On February 8, I finished the process that led me to fire and definitively uninstall Elementor after using it for almost a year and replicating everything on the blog with free, or not too expensive alternatives like GenerateBlocks.
Goodbye, Elementor
I don't say goodbye to Elementor with rancour, although I do say it with a certain sense of relief. Especially when it comes to optimisation, which has now improved significantly
I think it's still the best and most complete builder, at least among the ones I've tried, even if it's not exactly a tool for minimalists
It's reasonably priced, you can learn to use it quickly and it allows you to do very nice things. It also saves you a lot of plugins.
On the downside, it requires extra work in optimisation. It's a very fat tool, the code it paints is not as clean as it should be and, as much as they say, the impact on the load is quite noticeable even in the WordPress admin panel
All of that is fixable. Perhaps the worst thing about Elementor is the Tower of Babel effect. If you mess with complex layouts made entirely with this builder in many parts of your site, uninstalling it can be traumatic. Say goodbye to them and the drama of having to redo them from scratch.
Here is the formula chosen to replace Elementor:
GenerateBlocks Pro + Kadence Blocks + WP Show Posts + Advanced Popups
And you might now think, rightly so, isn't replacing one plugin for four a poor deal in terms of optimisation?
Don't be hasty because between these four plugins they don't weigh or consume even a fraction of what Elementor Pro used to eat.
Here's a general explanation of what they are and why they've been chosen.
GenerateBlocks Pro
GenerateBlocks is not a builder per se, it is a collection of four basic lightweight blocks with which you can assemble almost anything. Although it is created to work with GeneratePressany template, it can be used with any template.
Lighter pages
It is chosen because it is very lightweight. It has a clean HTML output and only generates 1 file with the strictly necessary CSS which is usually no more than 2 KB and uses absolutely no javascript or jQuery.
Don't expect something similar to Elementor, that's a whole different ball of wax. And if you're not familiar with block editing, the learning curve can get a bit steep. Now things are built from scratch, although you can also start from a few available templates.
I confess that at the time it didn't really catch my attention, but after getting to grips with it I think it has a lot more possibilities than it first appears to offer, even if you have to change your habits and vices to get to grips with it. Be that as it may, you get pages with much less code and cleaner and therefore much faster.
Moreover, I risk saying that you can build and replicate almost any template from the Elementor library, although you will have to work a lot harder.
There is free versionthe library of templates, effects, and some other things that the Pro version adds can be useful.
It has the fair documentation and still not as much information as what you can find on the powerful GeneratePress support forum, but it has also has its forum and there are a number of interesting tutorials and examples from things you can do that can serve as first practical lessons to familiarise yourself with its use.
These are the videos that I used as practice.
- How to design a page with Gutenberg, GeneratePress and GenerateBlocks
- Designing a custom post template with GenerateBlocks
- Custom footer with GeneratePress Block Elements and GenerateBlocks
- Sidebar author box with block element, dynamic content and GenerateBlocks
- Custom post meta with GeneratePesss Block Element module, GeneratePesss Dynamic Content and GenerateBlocks
I hope your developers are committed to increase the pace of enhancement updates.
Kadence Blocks
Set of blocks that extend the possibilities of Gutenberg. It is chosen for a couple of blocks, such as forms, orphaned of option after the uninstallation of Elementor. I don't understand why WordPress has not yet decided to add forms to its core as a native feature.
Lightweight blocks
These blocks are really lightweight. They only load CSS or Javascript when needed and only for the blocks in use on each page where they have been added.
The free Kadence blocks option is more than enough for basic layouts with regular features, if you really need any of what they have to offer. They also have a template considered by many of its users to be one of the fastest.
Wp Show Post
Plugin for adding related posts, also from the developer GeneratePress, that works with any theme. It is chosen because it is lightweight, simple and compliant
Many templates don't have a built-in feature to show related posts by categories, tags or other parameters, GeneratePress is one of those
While you can pull in other plugins or even add a bit of code to create the related posts and then mess around with CSS, WP Show Post is a lightweight add-on that reduces the task to a few clicks.
In addition, it will soon disappear as a plugin and will integrate in GenerateBlocks. So one plugin less. You know, the lightest plugin is the one that is not added.
Advanced Popups
This, which with Elementor was done with three clicks, is complicated because it is not easy to add it without pulling another plugin and this one, besides being free is the most complete and lightweight of those I've tested.
Free but complete
It includes trigger options and other advanced features like those found in other paid plugins. It even allows you to place a block in the popup.
Here I use it to show only 1 time to new visitors a hint of subscription when leaving the page.
Another alternative is the Neliowhich has preparing also has a Pro version.
In short, there is life (very light) beyond Elementor.
