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WPBakery Review: Is This Page Builder Worth It

WPBakery Page Builder Review: Is It Worth It? 2024 

Written By: author image Stacey Corrin
author image Stacey Corrin
Stacey has been writing about WordPress and digital marketing for over 10 years and on other topics for much longer. Alongside this, she's fascinated with web design, user experience, and SEO.
     Reviewed By: Turner John
reviewer image Turner John
John Turner is the co-founder of SeedProd. He has over 20+ years of business and development experience and his plugins have been downloaded over 25 million times.

Are you looking for a WPBakery review to see if it can help simplify your website design?

WPBakery Page Builder is a popular tool that claims to help you build stunning, responsive WordPress sites without writing a line of code. But is it really worth the hype, and are other better WordPress page builders available? 

Let’s dive into this WPBakery review to find out.

What Is WPBakery Page Builder?

WPBakery, formerly known as Visual Composer, is a drag-and-drop page builder plugin for WordPress websites. It lets you create custom page layouts, content elements, and more without needing any programming knowledge.

WPBakery Page Builder homepage

This popular page builder rebranded to WPBakery in 2017, while Visual Composer is now a separate web design project called Visual Composer Website Builder. Essentially, WPBakery is now a page builder, and Visual Composer is a website builder.

It’s a widely-adopted plugin and comes bundled with many Themeforest and Codecanyon themes to make customizing them easier.

Once activated on your website, WPBakery transforms the WordPress page editor into a fully-fledged visual design tool. You can add, edit, and arrange various elements on your page using a drag-and-drop interface to customize everything easily without code.

The beauty of WPBakery lies in its simplicity, making it accessible for beginners and time-saving for experts.

WPBakery Features and Functionality

WPBakery comes with many powerful features that make it popular among WordPress users. Let’s kick off this WPBakery review by looking at these features in more detail.

The Drag-and-Drop Interface

WPBakery’s most notable feature is the drag-and-drop builder. It allows you to select any element, drag it to your preferred spot on the page, and drop it. This means you can construct an entire webpage without touching a single line of code.

WPBakery Drag and Drop Interface

Once placed, you can resize, reposition, and customize elements with just a few clicks.

Furthermore, you’ll see a real-time preview, allowing you to see the changes you make instantly. This instant visual feedback allows for better design decisions and helps streamline the design process.

WPBakery Element Customization

Pre-designed Layouts and Elements

For those who need inspiration or are in a hurry, WPBakery offers a library of pre-designed layouts and elements. From headers, footers, and sidebars, to sliders and galleries, there’s a design that fits every need.

WPBakery Templates Library

The template library is ideal to use as a starting point for your page design. These pre-made designs cover various industries and purposes, including business, eCommerce, portfolio, blog, and more, using the latest design trends.

Each template is fully customizable using the drag-and-drop builder. You can even add your own custom CSS for more unique styling options.

WPBakery’s Element Library

In addition to templates, WPBakery also offers a vast collection of elements to enhance your web page functionality. They include text blocks, buttons, icons, image galleries, progress bars, testimonials, parallax, counters, accordions, widgets, and more.

WPBakery Elements library

You can mix and match different modules and templates, customize colors and typography, and experiment with combinations to make a unique and personalized design. WPBakery’s drag-and-drop interface seamlessly integrates with the templates and elements, allowing you to customize them to suit your needs easily.

Advanced Features and Add-ons

WPBakery also boasts various advanced features and add-ons to elevate its functionality.

Of particular note is the grid design options. Grid layouts are popular for organizing content, especially for portfolios, product showcases, or blog posts. 

With Grid layouts, you can customize the number of columns, adjust the spacing between elements, make the grid full-width, and fine-tune the grid appearance.

WPBakery grid layouts

WPBakery also offers seamless compatibility with WooCommerce, the leading eCommerce plugin for WordPress. This allows you to create online stores using its easy drag-and-drop interface. 

For example, you can easily design product pages, showcase featured products, create custom layouts for shopping carts and checkout pages, and fully customize your store’s overall look and feel.

Additionally, WPBakery supports various third-party extensions, plugins, and add-ons.

They provide additional design elements, integrations with popular WordPress plugins, and enhanced customization options, including:

WPBakery and Responsiveness

WPBakery understands the importance of mobile responsiveness and provides features to ensure your site is optimized for mobile devices.

With its responsive design settings, you can configure your site’s appearance on different screen sizes and devices, ensuring a consistent and user-friendly experience across desktops, tablets, and smartphones.

WPBakery mobile preview options

The design options also allow you to control the behavior of elements on different devices. For instance, you can set custom breakpoints where layout or element appearance changes occur by screen size.

