[Review + Giveaway] Elementor – Drag-and-Drop Page Builder for WordPress – 100% Free, but Is It Also 100% Awesome?

If you’re in the market for a drag-and-drop page builder solution for WordPress then consider yourself in luck. Something you’ll quickly realize when doing your research is that there are many *many* tools that label themselves with “drag-and-drop” in one way or the other.

However, that’s also perhaps the problem with that market. I mean, on the one hand, the size of it is great for the user – you – because you get to choose from a range of awesome solutions. But on the other, that sheer size is also kind of problematic in itself.

Namely, where do you even start looking for a drag-and-drop builder? Do you just get whatever pops up first and stay with it? Are all those builders created equal?

Let’s find that out today by looking at one of the popular solutions in this realm and reviewing its features and abilities.

This is where Elementor comes into play – the tool in question. Let’s see what it has to offer in this review:

What is Elementor?

Under the hood, Elementor is a WordPress plugin. And not just any WordPress plugin, but a totally 100% free one.

(So yes, if you want to, you can get it right now, with no strings attached. Just click here – direct download link.)

What’s particularly interesting about Elementor is that it calls itself, “the most advanced drag & drop live page builder for WordPress.” This is quite the claim, so let’s see if it’s accurate.

Elementor’s main promise is that it can help you make your website look awesome regardless of the WordPress theme that you’re currently using. And that you can make it so with no coding knowledge or experience as a developer.

I feel I need to say this again, Elementor works with any WordPress theme. It just neatly integrates itself into the background and doesn’t interfere with the rest of your site.

But let’s look into the characteristics of the plugin one by one:

Front-end editing in Elementor

Front-end editing has been kind of a taboo topic among designers and WordPress developers. For years, it’s been seen as something that’s a gimmick, and not a really optimized one. But those times have changed, and I’ll be the first to admit it wholeheartedly!

In short, Elementor’s front-end editing works really great, and it should be very easy to grasp even for beginners.

Basically, what you get is a handy interface for page editing, with an options panel on the left and a live preview on the right/center. The best thing about it is that it works with no delay, showing you the results of your work in real time.

Mobile-optimized pages

Although it might sound “grand,” I still need to say it; mobile is here to stay! As in, each year, more and more people will transition from their desktops to their mobiles as their “primary web device.”

What this means for you is that you need to make sure that your websites look properly when viewed from those mobile devices. Elementor seems to understand this, so they deliver functional mobile editing controls.

As you’re working on a page layout, you can switch from desktop, to tablet, to mobile, thus control (and change) the different aspects of the page.

Designs and templates available

One of the common problems “around” content builders is the dreaded terror of the blank screen.

(I’m saying that it’s a problem around them and not as much with them since the problem is all in our heads, and not in the software itself.)

Either way, getting started from a blank screen can be a daunting task. Luckily, Elementor makes that easier by providing us with a whole template library that’s full of dozens of predesigned templates.

You can use those templates however you wish, integrate them with your pages (or even just parts of them), and then even save the final result as your own template (and reuse that later on).

Inside Elementor – other interesting features

Okay, so Elementor clearly has a lot to offer, and I don’t want to be talking about its many features endlessly, thus probably making it a boring read at some point. So, instead, let’s just have a quick rundown through some of the other features that you might find interesting:

• It’s free and open source. Elementor is not only free but also open source. This means that you can even change its source code and modify the plugin’s core functionality.
• Optimized for speed. Elementor proves to be very snappy, and especially as you’re working with drag-and-drop – there’s basically no delay between you doing something and seeing the result of it.
• Every visual element is customizable. You retain full control over the layout and the presentation of the page you’re working on.
• Dozens of content elements. You can use things like buttons, headlines, images, icons, videos, Google Maps, and also more advanced blocks of content such as testimonials, accordions, image carousels and a lot more.

Overall, there’s a lot waiting for you inside Elementor – that’s without a doubt. However, are you actually the type of user that this product is meant for?

Who Elementor is for

For me, Elementor makes the most sense in two possible user scenarios:

• You’re someone working on your own site, and you’re not entirely familiar with the technologies involved in building/tweaking a website. If that’s the case, Elementor will give you access to some great design tools that are incredibly easy to use, even if you have no design or coding experience.
• You’re a designer looking for a way to speed up your site building processes. In this scenario, you can use Elementor on client sites, and make every little tweak that the client requests much quicker to execute, and with a real-time preview.

Furthermore, if you’re in that latter group, you can also consider getting the PRO version of Elementor. It gives you access to a handful of slightly more advanced features and types of content blocks.

For instance, you can start working with fully editable forms (all on the front-end), use advanced WooCommerce customizability, add custom CSS to elements, build portfolios, create your own global widgets that you can then reuse, or utilize a lightweight slider (instead of using some of those bulky slider plugins). There’s a lot more waiting for you in the PRO, but let me stop here. If you want to learn everything, hop over here.

Bonus. For our readers exclusively, the Elementor guys have offered a discount – 10% off all plans. Just use the coupon code EWEBDESIGN during checkout.

How to get Elementor

This part is simple. You can download the Elementor plugin for free, no strings attached.

Giveaway

About that PRO version of Elementor that I mentioned above…

The cool guys behind Elementor have given us 3 copies of the Elementor PRO “Personal” license to give away.

That Personal plan allows you to use Elementor PRO on 1 site, and you get 1 year of support and updates. This is a $49 value.

How to participate

See below for the rules and info on how to enter:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Touchdown!

The giveaway has ended and this are the three lucky winners:

1. Maurice Hason
2. Carl Peterson
3. Charles Marks

All winners will be contacted via email within 24 hours regarding the prize.

Thanks everyone for participating, and follow us for more great giveaways :)