Do you prefer Thrive architect or Elementor and why?

Polaris

Polaris

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Hello everyone,

I am new to this forum and would like to start out by saying hello!

My question is: do any of you have any experience with Thrive architect and Elementor? Which do you prefer and why?

Does one have any speed or technical performance benefits over the other?

*I currently use Thrive, however, I am interested in the benefits (if any) of using Elementor.

Just want to hear your thoughts.

-P
 
Elementor is OK, and it allows you to easily add new widgets that you can code yourself. But I really hate all page builders, if anything I'd use Gutenberg.
 
Any page builder plugin / framework is going to destroy your page speed. They load tons of CSS and JS files that are all render-blocking, meaning they have to load before anything else on the page can appear.

Gutenberg is far less guilty of this but still semi-guilty. It loads an extra CSS file that's not huge but helps create styling for the overcomplicated blocks like Tables, 3 and 4 column areas, image galleries, and all the other ones that you look at that scream "bloat."

My advice is to use Gutenberg, keep your page designs simple (text, lists, images, maybe some buttons), kill off that extra CSS file (there are functions for this), and if you must have specialty blocks, create them yourself and merge their efficient CSS into your main CSS file. This only works if you have a custom theme or have a child theme set up, and not worth your time if you're not speed optimized otherwise.

As far as which one, Elementor or Thrive, is faster, I don't know. Whichever one is faster, it'll be a negligible difference and you'll still be in the "slow as hell" zone. Both are pretty pathetic in the speed arena.

If I was going to use one or the other, I'd be concerned more with which one provides the faster and better building experience and has the blocks I want to use.
 
Ryuzaki said:
Any page builder plugin / framework is going to destroy your page speed. They load tons of CSS and JS files that are all render-blocking, meaning they have to load before anything else on the page can appear.

Gutenberg is far less guilty of this but still semi-guilty. It loads an extra CSS file that's not huge but helps create styling for the overcomplicated blocks like Tables, 3 and 4 column areas, image galleries, and all the other ones that you look at that scream "bloat."

My advice is to use Gutenberg, keep your page designs simple (text, lists, images, maybe some buttons), kill off that extra CSS file (there are functions for this), and if you must have specialty blocks, create them yourself and merge their efficient CSS into your main CSS file. This only works if you have a custom theme or have a child theme set up, and not worth your time if you're not speed optimized otherwise.

As far as which one, Elementor or Thrive, is faster, I don't know. Whichever one is faster, it'll be a negligible difference and you'll still be in the "slow as hell" zone. Both are pretty pathetic in the speed arena.

If I was going to use one or the other, I'd be concerned more with which one provides the faster and better building experience and has the blocks I want to use.
Click to expand...
Thanks so much for your reply. There are a few reasons why I prefer to use third party page builders.

I am not that great in coding so the drag and drop features of these page builders is great for me, especially because of the live preview features they have.

I also prefer to use thrive because for me, it is easy to change the layout of a page and from what I’ve read, Gutenberg is not as flexible when it comes to this but maybe I am wrong.

I will continue to read up on all of this and thank you for answering my question (I know it’s fairly basic I just figured I would ask)

-P
 
I'm in the same boat as you, my coding skills are limited. At my day job we use Avada and that thing has more bloat then a women pregnant with twins.

On my side projects I use Elementor. Using the correct caching you can get some faster speeds. However, like @Ryuzaki mentioned any page builder is going to add a LOT of bloat and will never be as fast as a stripped down theme.

I'm testing pegasaas.com right now. Its a caching/cdn SAAS which gives me a lot of control. Most specifically, I can pick and choose which JS gets lazy loaded. Which is cool, but even better the lazy load can be set to "on action", so a lot of the bloat never gets loaded at all. This is super helpful with Avada, because it loads just about everything there is. Additionally, it creates critical CSS for each page.

The initial results have been very positive. Using Lighthouse speed testing tool, the Avada Theme went from the average 50% mobile to average 70% mobile. The Elementor went from average 70% to 85%.

The down fall, its a SAAS, so one more monthly bill. I look at as the cost of doing business, and my time is better spent elsewhere (links, content)

I know some people will cringe at 70%-85% for page speed, but for the most part I'm 2x-3x faster then my competitors.
 
Ryuzaki said:
Any page builder plugin / framework is going to destroy your page speed. They load tons of CSS and JS files that are all render-blocking, meaning they have to load before anything else on the page can appear.

Gutenberg is far less guilty of this but still semi-guilty. It loads an extra CSS file that's not huge but helps create styling for the overcomplicated blocks like Tables, 3 and 4 column areas, image galleries, and all the other ones that you look at that scream "bloat."

My advice is to use Gutenberg, keep your page designs simple (text, lists, images, maybe some buttons), kill off that extra CSS file (there are functions for this), and if you must have specialty blocks, create them yourself and merge their efficient CSS into your main CSS file. This only works if you have a custom theme or have a child theme set up, and not worth your time if you're not speed optimized otherwise.

As far as which one, Elementor or Thrive, is faster, I don't know. Whichever one is faster, it'll be a negligible difference and you'll still be in the "slow as hell" zone. Both are pretty pathetic in the speed arena.

