My top picks for the Best Drag-and-drop WordPress page builder plugins for free. Which one should you choose? Are any of them actually better than the others? This comparison will help you to answer these questions. What follows is a list of the top six WordPress page builder plugins on the market, their standout features, and pros and cons.
Have you been having difficulty working with theme templates or trying to modify your website using WordPress blocks. Sometimes these methods take up a lot of time and it seems like you never really get the results you want.
Let us take a look at my top picks for free WordPress page builders for 2021 and how they will make your life easier building your website or blog.
Elementor Ultimate WordPress Page Builder
Elementor Page Builder comes in a powerful Free plan but also has a Pro plan from $49 at the time I reviewed this.
It is the most popular page WordPress builder plugin right now, with more than 3 million sites using it and it is also the most feature-rich out of all the free page builders I will cover. The main strength of Elementor’s is that it is really easy to understand, even when it is your first time using a builder plugin.
The UI is just a main options panel to the left and a live preview window in the center. You can drag and drop things freely between those areas, and realign the blocks however you choose. And all this is available for free in Elementor.
There is a pro version also, but in 95% of cases, you’re going to be just fine with the free one.
Some of the key features include:
- 100-plus ready-made page templates.
- Predesigned page blocks.
- You can also use it to replace the standard post and archive templates of your theme.
- A nice set of 90-plus content elements are available.
- Works with any theme.
- Works with WooCommerce and includes custom WooCommerce content elements.
- Has mobile editing controls — and everything you create with Elementor is mobile-viewable and responsive.
- Has a pop-up builder.
- Has resizable columns, resizable widths and heights of everything, adjustable content positions, adjustable column gaps, backgrounds, colors, margins and much more.
The PROS:
- The ready-made page templates make working with the plugin much faster.
- The mobile editing controls are really cool. They let you tweak what your creation is going to look like when viewed on mobile (or tablets).
- There’s a huge community around Elementor, so you’ll always find someone to help you out with a design challenge.
- There are other third-party plugins that give you additional Elementor content elements and blocks.
- Perhaps the best free Page Builder plugin on the market.
The CONS:
- Not everything can be adjusted inside the live preview.
Beaver Great WordPress Page Builder
Beaver Builder comes in a Free plan but also has a Pro plan from $99 at the time I reviewed this.
Beaver Builder is another great WordPress page builder plugin. The plugin delivers a great drag-and-drop page editing functionality that comes inside a completely custom interface. It also helps you to get started by delivering a set of pre-made templates.
Working with the plugin is really straightforward. You start by adding elements onto a blank canvas.
To start, you add rows, then you add content blocks to each row. You can customize everything, adjust the styling and more, until your website is the way you want it. Any existing element can also be edited by clicking into it and adjusting the details in the popup.
Some of the key features of Beaver Builder are:
- 50-plus pre-made page templates.
- Full front-end editing — edit what you see.
- Full drag-and-drop support.
- Mobile-responsive and SEO-optimized output.
- Works with any theme.
- Extensive docs and video tutorials.
- Import/export feature.
- Supports posts, pages and custom post types.
- 30-plus content elements, and you can also use standard WordPress widgets.
- Translation-ready.
- Works with WooCommerce and includes WooCommerce content elements.
The PROS:
- Lets you build a multi-column structure.
- Straight forward interface that’s easy to get started with.
- A great alternative if you don’t like Elementor.
- Good-looking page templates.
- Great interface for changing column widths and resizing stuff in general.
- Full drag-and-drop support.
- Default typography looks really good.
The CONS:
- Can be restricted by what your theme allows it to do.
- No undo on Control Z.
- Fewer content elements, compared to some of the other page builder plugins on this list.
- Can’t add custom CSS to elements.
Brizy Page Builder
Brizy Page Builder comes in a free plan and has a pro version from $49 at the time I reviewed this.
Brizy offers a new style of WordPress page builder, offering quite a unique UI.
As soon as you start up Brizy, it does away with the stock WordPress interface and instead displays its own U.I. It gives you a main canvas where you can put your elements and adjust them to fit your requirements.
If you are looking to purchase the Brizy Pro, you can add whole page layouts. If you just want to stick with the free version, you can begin by adding individual blocks. Inline text editing also works very well and behaves like you’d expect it to. You can also drag columns around to change their widths.
Apart from the main canvas, there’s also a small sidebar for things such as typography, colors, and adding single content modules. The sidebar in Brizy is much less useful, than with some of the other builders on this list, most of your work happening directly on the canvas.
Overall, everything is quite intuitive and isn’t intimidating. The UI guides you from the start by pointing out the thing you’ll probably want to do next.
Some for the key features in Brizy are:
- Full drag-and-drop support.
