Best Drag & Drop Theme Builder?

[Caroline Davies]

I set up websites using off the shelf wordpress themes. But... I keep finding myself in the Editor section and working on sites through ftp.

I'd like to investigate the world of wordpress theme builders. I've used AVADA but still found it very limiting. I'm used to HTML & CSS but wonder if there might be a quicker option.
What do you guys think?
Is there a theme-builder you can recommend? Mostly for layouts, sizing, colours etc.
Is it worth it or should I stick with just customizing templates by hand?

 

[fisicx]

Avoid drag and drop themes! They are the devil's work and should never, ever, ever be used for client sites.

Avada, Divi, Weaver and a whole load of other page builder themes are dated and clunky, relying on a whole bunch of plugins and extensions to make anything work. And in doing so clog up the site with a whole load of caggage,

In fact the whole bootstrap thing is a code hungry monster.

So keep doing it by hand - keep your themes light and fast and don't anything that makes more work for the poor user (such as sliders, animations and umpteen google fonts).

 

[Caroline Davies]

Gah - thanks for the advice. I was just about to give Themify a try.
Just feeling a bit of Theme Builder FOMO!

 

[Clinton]

I'm a big fan of fisicx's advice above, especially coming from a background where I've owned literally hundreds of WP based sites.

But I've used Thrive Themes for my current WP website and it has worked really well for me. I recommend it ... and the Thrive Themes support is second to none. I strongly suggest you check it out. It's quick, it's slick, it's not bloated. And it has some great features built in i.e. less need for other plugins.

 

[Alan]

If you must use a page builder, and can't wait for WordPress to release their Gutenberg project, then Beaver Builder is the go to product by 1 million miles ( approximately - or kilometers for remoaners )

 

[Awinner2]

I would suggest looking at snaplitics.com. They offer a free 7 day trial without needing credit card details in advance (you won't get billed "by accident") Built on Wordpress platform but very simple for the non-website builder to use.

 

[fisicx]

And like all the drag and drop and page builders you end up with a right mess of a site. They all use bootstrap (which is bloated and dated), rely on plugins and create horrible code locking you into their tool. And as I have discovered today, you can't add templates and whole load of other core wordpress features.

 

[BarnaB]

I would highly recommend a theme+builder combo instead of a single product. GeneratePress has a free and a premium version where you have almost any kind of option in the customizer with a lightweight and fast result. To top this you can use Beaver Builder or what I personally use is Elementor. It has a free version that beats the rest and a Pro version too.

Genesis users like GP a lot as it is highly designer and coder friendly too. I have started a Youtube channel with tutorials too for these two...

 

[Xpress Docs]

I've had no issues with using Visual Composer that's come bundled with a couple of themes that I've purchased. I believe it can be purchased as a plugin to be used with any theme. I like it. it hasn't harmed performance. And I'm not a pro web developer, so I'm not going to get my knickers in a twist if it creates some sub-optimal code underneath

 

[fisicx]

...so I'm not going to get my knickers in a twist if it creates some sub-optimal code underneath

No, but Google gets all grumpy if you deliver a badly coded site.

Which is why it only scores you 57/100

 

[Xpress Docs]

Ah PageSpeed. How I love & loathe you equally. I prefer the analysis from Pingdom & GTMetrix myself. But even all three agree that the issue is one of performance (host wait - which means I need to moan at the host again) & me uploading large images increasing the page size, rather than than the code being produced by Visual Composer.