If I was going to use one or the other, I'd be concerned more with which one provides the faster and better building experience and has the blocks I want to use.
Click to expand...
Don't you have to know how to code to do Gutenberg? If so, are there any solutions for people that don't code but still fast site speed?
 
People get really carried away with this kind of optimization. Use a full page cache and a half decent host close to your audience (or a cdn if you have a diverse audience), and you will be fine.
If optimizing webpages is a hobby, sure go nuts, but for most people it's just procrastination.

I have built and maintain a few latency critical applications, so have plenty of experience with this type of tuning at a lower level, but for content websites? I use WordPress with elementor, because it's absolutely fast enough, can be used by writers and designers and marketers, not just developers, and has great productivity.

It's also easily extended, with comprehensive developer docs, so we can develope a bespoke price comparison widget or similar, and any member of the team can then drag and drop it into there page layout.
It also allows for flexibility - want to have a special layout for a blog post? Just go ahead and make it.
With a traditional template based approach, you are going to end up with a load of one off templates cluttering the UI, and it just gets worse with time.

If you are still not convinced, go run pagespeed insights on your competitors, and work towards beating their scores
 
I use Elementor and I am very happy with it.

The real value of course is in your own custom templates. Like if you want to do "Also read", you just do 2 clicks and you have your own block in there. You can template entire parts, like your product reviews, your integration with custom post plugins etc and a lot of it is dynamic. It's very easy and useful imo, to create custom category templates for your most valuable categories.

It has issues. Too many containers and no ability to target the actual html object, only the container.

Overall, I feel like Elementor is a big time value add and I think it's also easier to sell, when that's the time, instead of various custom coding.
 
Over the years I've tested them all. Here's the thing. Thrive is way slower than Elementor. After I have switched the load time got significantly better.

I had chacheing and everything enabled I have only changed the page builder and that's it. Also I had some kind of annoying bug or something with the footer. So yeah Elementor gets my vote. Occassionaly I've used Visual Composer as well.
 
Does anyone have experience with Brizy?

I have used Brizy and Elementor for some sites. Both have good drag and drop features, but I find that both slow down the website. They also add proprietary code so cleanup is required if you migrate away.

Would be nice if there is a comparable plugin which provides the needed design widgets, but for the built-in Gutenberg editor.
 
themacmarketer said:
Would be nice if there is a comparable plugin which provides the needed design widgets, but for the built-in Gutenberg editor.
Click to expand...

Wordpress themselves are working on a Block Repository just like the Plugin and Theme Repositories, where you'll be able to download and install custom blocks. There's already a bunch of giant plugins that offer dozens of custom, pre-made blocks as well. If you want to get started now, as you described, it's available. If you want to pick and choose individual blocks, that's coming.
 
Thanks for sharing, will definitely check it out when the official version launches.

My builder journey so far in WordPress is Divi -> Genesis -> Elementor -> Brizy.

In the last few days I also "discovered" Oxygen. Don't know why I had never used them before since they first launched in 2017. It is also unusual in that it is a plugin-only template-builder that ignores whatever theme is activated.

The technical performance of Oxygen is seriously good so I'm trying to use it to build out a couple of new sites and landing pages.


Ryuzaki said:
Wordpress themselves are working on a Block Repository just like the Plugin and Theme Repositories, where you'll be able to download and install custom blocks. There's already a bunch of giant plugins that offer dozens of custom, pre-made blocks as well. If you want to get started now, as you described, it's available. If you want to pick and choose individual blocks, that's coming.
Click to expand...
 
I would not even start to use page builders any more at this point. Gutenberg is getting better and better (finally!) at this stuff and in the upcoming WP 5.5 release there's a bunch of interesting blocks and functions.

And speed improvements.

I'm finally starting to warm up to Gutenberg.
 
bernard said:
I use Elementor and I am very happy with it.

The real value of course is in your own custom templates. Like if you want to do "Also read", you just do 2 clicks and you have your own block in there. You can template entire parts, like your product reviews, your integration with custom post plugins etc and a lot of it is dynamic. It's very easy and useful imo, to create custom category templates for your most valuable categories.

It has issues. Too many containers and no ability to target the actual html object, only the container.

Overall, I feel like Elementor is a big time value add and I think it's also easier to sell, when that's the time, instead of various custom coding.
Click to expand...

Thanks for this. I am about to get rolling with a content site (for adsense, amazon) and have the free Astra Theme. I am stuck between Astra and Elementor -- Astra is reportedly very fast but would like to really stick with something I can use EASILY as my coding and patience is limited. :D. Any thoughts on this - or anyone with Astra vs. Elementor experience?
 
Sassy said:
I would not even start to use page builders any more at this point. Gutenberg is getting better and better (finally!) at this stuff and in the upcoming WP 5.5 release there's a bunch of interesting blocks and functions.

And speed improvements.

I'm finally starting to warm up to Gutenberg.
Click to expand...

Agreed.
I've finally just moved a small woocommerce site off of a page builder and onto Gutenberg and seems faster already, before getting my dev to do any more work on it. Was a ballache, page builder left all sorts of cruft.
Now to try and grow the site!
 