- Real-time editing and preview.
- Inline editing.
- Pop-up builder.
- Role manager.
- 26 content elements in the free version.
- Integrations with other plugins and tools such as Mailchimp, Zapier and more.
- Import dynamic content from WordPress.
- Works with any theme.
The PROS:
- Perhaps the easiest builder to get started with and also get great results.
- Many marketing integrations with other tools.
- The pre-made blocks are really good-looking.
- The free version is functional enough for simple sites.
- A very affordable three-site license.
The CONS:
- Not a lot of default content elements, which can be limiting if you’re building a more elaborate design.
Divi Builder
Divi Builder comes in a paid version from $89 at the time I reviewed this. Divi Builder is very similar to the other builders on this list, but there are a few differences.
The key difference is the way the UI is structured. Instead of giving you a preview panel and a sidebar to adjust the details, Divi Builder turns the whole window into a live preview and overlays all of the options on top of it.
Divi Builder also takes you by the hand when you’re working on a new page, which can be helpful to new users.
There’s no free version of the Divi Builder. However, for a single payment, you get access to all of Elegant Themes’ products, not just the builder itself.
It can be worth it if you’re planning to use more of their stuff. Ideally Divi Builder is not the easiest to use on the list, generally the UI may require some getting used to. There are color-coded controls for content modules, rows and sections. There is a good number of content modules to choose from, but perhaps not as many as with some of the other WordPress page builder plugins on this list.
Some of the key features of Divi Builder are:
- Nearly 1,000 pre-made layouts to choose from.
- Full drag-and-drop support when editing your content.
- 40-plus content modules.
- Good-looking photo effects that let you change the opacity of your images, adjust brightness, saturation and more.
- Works with posts and pages.
- Works with any theme.
- You can bulk edit elements on the page.
- Custom CSS support.
- Inline text editing.
- You can save and reuse your designs.
The PROS:
- The individual content modules are all nicely designed.
- There are a huge number of pre-made layouts.
- Those pre-made layouts aren’t just single-page layouts, but rather full website packs.
- Lets you A/B test content elements.
The CONS:
- The UI can be unclear, but it may just be something you need to get used to.
- There’s no free version.
- It’s expensive if the only thing you want is the builder plugin and not take advantage of the content modules.
Themify Page Builder
Themify Page Builder comes in a free version and has a paid version from: $39 at the time I reviewed this.
The Themify Builder plugin is a flagship plugin, developed by the people over at Themify. It is a feature-rich builder that allows you to do your work both on the back end and the front end.
Both editing interfaces (front and back end) are based on having a range of modules to choose from and then dragging and dropping them onto the canvas. The canvas is divided into rows, and each row can be further divided into columns.
However, not everything works entirely problem-free. It seems like this plugin hasn’t been made fully compatible with WordPress’s block editing interface yet. So, even though you do get the Themify Builder UI embedded right in the main page editing interface (backend), the changes you make there may not appear on the final page. To make Themify work, you can go to your page in preview mode and enable the editor from there.
When it comes to using the page builder itself, it’s kind of similar to the other solutions, with minor differences in where specific controls are. Themify uses the top menu bar as the primary place where you can handle basic parameters, such as switching from desktop to mobile, undo-redo your changes, save layouts and add custom CSS.
As a standalone builder, Themify is okay, but if you want something that looks great you’ll need to switch to its Ultra theme, or one of its other themes.
Some of Themifys key features are:
- 25-plus content modules.
- 40-plus pre-made layout designs.
- Edit in the back end in wireframe view or on the front end in live view.
- Full drag-and-drop support.
- Works with any theme.
- Import and export your layouts.
- You can save full layouts and layout parts.
- Role editor.
- Custom CSS support.
- Undo/redo.
- 60-plus animation effects.
The PROS:
- Good-looking pre-made designs and they come divided into a handful of categories to make your work easier.
- Every module is adjustable.
- The output is responsive, SEO-friendly and translation-ready.
- The plugin and all of its features are free.
The CONS:
- The back end editor was buggy.
- While you can preview how your design is going to look on mobile, you can’t do much to set different parameters for mobile vs desktop.
- It has relatively fewer types of content modules compared with the other solutions on the list.
Conclusion of the Top WordPress Page Builders
This sums up our take on the top drag-and-drop page builder plugins for WordPress. There certainly are many great solutions to choose from, and picking the best one all depends on your personal needs and what you expect from your ideal builder.
My advice would be to try them out and see which one clicks with you from the onset.
If you are a true beginner the best bet is always to stay with the ones that have the most amount of documentation and tutorials so you have the support you require.
I hope that this helps you in your page builder plugin decision.
I have tried to keep this video as simple overview of my top picks.
