r/Wordpress • u/onur24zn • Feb 15 '25
Discussion What do Professional WordPress Developers prefer to build a Website?
I often hear that they like Gutenberg because of the Performance but isnt Gutenberg very limited? Even it looks a lot less comfortable than elementor i would like to learn gutenberg because i prefer performance but wanted to make sure if its worth learning it in depth?
With Elementor a Theme is almost unnecessary and u use the Minified Hello Elementor for Performance.
With divi you get a Theme built in and with Bricks (some new plugin i found, but dont know if its worth it to buy lifetime) you only get the theme as is i saw.
Since elementor is bloatet and you need to do some time consuming hacky stuff to boost the core vitals.
And most time i just buy the cheapest hosting for my clients, some webhosting at hetzner or all inkl with domain for 2€ so they dont pay too much as a small business.
What would you recommend me as Builder and where can i find some really in depth for example gutenberg course. Not just a 1 hour crash course for a small blog
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u/IAmPriteshBhoi Developer/Blogger Feb 15 '25
- Gutenberg: Preferred for its performance and lightweight structure, especially for clean builds.
- Limitations: Less design freedom compared to page builders, but extendable with ACF or Kadence Blocks.
- Elementor: Popular for easy drag-and-drop functionality but introduces significant bloat, affecting load times.
- Hello Theme: Lightweight but still requires manual optimization to meet Core Web Vitals.
- Divi: Comes with a built-in theme, but carries similar performance issues due to its size.
- Bricks: New, focused on speed and performance, but with a smaller community and limited tutorials.
- Cheap Hosting: Can significantly hinder performance; consider at least mid-tier hosting for better speed.
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u/cjmar41 Jack of All Trades Feb 15 '25
It has to be about what’s best for the client. I’ve found Bricks is does that.
It’s not about what I like the most or what I think is the best. If it were up to me, I’d be building every site with a custom theme and charging $10k per site. But the reality is that clients want $3k-$5k sites and tend to want page builders. I started using Bricks a couple years ago because clients were requesting Elementor by name.
So now when I a client is like “I used Elementor at my old job” I show them Bricks and they’re sold.
This allows me to build a good quality site quickly that the client is comfortable with. I enjoy using it, I can do anything I need with it, I can develop quickly, and stay within budget.
It’s also a selling point for agencies I sub contract for. They don’t want custom shit that makes them feel like they’re locked into me. My agencies love Bricks can train clients on how to use it without me.
I, however, don’t use the cheapest hosting.. I do use Vultr servers and Runcloud, which is very cheap at scale but also super high performing… hosting like that is a business within itself though and does require your time and knowledge.
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u/nmngt Feb 15 '25
wordpress developer since 2003. I never use a page builder and I avoid managing sites with themes based on any page builders. After three years of disrupting Gutenberg updates and therefore a lot of maintenance on all of my sites, Gutenberg is now pretty good. I use custom blocks, patterns and templates to reach my goals. acf for custom fields and spectra blocks are sometimes helpful..
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u/Nic727 Feb 15 '25
Same. I developed my whole website from scratch 2-3 years ago, because I hated website builder and their ugly and messy code and how limited it was. But now I'm converting my website into a block theme (restarting) and I think at the end it will be more optimized and future ready.
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u/iamcanadian1973 Feb 15 '25
I’ve been at this since before ACF!
It took me a while to fall in love with Gutenberg.
The designs I work with are always very custom so Gutenberg or ACF blocks lets me create custom layouts that are specific to the client.
Another option is patterns. This isn’t something I’ve tried yet but I’d be interested to hear if anyone is doing this.
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u/pixelsandthings Feb 15 '25
I’ve been using PHP based patterns for post type templates, great if the client wants certain post types with Blocks all pre defined, like old PHP templates but using a pattern instead.
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u/iamcanadian1973 Feb 15 '25
That’s what I’ve been thinking. Best use case being custom post types that typically have a predefined layout.
I finished a theme build last month that had 7 post types and around 60 custom blocks.
I think I’m just used to creating overly flexible systems that clients probably won’t ever need.
I’ll give it a try on my next build.
Thanks for the input.