I used to have both Thrive and Elementor but now I only use Thrive to do the homepage design and for articles, I just prefer Gutenberg because of it's simplicity and speed.
 
There are many case scenarios that prove the page speed Vs bloated codes in Elementor/page builders. I have used Elementor and Thrive builders but stopped doing it due to the limitations while comparing it with manual development. yes, they are easy to build layouts but it will not come as handy as manual development for custom designs. You have to adjust to the limitations.

I have not used Oxygen builder but recently came across multiple good reviews about it. Maybe you can give it a try. If you ask me if a client is very adamant about implementing a page builder so that they can add page themselves, I would go with Elementor after making the client aware of the pros and cons.
 
I'm actually getting rid of Thrive right now. I'm over it. I'm moving to something more lightweight. Going to try out GeneratePress since it's supposed to be fast.

My problem with Thrive is multi faceted but the latest deal breaker is an issue I'm having with a page that I built with Thrive Content Builder and then that product morphed into Thrive Architect (or whatever it's called now). It seems like it didn't scale into the new product very gracefully because now when I try and update the page I get all kinds of problems. It takes me more time to troubleshoot the issues with these page builders than it would for me to just build without one in the first place.

I've used Thrive for years and it's not worth it in the long run in my experience. I've heard the same from others but I tried to keep pushing on because I am locked into $120/yr price for all of Thrive. I am going to finally let that expire this year.
 
FYI Oxygen is a builder as opposed to a pre-made theme (like GeneratePress). I only realised this after buying.
 
We just started migrating to Oxygen. So far we love it. There are some quirks to it, but worth the frustrations.
The code is much slimmer then any page builder I have seen. Additionally, the integration with Gutenberg is create. You can create custom blocks or just use the normal blocks.
 
I think Thrive is easier to use but I use Elementor more because it doesn’t conflict with other plugins as much. That was a constant battle with Thrive.
 
Oxygen is the way to if you like page builders. Elementor is ok if you know what you're doing. Thrive isn't for SEO based websites. It's a mess.
 
I myself have been using Divi and Brizy.

Brizy is quite amazing in the sense that it is the first builder out there that actually has a Wordpress Plugin, CLoud Page builder that is completely cloud hosted. And on top of that you can export your pages as static HTML from the cloud page builder, so there's no vendor locking ever.

This is quite amazing really.
 
I, like so many here, am just getting started and for the time being have limited coding skill.. I was so close to going down the page builder route.

This started with me watching multiple Elementor/Divi/Thrive comparison videos, when 2 hours later I realised I was wasting my time and should just make a decision, as a final verdict I decided to check BuSo.

Low and behold at the top of page one in orientation lies the post to answer my question and instead of the answer I expected, @Ryuzaki is pointing us in a different direction, away from page builders (unsurprisingly) which reminded me of an old conversation I had a few years back with the best manager I ever worked under.

We were talking over dinner about side hustles and at the time I thought I was doing well making an extra £500 a month with matched betting. To my surprise, rather than pat me on the back or congratulate me, he coldly asked me how much skill was actually involved in the whole process?

Things clicked as soon as he said that and it made me realise, if you have two paths in front of you, one easy and one hard, anyone can take the easy path (and most people do), which is why you should always choose the hard path.

As a result of my course correction, I will benefit in more ways than one as not only will the end product of my sites be faster and cleaner, my knowledge, skill and grit will now be forced to grow because I HAVE to learn how to do it the hard way.

The old me would have taken the easy route, but now I understand the value of taking the hard route.

I also want to add that it feels damn good learning to do something yourself rather than relying on someone or something to do it for you.
 
MattRP said:
I, like so many here, am just getting started and for the time being have limited coding skill.. I was so close to going down the page builder route.

This started with me watching multiple Elementor/Divi/Thrive comparison videos, when 2 hours later I realised I was wasting my time and should just make a decision, as a final verdict I decided to check BuSo.

Low and behold at the top of page one in orientation lies the post to answer my question and instead of the answer I expected, @Ryuzaki is pointing us in a different direction, away from page builders (unsurprisingly) which reminded me of an old conversation I had a few years back with the best manager I ever worked under.

We were talking over dinner about side hustles and at the time I thought I was doing well making an extra £500 a month with matched betting. To my surprise, rather than pat me on the back or congratulate me, he coldly asked me how much skill was actually involved in the whole process?

Things clicked as soon as he said that and it made me realise, if you have two paths in front of you, one easy and one hard, anyone can take the easy path (and most people do), which is why you should always choose the hard path.

As a result of my course correction, I will benefit in more ways than one as not only will the end product of my sites be faster and cleaner, my knowledge, skill and grit will now be forced to grow because I HAVE to learn how to do it the hard way.

The old me would have taken the easy route, but now I understand the value of taking the hard route.

I also want to add that it feels damn good learning to do something yourself rather than relying on someone or something to do it for you.
Click to expand...

I would appreciate if you could link to Ryuzaki's post that delves into this matter.

I am myself, a bit frustrated with page builders.
 
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