Best Drag and Drop Page Builders for WordPress

WPBakery (formerly Visual Composer) is the king of drag and drop page builders for WordPress. It is highly developed, easy to use and offers endless design possibilities. Users do not need to do any code to create beautiful and functional web pages in just minutes. While WPBakery is the best in the business when it comes to visual page builders, it is not the only game in town.

There are some useful alternatives, both free and premium, for those who want something different. With free plugins you may experience more problems with compatibility, bugs and updates. For smaller projects, a free page builder may be just what you need.

Other premium plugins may be useful for certain users because they are lighter and faster. You may not need all the options that WPBakery has to offer. Instead you can opt for something smaller in scope. This list contains 5 of the best drag and drop page builders available for WordPress.

The Beauty of WordPress Page Builders

WordPress has a large user base and is the most popular CMS on the planet. It is also the easiest platform to use in relation to how much control you have over your website. It makes sense that most of the people who use WordPress are more design oriented than technical.

This is where visual page builders come into play. Think of it in terms of the relationship between an architect and an engineer. Usually the architect draws up some beautiful plans and the engineer has to figure out all the math to make it happen. Well, the page builder is like your engineer when it comes to building websites.

Since most of us WordPress users are not expert coders, we need tools to help us bridge the gap between technical skill and design. A good page building tool allows any user to learn how to design a site without having to touch the too much code.

For those who are experienced with coding, page builders can drastically speed up time. This is good for prototyping as well as saving time. Developers can also customize the tools to fit their needs, getting even more leverage.

WPBakery (formerly Visual Composer) – The Best Drag and Drop Solution

WPBakery is a favorite among beginners and developers. It is the all-time best selling drag and drop page builder for WordPress by leaps and bounds. Features include 45+ content modules, social media modules, charts, grids, buttons and more.

It is also the best-selling plugin on CodeCanyon, which is no small feat. It is packed with features and enables you to style your pages in a live browser or from the WordPress post editor. It is easy to use. Once it is installed you can click on the button within the editor to open up a panel that contains all of WPBakery’s modules.

The things you can do with this plugin are flat out amazing. You can customize the modules within the skin builder as well. The heavy list of features and design possibilities make this plugin one of the best reasons to use WordPress. You do not need to code at all, simply drag, click and fill out fields to create. Below is a list of some of the content block elements that you can add to your pages:

• Text blocks
• Separator with Text
• Message box
• Pie charts
• Flickr widget
• Accordions
• Twitter, Facebook and Instagram buttons
• Post and page sliders for scrolling through content
• Tabs to stack content in one area
• Image galleries
• Buttons
• Call to action blocks

Right out of the box you can do lots of things with this plugin. If you find that there are not enough features for you, you can add more. You can create your own shortcodes and use WPBakery to insert your own elements from the post editor. There are also many addons available for purchase.

Each element has multiple options that you can configure to get more control over it. There are so many different things you can do with this plugin, for some people it can be overwhelming. This can turn into a real time waster for those who lack discipline or focus. The plugin is updated often and the developer support is strong. The community of WordPress users who are willing to help you out with any issues is also very strong. It is not hard to find tutorials, how-to’s and support if you run into any problems.

This plugin is perfect for someone who want to create pages with advanced features, with the option to customize anything in the future. At times WPBakery may be overkill for your project. Although it is very affordable, price may also be an issue. Below are some free and premium alternatives you can check out.

Cornerstone — The WordPress Page Builder

This page builder was developed alongside the extremely popular X Theme for drag and drop page building. Since then it has turned into a very powerful and intuitive tool. This 100% front end page builder allow you to create at the speed of inspiration. If you were going to buy a page builder other than WPBakery, I would choose Cornerstone. It is quickly becoming a major player and becoming the new standard for drag and drop page builders in WordPress.

Create layouts, add elements and customize anything in real-time. The library of elements is always growing and there are plenty of other cool features included. For beginners this plugin is great because you can build professional pages in real time. Developers and power users will appreciate the settings panel, where they can do more advanced customization. Check out our review of Cornerstone WordPress Page Builder Review for a more formal introduction to this plugin.

Page Builder by SiteOrigin

Page builder is a very good free drag and drop page builder for WordPress. It can help you build layouts with multiple rows and multiple columns on your site. This plugin is not as flexible as WPBakery or other premium page builders, but it is free and offers plenty of tools for creating pages.

It works via widgets. It is based on the idea that you can insert a WordPress widget into your page. Six main widgets are included with this plugin upon installation. You can use this plugin to add images, galleries, videos, post loops, buttons, calls to action, lists, price boxes, animated images and testimonials. You can also download a free widgets bundle from Site Origin at WordPress.org to add more widgets.

