a better solution for developers and marketers. It has built-in A/B testing, whereas Elementor does not. Divi’s advanced functionality allows you to assess the effectiveness of various modules before publishing them.

Price:

Divi costs $89 per year for unlimited sites. This may be a better alternative to Elementor because there are no site limits.

Get Divi

3. SeedProd

SeedProd - Best Drag & Drop WordPress Website Builder

Although SeedProd began as a page builder for Coming Soon and Maintenance Mode sites. However, it now has enough functionality to help you build a whole website. SeedProd is still one of the best landing page builders, but you can also use it to customize any aspect of your WordPress theme.

SeedProd allows you to edit headers, footers, pages, and articles without using any code. To save time, you may even use a pre-built theme that is responsive, fast, and SEO-optimized. When you need website maintenance, you may simply enable SeedProd’s built-in Maintenance Mode, Coming Soon, or 404 error pages.

Price:

A free version is available, while a premium plan starts from $39.50 per year for a single site.

Get SeedProd

Final Thought on Elementor Review

Overall, we think that Elementor is the best WordPress builder plugin for most people.

We have covered these reasons above, but let us quickly recap what we think are the most persuasive reasons to choose Elementor:

  • Top Notch Features – Elementor has everything you need to build a complete website, including theme building, popup building, forms, integrations, and more.
  • Excellent Design Options – Elementor offers numerous design options to achieve your desired look.
  • Excellent Value – The free version is very capable, and Elementor Pro is the most affordable for a single site.
  • Large Community – Elementor, being the most popular builder, has a large community, extensive learning resources, and various third-party extensions and integration.

If you already have a WordPress site, you can try the free version and then upgrade to Elementor Pro for extra features.

Get Elementor Pro

And if you haven’t launched your site yet, we recommend looking at the Elementor Hosting service. It not only simplifies things, but it also provides fantastic value, with only $120/year for hosting and access to all Elementor Pro features.

Get Elementor Hosting

For more on Elementor, check out these helpful resources:

Lastly, follow us on Facebook and Twitter to stay updated on the latest WordPress and blogging-related articles.


Frequently Asked Questions

Is Elementor Good for Beginners?

Elementor is perfect for beginners who want to create a WordPress website.

Is Elementor Slow Down Your Site?

Like any other page builder, Elementor adds some weight in addition to using the built-in WordPress editor. However, you can still create fast-loading sites using Elementor if you use it correctly and follow WordPress performance best practices.

Is Elementor SEO-Friendly?

Yes, Elementor is SEO-friendly in the same way that any other WordPress editor is. Just make sure you’re using a WordPress SEO plugin.

Which Theme Works Best with Elementor?

If you plan to use the theme-building features in Elementor Pro, you should choose the free Elementor Hello theme. Otherwise, we recommend using it in pairing with themes such as GeneratePress (our review) or Astra (our review).

Is Elementor Offer a Free Trial?

Elementor Pro does not offer a free trial, although a free version is available with limited features. However, they offer a 30-day money-back guarantee for new Elementor Pro customers.

What’s the Difference Between the Elementor Pro and vs. Free Version?

Elementor’s free version provides basic features that allow you to customize your site with a page builder. Even their free version comes with a number of essential tools, such as a live editor and basic widgets for customizing your site.

Elementor Pro comes with the industry-leading Theme Builder, a visual form widget, custom CSS, a number of premium widgets, social media integrations, customer support, and more features.

Do I Need to Learn HTML/CSS to Use Elementor?

No, you don’t. That is the best quality of Elementor.