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The WordPress page builder plugin marketplace has exploded within the last several years, giving you tons of decidedly different options. Some are free, others give you easy drag-and-drop visual building tools, some offer back-end editing and have robust design features. The possibilities are endless.
They can save you time and headaches from coding HTLM and make your site look polished and professional for a minimal investment. We’ve done our research to bring you all the ins and outs, pros and cons for eight of the most popular builders available to help you easily edit, design and manage your site.
Best WordPress Page Builder Winners
We’ve based our rankings and reviews on several factors, including:
- Ease of use
- Features
- Compatibility with themes and add-ons
- Reliability
- Performance
- Price
- Tech support
Beaver Builder Review
#1
Beaver Builder is an excellent option for bloggers and web professionals alike. This WordPress page builder plugin has arguably the best front-end page building interface and tools on the market. The easy drag-and-drop editor lets you see exactly how your pages will appear to visitors while you’re building them.
And while they offer a free version, it’s fairly bare bones so you’ll want to upgrade to their premium plugin. Beaver Builder supports posts, pages, and custom post types and gives you amazing-looking templates for both landing pages and content pages, as well as tons of content blocks (tabs, buttons, forms, slideshows, testimonials, pricing tables and more). You can even apply CSS classes easily within the modules for full customization.
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Price
While there’s no free trial, Beaver Builder offers a free Lite version and a hosted demo, where you can test drive its many features. You also get a 40% discount on all active license renewals.
| Standard | Pro | Agency | |
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| Price for Annual License | $99 | $199 | $399 |
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Elementor Review
#2
Elementor comes in a very close second as our pick for the best page builder for WordPress. This plugin offers one of the most feature-loaded free versions on the market. With Elementor, you get a fantastic front-end WordPress drag-and-drop page builder, instant live editing and fast page loading.
The free version comes with 100+ templates, advanced design features, like animations and tons of widgets (called elements). These include counters, image carousels, icon boxes, Google Maps and more. Upgrade to Elementor Pro to enjoy even more functionality, including 20+ additional elements, a visual form builder, full WooCommerce support, the ability to customize your blog posts visually, incorporate slides, global widgets, custom CSS and much more.
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Price
Elementor offers a robust free version and the following Pro pricing for an annual license with a 50% discount on all active license renewals. These packages include one year of support and updates.
- Personal: $49 for 1 site
- Business: $99 for 3 sites
- Unlimited: $199 for unlimited sites
See Elementor in Action
Check out this brief video tour of Elementor to see its stunning user interface.
Thrive Architect Review
#3
Thrive Architect, the successor to Thrive Content Builder, is an exciting new entry into the WordPress Page Builder market. This plugin stands out for its conversion-focused features, giving marketers a fantastic tool to boost site visitors and sales. Thrive Architect also integrates easily with all the top email marketing services.
We’ve ranked Thrive Architect third in our reviews because it still has some kinks to work out. Thrive Themes also isn’t known for excellent customer support. But this page builder gives Beaver Builder and Elementor some serious competition. Although there’s no free version, they do offer a 30-day money back guarantee.
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Price
The following Thrive Architect pricing is for a one-time license fee, which gives you unlimited lifetime updates. Support is included for one year, and you can renew support for “a small fee,” according to their website.
- 1 site: $67
- 5 sites: $97
- Membership: $19/month
- View all options
Other Best WordPress Page Builder Plugins
Below you’ll find an alphabetical listing of other popular WordPress page builders we’ve reviewed.
Forge | MotoPress Visual Page Builder | SiteOrigin Page Builder | Themify Builder | WPBakery Page Builder
Divi Builder Review
Elegant Themes launched its new and improved visual page builder, Divi Builder, in the fall of 2016 to stay relevant in the page building plugin market. And this plugin is a major contender in that space, particularly for web professionals.
You must purchase an Elegant Themes membership ($89 per year) to get Divi Builder, but this membership also gives you access to their 87 WordPress themes and two additional plugins. The major issue with Divi Builder is that it’s shortcode driven, meaning that if you ever deactivate Divi (or it gets disabled), you’ll get stuck with a bunch of shortcodes.