Best WordPress Themes with Page Builders

Another option to get one of the listed above page builders (or some unique ones) is to purchase a premium WordPress theme with a built-in drag-n-drop customizer. Most modern WordPress themes include WPBakery or their own tailored page builders in their toolkit. Let us get acquainted with the examples of such best selling themes.

Divi — the Ultimate WordPress Theme with Visual Page Builder

Divi WordPress theme is a unique product with the integrated visual page builder. This tool offers you to create a beautiful design for your site`s pages within minutes. At the same time you do not require any knowledge in the field of web development or design.

Divi WordPress theme`s kit includes 46 prepared elements to create any type of content, 20+ premade layouts to select the optimal display of all the elements and several ready-to-use templates for use on your site.

Features of visual page builder include in-line editing, draggable widths, customizable UI, instant content creation, mobile responsive editing drag & drop editing and much more. 46 prepared elements will allow you to quickly and easily create a variety of blocks and widgets on the site – from simple buttons and images to sliders and countdown timers.

All elements of the created design can be saved using the built-in functionality of Divi WordPress theme. This will help you to transfer the design on to other projects, or to carry out easy transfer of the site to a new hosting or a domain.

Avada — Responsive Multi-Purpose Theme

Avada is a true masterpeace among multi-purpose WordPress themes. It has been created to meet the style and needs of its users which is now over 450,000 all over the world. It is one of the most in demand themes today and is still updating for more betterment of the designs which can make your site more dashing and attractive to look at.

Avada WordPress Theme is especially made super sleek, flexible, responsive, clean, and integrated with an advanced page builder and with great powerful options which is very ideal for any website that you have such as Portfolio, Products, Corporate, Business, Blogs, ecommerce, woo commerce and the like.

It is one of the most-easy-to use themes on the market that sets new standards with unending possibilities, high quality support and free lifetime updates together with features that are requested by its valued users.

Avada comes with various and incredible features that can really leave you in awe like the awesome slides and unlimited sidebars which also includes the 60 PSD’s, powerful admin panel, Fusion Page Builder, Retina ready, auto theme updater, mega-built-in, very easy installation and many more that are solely created to give the users with the satisfaction that they deserve.

X — The WordPress Theme

X theme is best for businessmen, developers, online marketers, and is also great to use in email marketing, copywriting, internet entrepreneurs, SEO and the like that needs a theme that is always on the go, with a perfect designs and less with disturbances or nuances.

Unlike the other themes in the market that include skins and the ability to change the appearance using custom settings. These theme is a total package that can meet all the needs of the users, and four different stacks are included in this package. As well as a powerful and effective set of options that were solely designed for customizing the stacks. And goes a very long way and assessment to ensuring that no any two installation of this very same theme will look exactly the same.

What Can a Page Builder Do for You?

A page builder is an indispensable tool for the web designers and end users. It took me a while before I realize just how much you could do with WordPress. When I discovered themes that had visual page builders and I was blown away.

Before I really got into WordPress I was aware it was good for blogging. I also knew that if you knew web programming languages like PHP, JavaScript and CSS you could do a lot with it. What I did not realize how easily it was for anyone to design any type of website with WordPress.

After I spent a little time getting to know some of the page building tools, I realized how powerful the platform is for web design. It dawned on me that anyone who had the desire to could put up sites like a pro. Page builders allowed me to things that just are not possible by coding by hand within a short time frame. They also enabled me do things that were much beyond my coding ability like put up model pop ups that stores data.

With the better WordPress page builders you can easily create page and post layouts, add your content with widgets and make interesting websites. This is great for bloggers, business owners, online shops, portolios etc. Here are some things a page builder should allow you to do:

• Create image and post sliders
• Design multi-column layouts
• Add social media widgets
• Add buttons and content boxes
• Create image galleries
• Insert accordians and tab sections
• Allow you to customize elements

Final Word

When deciding whether a page builder is right for you, it is important to looks at the modules it contains, and the user interface. If you do not mind spending a small amount of money to get the best that the market has to offer I would go with a premium page builder. You can not go wrong with WPBakery in my opinion, but for some projects it may not be the best fit. Cornerstone is also an amazing tool for building pages and is a close second. The developers are giving it lots of attention, so keep an eye out for future updates.

If you do not want to spend any money at all, go with the SiteOrigin Page Builder. Before making any decisions, you should spend some time researching the products for yourself. Try any demos you can to see whether it works for you before you buy.

Although you might have to spend a good 20 minutes on each plugin, it is worth it. You may not be able to get a refund after your payment goes through if you are purchasing a plugin. Let us know any tips you have on page builders or any favorites you have come across in the comments section below.