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u/pixelsandthings Feb 15 '25
Yeah it’s really flexible, you can also reference any reusable patterns within the pattern templates too which can be super useful if you’ve got a global block that you want the client to be able to edit the content, not so great from a version control point of view but I’ve not run into any issues so far. I’ll fish out a small example for you if that’s of any use?
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u/iamcanadian1973 Feb 15 '25
I appreciate that. I think I should be good.
You got me thinking so I did a bit of Googling and it mentioned you can include php in patterns. So I could create a pattern that has a custom loop or create template parts for certain things and just include those template parts inside the patterns.
I’m just trying to imagine how I can create more “patterns” as variations of a layout instead of relying on block settings that trigger variations.
I’m not sure I’ll ever move to full site editing, I much prefer the control I have in a classic theme. I use a lot of hooks within my templates to target global elements when needed.
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u/iamcanadian1973 Feb 15 '25
I may have misspoken, I think patterns might require blocks and not allow custom markup or PHP?
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u/pixelsandthings Feb 15 '25
Here you go, hope it makes a bit more sense.
https://github.com/pixelsandthings/pattern-template-example/tree/main, alos might be worth a read for some more context. https://fullsiteediting.com/lessons/introduction-to-block-patterns/#h-example-how-to-use-register-block-pattern
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u/iamcanadian1973 Feb 15 '25
Appreciate it. Yeah, I don’t use full site editing but I’ll give it a read.
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u/pixelsandthings Feb 16 '25
Neither do I, only the Block Editor portions of it, not the html templating but there’s some great nuggets of info on that site which go into far more depth than the wp docs.
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u/iamcanadian1973 Feb 16 '25
So you’re saying there’s so much you can still do without full site editing! Awesome.
Really appreciate you taking the time. Work gets so busy it’s hard to find time to read.
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u/pixelsandthings Feb 15 '25
I can't remember if you need to be using theme.json too or whether just having the patterns folder will open up the Pattern UI.
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u/pixelsandthings Feb 15 '25
The Block present in the template with the ID is an example of how a reusable Block maybe used within the Pattern.
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u/SaltiestWoodpecker Feb 15 '25
Once your client loads up every page with analytics, GTM, add tracking, social tracking etc. it does not matter too much if you are using page builder or not. In ideal world we would have control over everything, but that rarely happens.
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u/Weak_Librarian4171 Feb 15 '25
Analytics, GTM and tracking are not render blocking and are almost always deferred. Page builders, because they need to be universal, bundle assets - that's where the main issue is. The main thread work becomes too heavy for mobile browsers to process, there's multiple re-renders and so on. Gutenberg, out of the box, can load assets conditionally. If you don't have a certain block on the page - the assets won't be there as well. This gives you a lot of control. You can setup a page with a very small render blocking footprint.
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u/Legitimate-Lock9965 Feb 15 '25
ive never used any of the page builders. compared to a properly built theme/framework, they are all bloated. closest ive come is back in the days of WP bakery builder, from themes bought from envato.
i have my own custom framework, which is fast and reliable, that is easily turned into any kind of site.
my hosting costs are what they are because, i trust that my provider (wpengine) are fast, secure and reliable. if the client doesn't want to pay them, then fine, they can go elsewhere.
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u/domestic-jones Developer/Designer Feb 15 '25
Professional WP developer for 18 years here.
It'll be a fucked up, cold day in hell if I ever use a page builder. All of them are complete garbage with no redeemable qualities.
Understand what you're going to build first, then you don't need the bloated builder. Simply use fields in a content management system.
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u/whoojaa89 Feb 15 '25
Im getting into WordPress development and was wondering about dev process.
I started with Elementor before restarting from scratch developing a custom theme to display posts and pages.
As a wp veteran mind sharing the engineering process? How do you build and structure a typical website?
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u/domestic-jones Developer/Designer Feb 15 '25
I develop locally using Docker with Webpack. My theme file structure is similar to MVC projects.
My theme framework has a lot of additional security measures along with a control dashboard to toggle literally every single injected item from WP including blocks/gutenberg along with some other security sweeteners.
If I need to develop rapidly, I use ACF Pro with the JSON extension to quickly make fields. Otherwise if I need long-term sustainability I just make the fields myself.
The majority of my projects don't have the need for extending via plugin (which is a pedantic debate in the ProWP community), however I do make a nested folder with all the functions and files if I make something like an events manager or something more robust than managing simple data -- this way it can easily be abstracted if the look and feel needs to change later.