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Divi Builder Price
Divi Builder is only available with an Elegant Themes membership, which also includes 87+ WordPress themes and two additional plugins. They don’t offer a free trial.
- Annual membership: $89
- Lifetime access: $249
- View all options
Forge Review
Forge hit the page building plugin scene in 2015 to offer a simple, free drag-and-drop front-end WordPress page builder, which could be upgraded with add-ons and templates. We’re not sure what happened with Forge, but their advanced elements and features are no longer offered on their site (404 code on the pages). You can still download their free version that includes some useful features, but it’s unclear if it’s being updated.
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Forge Price
MotoPress Visual Page Builder Review
Budget-friendly MotoPress Visual Page Builder for WordPress is consistently ranked as a top 10 WP premium page builder. For the price, it comes with a lot of useful tools and features, including a visual page builder, both front-end and back-end content editing, a custom interface that completely replaces the default WordPress customizer, 30+ built-in content elements and more. And we like that you can purchase add-ons separately for white labeling, Google Maps and other needs.
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MotoPress Price
The following prices are for an annual license, but you get a 50% renewal discount.
MotoPress Base Plugin
- Personal: $29 for 1 site
- Business: $47 for 5 sites
- Developer: $139 for unlimited sites
MotoPress Plugin with all Premium Add-Ons
- Personal: $69 for 1 site
- Developer: $179 for unlimited sites (includes White Labeling)
- View all options
SiteOrigin Page Builder Review
The biggest selling points of SiteOrigin’s Page Builder are that it’s entirely free and very lightweight. Unlike other WordPress page builders, this plugin uses standard WP widgets to build your page instead of elements or modules you see with other page builders.
There’s a free add-on SiteOrigin Widget Bundle available for more diversity, and you can customize with row and widget styles and add custom CSS and CSS classes. You also get a handy History Browser that lets you roll forward and back through your changes. SiteOrigin offers an affordable add-on package that lets you extend the functionality of its free plugin, to build custom post types, add block animations and more.
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SiteOrgin Price
- Free SiteOrigin Page Builder plugin
- $29 add-on package
Themify Builder Review
The Themify Builder plugin boasts a robust set of page-building and design features with drag-and-drop editing, all at a competitive price. It comes with any Themify theme you buy, and it’s also available as a stand-alone purchase. This plugin, however, seems plagued with problems.
Users say that every update breaks something on their site and its editing tools are unreliable in making universal changes. Another major issue is that Themify is shortcode-based. This means that your content is locked and you’ll lose all your work if the plugin gets disabled or you deactivate it.
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Themify Builder Price
Themify Builder comes with a 30-day money back guarantee.
- Themify Builder Lite: Free
- Themify Builder Plugin: $39
- Themify Builder Plugin and all 20+ Add-ons: $59
- View all options
WPBakery Page Builder (Formerly Visual Composer) Review
Visual Composer was one of the first drag-and-drop WordPress page builders to hit the market and quickly gained a huge following. Today, this plugin powers more than 2 million sites and is the top-selling WP plugin on CodeCanyon.
One of its best features is that it includes both frontend and backend editors, giving you the best of both worlds. WPBakery Page Builder also comes loaded with features, including 40+ content elements, 60+ templates, a built-in skin builder, a multi-lingual interface and much more.
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WPBakery Page Builder Price
A license comes with 6 months of support and lifetime updates. You can extend support to 12 months for an additional $15.38.
- Regular License: $45
- Extended License (allows you to sell your end product): $245
- One site only per license
- View all options
Need More WordPress Tools?
Be sure to check out our best WordPress plugin reviews to soup up your site and take it from average to awesome. See our picks for more than 10 different plugin types, including everything from menu and map plugins to social media and chat plugins. And if you’re searching for a top WordPress theme to give your site that extra sparkle, see our recommendations for the best WordPress themes on the market. We also take into account mobile-friendliness, speed, and more.
What are you looking for in a WordPress page builder?
Sources: WP Beginner, WP Explorer, WPMU DEV, Winning WP, aThemes, Blogging Wizard
Tagged With: Reviews, WordPress