WPBakery breakpoints settings

To further enhance mobile responsiveness, WPBakery lets you hide some aspects for specific mobile devices or modify their appearance.

WPBakery hide on mobile devices

Mobile responsiveness is crucial for search engine optimization (SEO). With these mobile responsive features, you can build websites that meet mobile optimization standards, improving your chances of higher search rankings.

WPBakery Page Builder in Action

Setting up WPBakery is a breeze. After installing and activating the plugin, you can start building your pages immediately. Let’s look at how to do this next.

Creating a Page from Scratch

To create a new page with WPBakery, go to Pages » Add New from your WordPress admin dashboard and click the WPBakery Page Builder button.

Add new page in WPBakery

On the next screen, you’ll see 2 different options: Backend Editor and Frontend Editor.

WPBakery frontend and backend editor options

With the backend editor, you can add the same elements to your page as the frontend editor. The only difference is you’re working in your website dashboard, which won’t show a live preview of your changes.

You can still open the elements library, customize sections, rows, and columns, and drag and drop elements to rearrange their position.

WPBakery backend editor

If at any time you want to switch to the frontend, simply click the Frontend Editor button. From there, you can customize your new page in real time.

Customizing Pre-designed Templates

If you prefer to start with a pre-designed template, you can do so easily. Simply create a new page using WPBakery, click the template library icon, and click a template to add it automatically to your design.

WPBakery template library frontend editor

From there, you can edit the template colors, fonts, images, content, and elements, to make the design your own.

WPBakery template editing

WPBakery Review: Pros and Cons

When it comes down to it, WPBakery is a handy tool if you’re unfamiliar with the complexities of web design. However, as with any tool, it may not suit everyone.

With this in mind, here are some pros and cons of WPBakery to help you decide:

Pros

  • Backend and frontend editor
  • Compatible with most WordPress themes
  • Large element and template library
  • User role access control
  • Mobile responsive

Cons

  • Learning curve for beginners
  • May conflict with other WordPress plugins
  • After deactivation, it may leave shortcodes on pages
  • Can impact page loading speed
  • No free version

WPBakery Review: Pricing

WPBakery has 3 pricing plans available for different budgets and use cases.

WPBakery pricing details

The Regular license is a one-time payment of $59 for a single website with premium support and access to the template library. From there, the pricing scales to $256 for 5 websites and $499 for 10 websites.

The pricing for any WPBakery add-ons can vary and are separate from the primary plugin price.

WPBakery vs Other Page Builders

So how does WPBakery compare to other page builders like SeedProd, Elementor Pro, Divi Builder, and Beaver Builder? The truth is, it could be better.

WPBakery lacks features that its competitors do well.

SeedProd Drag and Drop WordPress website builder

For example, SeedProd has a built-in WordPress theme builder, allowing you to create custom WordPress themes alongside landing pages. It also has many of WPBakery’s add-on features built into the core plugin, including before and after sliders, testimonials, WooCommerce products, team members, animations, pricing tables, and more.

SeedProd animation effect

SeedProd works independently from your WordPress theme, ensuring it works seamlessly with any design. Plus, if you decide to use a different page builder, it won’t leave messy shortcodes behind to impact your page speed.

WPBakery Review: Final Verdict

In the end, WPBakery is a robust page builder with features that anyone can use. Whether you’re a novice looking to create your first website or a seasoned developer seeking to streamline your workflow, WPBakery has something to offer.

However, if you need advanced features like popups, theme builders, and faster page speeds, it may be best to choose an alternative solution.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About WPBakery

How easy is it to learn WPBakery Page Builder?

WPBakery is designed with user-friendliness in mind. With its intuitive interface and extensive documentation, beginners can get the hang of it relatively quickly.

Can I use WPBakery Page Builder with any WordPress theme?

WPBakery works with most WordPress themes, allowing you to keep your favorite theme and still enjoy the benefits of its page builder.

What kind of customer support does WPBakery offer?

WPBakery offers dedicated customer support via a ticket system. In addition, they have a comprehensive knowledge base and a community forum for additional assistance.

Is WPBakery Page Builder a one-time purchase or subscription-based?

WPBakery Page Builder is a one-time purchase, meaning you pay once and can use it forever.

There you have it!

We hope you found this in-depth WPBakery review helpful.

You might also like our comparison of Leadpages vs Instapage vs SeedProd, 3 other popular page builders, to see how they stack up. Alternatively, you may find our guide on the best WordPress hosting solutions helpful.

Thanks for reading! We’d love to hear your thoughts, so please feel free to leave a comment with any questions and feedback.

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author avatar
Stacey Corrin Writer
Stacey has been writing about WordPress and digital marketing for over 10 years and on other topics for much longer. Alongside this, she's fascinated with web design, user experience, and SEO.

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