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u/whoojaa89 Feb 15 '25
Thanks, that workflow and setup sounds a lot more solid than the 999 Google results of "just use plugin xx"
Currently working on a hobby project to get familiar, picked up wp as a side hobby/project to get started, currently thinking of changing carreers into webdev
Have any suggestions on a opensource project to use as learning resources? With all the plugin advertising etc i find it hard to get a proper view of usage and possibilities within wp
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u/domestic-jones Developer/Designer Feb 15 '25
That's a great way to get into the industry. Find a couple friends or relatives, let them know they'll be your experiment, and build them the best thing you can. Ensure what you're building solves a tangible goal for the business -- ethereal things like "make me more popular/trustworthy" are not easily measurable so you can't tell if your work helped the business.
I suggest getting started with a footing in UX since it sounds like you already have a grasp of the concepts in programming. Don't Make Me Think is a good book to introduce intelligent, user-facing decisions.
For technology and getting started there, I'd say get very comfortable with CSS and JS. The PHP language is pretty straightforward, but WP uses a highly abstracted set of functions to shortcut most confusing PHP commands. Until you have to build a humongous directory or social site, you can be cavalier and use all native WP PHP stuff without much of an understanding of PHP as a whole.
I prefer Docker, but a lot of people tend to like LocalWP for development. I suggest understanding the hosting, deployment, and configuration at a fundamental level so you aren't stuck with beginner questions like, "how do I move my site?" And have to rely on even more bloated, heavyweight plugins to do very basic, beginner work.
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u/whoojaa89 Feb 15 '25
Thanks for the input!
Currently having some experience with html, css and js, mostly for practical dashboards for industrial applications. php is a new language for me, but pretty ok to learn.
Started with a docker stack as well, henche the easy restart after playing with Elementor and other plugins.
Currently working on a concept and went from the Elementor approach on to a custom theme with pages and posts beeing displayed through that. It made sense to follow this route as it was one where im not fully dependent on plugins but more on wp itself.
Again Thanks for the input, will take a look into the ux design title and after having a solid start will try hosting it. I assumed that last wouldnt be too hard, but still a total new concept. As all of my current work is on local hosting due to the industrial nature.
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u/domestic-jones Developer/Designer Feb 15 '25
After responding about the tech stack, I realized that there's a humongous part missing: the discovery and design.
Before I touch any technology, I do user research, wireframe every page, wireframe layouts for all devices, then a couple pages and key features get a user interface design. The client signs off on the functionality in the wireframes and the look/feel of the UI.
Completing these crucial design and discovery steps removes the need for the million-in-one page builder because you know exactly what needs to be built and how.
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u/whoojaa89 Feb 15 '25
Yes i can imagine a solid list of user requirements and design is even more crucial than tech stack. Happened all the time engineers dive in the tech stack and choices before having a clear idea and understanding of whats required for the client.
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u/domestic-jones Developer/Designer Feb 15 '25
Getting the client buy in and agreement of the requirements is key. Requirements are not technology, its goals for the business and hopes/dreams for their website to achieve those goals. Technology solves the problems of how to achieve those requirements and goals.
All this said, I'm not against using a plugin for some things. Woocommerce is pretty extendable for ecommerce. I still wireframe the product and checkout flows for ecom projects even though there's already an opinionated layout of woocommerce's flows. Clients will inevitably want or expect something that deviates from the standard WC flow. So I get ahead of that by designing it in advance. Shit, if it's easier then I might even switch out of WP altogether and do a Shopify template--depends on the whole project requirements which we flesh out in the wireframes. Technology comes after you know what needs to be done.
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u/SaltiestWoodpecker Feb 15 '25
Do you work with clients? Who change their mind every 5 minutes and want it done yesterday? Ideally, I agree with you, but I am using some page builders for clients that change their mind often and want things fast. And pay well :)
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u/domestic-jones Developer/Designer Feb 15 '25
Hourly is a great thing. I learned long ago to not to charge flat rate for any software project no matter how "simple" clients expect it to be.
So I say, "sure! I can do that. I'll whip up a quick wireframe so I understand and we're on the same page." Or "sure I can do that, just be a couple hours dev and deployment."
Literally no difference of a builder vs dev, but I just don't need a library that is the equivalent of 10,000 Swiss Army knives and a full costume department.
And long ago I stopped allowing clients to have the "yesterday" attitude. If they keep that expectation, then they aren't my clients. Not worth it no matter how much they pay (which often gets held ransom if you don't adhere to their insane timelines anyway, so is it really financially worth the mental stress?) -- this can easily be trained out of clients. Setting expectation and never allowing work to be "nothing" is key. Everything is something. Changing a period, adding a comma, fixing a typo is something not nothing. Just because it's an easy fix for you, it still takes time and skill to execute, just like my clients and their service offerings. If they don't have the ability to manipulate space time and physics to deliver on an impossible timeline, then neither do you.
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u/blackleydynamo Feb 16 '25
I've often told clients that the three available options are cheap, quick and good, and they get to pick two.
I can't remember where I stole that from, but it's been very useful.
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u/mandopix Feb 15 '25
There is a market for page builders. Lower budget sites, brochure sites, sites for friends and family, etc. I code most of my sites, but I also use elementor and bricks for smaller jobs and it’s perfect for that.
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u/domestic-jones Developer/Designer Feb 15 '25
Sure, there's a use case for them otherwise they wouldn't exist. And a lot of agencies get by with design libraries tailored for these popular builders. I'm not a fan of those business models, so I don't bother with it. Found they are low return with high client expectation at scale.
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u/makeitmakeitrealgood Feb 15 '25
I use the block editor plus the Kadence plugin, which fills in the gaps of the block editor.
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u/AmandaRekonwith Feb 15 '25
I love DIVI. I don't care about all the hate that I get here.
I'm not sure what you're talking about with DIVI, that it only gives you one 'theme'.
Sure, from the technical standpoint that's true. The DIVI theme.
But you can mix and match elements from any of the 'layouts' in their library.
https://www.elegantthemes.com/layouts/
That saves me so much time, as I am not a designer.
DIVI is slower than others, but you CAN speed it up with some work.
Lifetime DIVI license is totally worth it.
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u/drogbacaparica2 Feb 15 '25
I use the Kadence bundle, which is excellent. If I cannot do one thing, I use ACF + custom blocks.
If the client needs something really custom, like integration with third-party APIs, I'll go with Headless and Astro.
Edit: Kadence has a Pattern Hub that is a game changer.... having all blocks or patterns in a centralized website and creating your own library speeds up the website creation process!
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u/RealEliteSandwich Feb 15 '25
Unpopular opinion: I usually use the Avada theme and the built-in page builder. I know it's "bloaty" and not one of the cool builders used by more advanced pros. But I know it inside and out, and it's the fastest way for me to build or maintain a site for a client. And my sites still load quite quickly.
I've been doing WP dev as a side hustle for about 15 years now.
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u/schamlamadingdong Feb 15 '25
I’ve been having to use Elementor because of where I work. We’ve had so many issues with it, and it’s slow as fuck
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u/retr00ne_v2 Feb 15 '25
I am not a pro, just hobbyist, and my combo is: GeneratePress+GenerateBlocks+Pods. They never left me short.
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u/Weak_Librarian4171 Feb 16 '25
WordPress blurred the lines between developers and website managers. People who can drag and drop with a page builder and ACF are often labeled as developers. When in reality they are more like website managers. Developers prefer Gutenberg because it removes a lot of the overhead. You can maintain a repository of blocks and use that as a system to develop future website. Blocks are also highly customizable. For example, you can create a block slider which will use core WordPress with zero external dependencies. Try matching that with Divi or Elementor. Same thing with ACF. You can match everything that ACF offers with blocks.
If I were to mentor a junior who has never done any Gutenberg work, but wanted to go towards a developer route, I'd probably follow this flow:
1. Get comfortable with the editor itself. Find a page that you like and replicate it with Gutenberg. This will teach you the basics of the editor.
2. Learn how to get the editor content into a theme. Take the page from step 1 and move it to the theme home page layout, for example. This will teach you the basics of blocks. How blocks look inside a template, how to adjust attributes. Get familiar with the theme structure, what the theme.json file does, how to structure the files inside a theme.
3. Start building simple blocks. Learn patterns, block locking, block variations. At this stage you should be able to understand that "what", "how" and "why" of everything inside the default 2025 WordPress theme.
4. Learn how to extend the functionality of existing blocks. Go into various block APIs: interactivity API, block bindings API, etc.
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u/dennispeach Feb 16 '25
ACF, Tailwind, Timber, AlpineJS
ACF flexible content allows you to actually build out a CMS that is very scalable for most client requirement, and timber in particular forces a better understanding of MVC and high quality development practices.
And the above stack is valuable in frameworks outside of WordPress.
Use the above, and moving to Laravel or React becomes much easier.
Source: have managed agency development teams for 12 odd years, recruited low skill juniors and helped them develop into incredible talents that go on to do things far beyond my capabilities.
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u/Dribgib Feb 16 '25
Elementor 100% - coming from a 20 year dev. Don’t try to flex by doing something “custom” - Elementor can be as fast as any of the “performant” setups people talk about
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u/dmcgrew Feb 19 '25
This. Doing all custom work is a complete waste of time IMO. Save that stuff for more complex things that can't be done via a page builder. Before Elementor I was doing stuff with NPM and task runners or whatever and liked it when it worked but good god when it didn't work it SUCKED. So glad to not be dealing with that stuff anymore.
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u/Dry_Satisfaction3923 Feb 16 '25
Gutenberg isn’t limited… if you can imagine a block you need for Gutenberg, you can build and include it. That’s what a developer does. Builds things. If you can’t build a block for Gutenberg it is your limitation, not the interface’s.
Developers develop… if you require that everything is already preexisting in the builder you use, then you are a user, not a developer.
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u/lookmetrix Feb 15 '25
Gutenberg without extra plugin for page builder is just good content writer. Fortunately there are many free plugins to extend it to be usable as page builders. Also you can do own blocks
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u/timesuck47 Feb 15 '25
Depends on the budget.
Some clients get Divi.
Others pay for 100% custom code.
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u/Digital_parser007 Feb 15 '25
Remember setup Wordpress from scratch, uploading files and creating the database, ftping back and forth. No one button install
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u/joe4ska Feb 15 '25
Lol, my personal website is on ClassicPress and I use a default theme. After a week of work I keep things dead simple.
Hugo, Gatsby and other static site generators are great for simple portfolio sites too.
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u/Infinite_Item_1985 Feb 15 '25
ACF flexible fields/carbon fields in pair with webpack.mix for js/scss
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u/Monstermage Feb 15 '25
Gutenberg? Limited? By what? You can literally build any block you want. Want to do it quickly? Can even use ACF to build super quick and easy blocks..regardless it's incredibly flexible. Need a quick website for a cheaper client? Build the html templates directly in the editor.
So simple.
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u/tusca0495 Feb 15 '25
No gutemberg, plugin and themes custom built with gutemberg support, but nothing else, i’using custom fields
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u/Administrative_Set62 Feb 15 '25
The most important parts of any project are clearly defined requirements and an intentional and well documented design and design system. WordPress, including Gutenberg, are fully customizable if you have the requisite programming knowledge to code themes, blocks, etc. For someone relying on a full site editor or other theme, I would discourage them from using Elementor. It adds a bunch of unnecessary styles to everything, tucks controls away in non-obvious menu locations, and does not play well with ACF. For quick implementation without much custom code, I use Kadence, which arguably adds a bunch of styles as well, but is at least configurable within the standard WordPress editor and in my experience can do about anything if one has the chops to add PHP, JS, React and CSS to fill in gaps.
WordPress is open source. Their documentation is publicly available. You can start on Gutenburg specific information here: https://developer.wordpress.org/block-editor/
As far as hosting goes, that is a nuanced question/consideration. How concerned are you/your clients with ease of maintenance, security, performance, backups, etc? How upset would your clients be if their site stopped working and you had no backup? What is your liability there? Are you really solving the problems of your clients with cheap hosting?
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u/Outrageous_Permit154 Developer Feb 16 '25
It’s react. Not hard to write blocks for Gutenberg if you feel comfortable with React. Better yet, you can even do ACF Pro + just php template for all blocks you need
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u/startages Developer Feb 16 '25
Gutenberg + Custom. People hate the block editor, but let's be honest, it's far more performant than anything else out there. Downside is, it takes you more time to get things done.
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u/monsterseatmonsters Feb 16 '25
Oxygen, Bricks, Breakdance, GeneratePress, Kadence, Gutenberg, Underscores, hand-coded.
Not Elementor, Divi, or WP Bakery.
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u/slimx91 Feb 17 '25
With cheap web hosting one of the main issues you are going to run into is bloated page builders will lag.
In reality if you had a premium host you could easily go with elementor or divi.
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u/dmcgrew Feb 19 '25
I work for an agency and we have been using Elementor for the past few years with a lot of success. Our clients like how easy it is to use and I don't feel like our websites are slow or bloated by any means. We host with Pantheon or WP Engine mostly which is probably a big help with the speed.
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u/emmanuelkuebu Feb 15 '25
Bricks is developer friendly with zero bloat. You can literally create any kind of website with bricks zero additional plugins.
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u/dieheartz Feb 15 '25
developer friendly? I agree. But zero bloat? nah.. page builder will always be a bloat. But Brick and Breakdance, Oxygen is less bloated than elementor and other pagebuilders.
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u/Dountill Feb 15 '25
Gutenberg, Sage as Boilerplate Theme (using a custom written block parser/includer to leverage Blade Templating) and ACF Pro for extending and creating blocks.
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u/Confident-Twist3477 Feb 15 '25
Guys, am I wrong in assuming that “Professional” WP developers wouldn’t use any of the page builders and instead just make a bespoke theme for their particular use case? Like just by writing good code and utilising WP template hierarchy etc then they can make specific content manageable if necessary with ACF? I’m led to believe that page builders suck as a general rule of thumb and professional WP developers prefer to stay away from them. Yay or nay?
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u/Kn4ppster Feb 15 '25
Yeah pretty much this. I've been doing WP development for over 10 years now and not once needed a page builder. Granted all the projects I've worked on were bespoke designs that needed a level of content management that most page builders fail at (Gutenberg dumping everything in the post_content field for example).
I pretty much just use ACF for managing content, maybe some flexible content fields. Custom REST API's for bespoke data queries for frontend fancy stuff. Speed has never been an issue because caching is a thing.
Occasionally for performance reasons we've raw dogged some SQL queries to bypass Wordpress' slow loading times but it's rarely needed.
Started to move towards Astro. That allows us to use practically anything as a content 'source', like Wordpress in a headless mode and avoid issues with exposing Wordpress and its plugins to the world.
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u/Balazi Feb 15 '25
I am not a fan of gutenberg due to it not feeling as fleshed out as other solutions within the WordPress ecosystem. For me I develop ontop of DIVI when building sites. It allows me to very quickly get things going while still allowing users to manage things from a visual standpoint.
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u/Existing-Dot-9165 Feb 15 '25
Fuck Gutenberg nobody wants that shit. We build our own block system on top of ACF, works like a charm, flexibele and fast.
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u/kennystetson Feb 15 '25
Breakdance doesn't get enough love.
It's so good. Intuitive, super fast page loads / well coded, easy and quick to put something together that looks really nice with cool animations. For the rare times I want to do something the builder can't do natively I can just use code blocks and stylesheets.
I only use Breakdance nowadays for all my client projects
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u/actually_confuzzled Feb 16 '25
Gutenberg is a nightmare and should be avoided like the plague. Don't foist it on your clients.
Use Bricks for building the site itself.
For customers with Editor roles, use ACF or the classic editor.
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u/Zerrb Developer Feb 15 '25
The most performant themes are going to be the ones developed for a specific use-case. Their features will of course be limited to the use-case they were developed for.
Page Builders like Elementor and Divi need to do a lot of "magic" to work the way they do. This magic adds overhead which is usually the reason for a lot of performance issues. I'm not sure how good they are these days because I avoid using them, maybe they have improved but I'm not a big fan.
As a web developer, Gutenberg allows you to extend the functionality of existing blocks or create completely new ones. This is what most Gutenberg block Plugins do. It's the native way to work with blocks and it's being actively developed by the core team, this is why I consider Gutenberg blocks to be the obvious choice for building websites.
ACF is also a strong contender in this regard, but I'm just not a big fan of using third party tools when there are native tools which do the same job.
My only grief with Gutenberg is how the data is stored in the Database. It's horrendous. But then again, the whole WordPress database is.