Moving Away From Elementor – Rocket Grove Creative Studios

I wanted to use this space to discuss a major change that is coming to most client sites that are managed by Rocket Grove Creative Studios.

After several years of building sites around the Elementor page builder, I have made the decision to move away from Elementor and use a more native solution inside of WordPress. I’ll sum it up for those who don’t want to (or need to) know more details:

Extremely Brief Summary

WHAT: I have made the decision to migrate all websites built using the Elementor builder over to the built-in WordPress builder over the course of the next few months.

Why: Elementor has become increasingly bloated and “sales heavy”, and this affects performance, compatibility with other plugins, general cache issues, and more.

When: I will migrate sites in an order that makes sense to my workflow without taking away significant development time from client sites or marketing.

If that’s enough information for you, then great! But if not, read on and I’ll try to answer all potential questions. If you have further questions after this, please let me know.

Why Elementor was chosen in the first place

For several years now, I’ve utilized the Elementor page builder for a majority of client sites. I did this for several reasons. At the time, Elementor was by far the best option available on the WordPress platform. WordPress did not have a viable built-in builder that could offer the level of functionality needed for most dynamic sites, and no other builder was as flexible. It was powerful and relatively streamlined compared to the alternatives.

In addition, Elementor had (and still has to this day) the largest 3rd party support for additional functionality, integrations with other tools, and more. While it has never been the most lightweight plugin, it has been the best balance of other factors. Elementor was a forward thinking builder that offered everything needed, but without the downsides of other options on the market.

What has changed since then?

A lot has changed over the years. The biggest change is that WordPress now includes it’s very own builder. While this builder isn’t quite as powerful as Elementor, it offers most of the functionality, but with a much smaller footprint. And there is now a much greater ecosystem built around this builder as well, and this ecosystem is growing by the day.

As this new builder is a part of core WordPress, this also means that developers will be more motivated to code their plugins with core compatibility as the highest priority, along with the WordPress team themselves enforcing these coding standards. As opposed to having to code plugins around compatibility with another third party plugin, being compatible with core is essential.

At the same time, Elementor has continued to grow, but with that growth has come additional issues. For one, it has become more bloated than I would prefer, meaning performance of each site can be affected. While this performance hit isn’t extreme, it’s enough to matter, and enough to make it difficult to fully optimize client sites. You can still build amazing, efficient sites using Elementor. But the trend is in the wrong direction.

Also, as the Elementor developers offer more products (hosting, image optimization, etc.), they have decided it’s a good idea to have more banners and upsells being offered inside the builder and the WP admin area. This is annoying to clients and also affects performance and user experience in the admin area. This is not acceptable to me. At all.

I have also run into issues lately where Elementor gets in the way of improving some Core Web Vitals, which is an area that Google has been putting a lot of focus on in the SEO space. It has not risen to a point of affecting rankings, but no builder should get in the way of any SEO best practice. This is absolutely not ideal.

Elementor also uses an unacceptable amount of Javascript. Modern dynamic websites are going to use Javascript and that’s ok. But Elementor insists on using libraries like jQuery by default instead of vanilla Javscript, along with loading no less than a dozen other scripts on almost every page, even though they claim to not load code that isn’t used by a page. This extra Javascript not only affects page performance, but it potentially hinders crawling by LLM indexing tools that are used for AI tools and search engines, as they are more limited in their ability to render Javscript. Again, this is not a risk I want to take.

Finally, as a result of the ever-increasing code base, Elementor has more potential of creating conflicts with other plugins. This is the nature of building powerful plugins. But the more features and flexibility that gets built, the more that other developers have to remain compatible with. And this also leads to far more testing on my end with every update. It’s a significant amount of time that is used for this.

While I take great care to test and re-test plugins that I use, and while I regularly perform optimizations to every single client site, I have come to a point where I believe it’s time to migrate away from Elementor on sites where it is possible. There is a little “trusting my gut” involved here because it is still absolutely possible to build great, well-performing sites with Elementor. But it’s time to read the writing on the wall and get ahead of things.

One additional point to note is that I pay the licensing fee for Elementor on my end (along with all other commercial plugins used on client sites), and as my costs go up, I prefer to not incur any costs that are avoidable. I avoid any potential increases that have to be passed along to clients.

Benefits of this change

I have already eluded to many downsides of Elementor, so naturally the opposite of these things would be positives for your site. But I’ll give them a little more directly here.

First is performance. Having a builder that is built into WordPress means less resources needing to load, both in the admin and the front end. This performance increase could be noticeable not only to you, but to your site users.

There will be increased compatibility with other WordPress plugins and systems, and less work needed to integrate future features. This also means there is less potential conflict with other plugins and updates to those plugins. That doesn’t mean that there will never be a conflict or issue. But the potential for issues will be much smaller.

The overall builder experience is more streamlined than Elementor, and also requires only visiting the backend of the site to make changes. So you will no longer need to edit fields in the backend and then load the Elementor builder separately to change the page itself. You can make all changes on one page (including featured images, custom fields, etc.).

For SEO clients, this change will also bring potential benefits for a variety of reasons. Search engines like performant pages, and users also tend to spend more time on pages that load faster. User engagement and experience is a core part of both Google and Microsoft search ranking factors. Even if it’s just a small change, it can be beneficial. But beyond that, the less backend code needed to structure a page, the easier it is for search engines to digest the data. This is especially necessary with newer AI indexers. They tend to have a harder time with complex Javascript, so reducing Javascript can potentially help with these new systems.

Over time, I believe all clients will see this change as a positive one. I do realize that at first, change is not ideal. And I didn’t come to the decision to change lightly. But I am confident that it will ultimately be a decision that benefits clients, or I wouldn’t be doing it.

What to expect during this process

I will be migrating client sites one or two at a time, based on several different factors, which include my own time schedule, how much a client site is affected by the negative sides of Elementor, and other factors. Sites that are due a redesign will also get priority as this is a good opportunity to make those design changes.

This process is not a small one. It’s actually an extremely detailed and lengthy process, and will take some time. During your migration, I’ll be in touch with you as pages are finished. Please know that I will not be changing any client sites or pages without notifying you first.

I will be making all changes in a testing section of your admin, and I will not be actively working on active pages. Once a page is completed in the testing section, I will migrate it over to the live page. Before doing this, I will also be backing up the Elementor version of each page just in case the need arises to go back. But I don’t anticipate this happening.

As this process nears completion for each site, I will be available for a live one on one training session with clients if needed, but will also be providing help materials in the form of a knowledgebase and YouTube videos. My goal is to walk through the process as much as possible with clients.

Possible Questions You May Have.

I understand that you might have some questions. So I’ll try to answer a few here. But definitely feel free to get in touch if you have additional questions.

Is this change optional?

Technically, yes, you do have the choice to decline this change. However, I strongly recommend going with the migration. This change will set up your site for the future for better performance and compatibility, along with helping me with keeping client sites consistent. As I regularly update my own framework, it is highly beneficial to be able to roll out these changes efficiently. Having client sites on a similar version of this framework will allow me to spend less time updating and more time improving each site.

Will my site look different?

For some clients, there will be no significant difference in the appearance of your site. For the most part, the page designs are being rebuilt to match the previous builder’s design. However, there is likely to be minor differences. As I rebuild pages, I will likely make design choices that I feel are improvements, or if I feel some changes are needed for consistency, I will make them.

Part of this rebuild process will be completely auditing and rewriting the styling code for each site, which can help remove old or redundant code that may still be around (though I do clean this up often already).

Some clients will see more significant changes. For clients on higher packages, this includes a redesign/refresh every 3 years or so. If you are currently due for a redesign, I may use this opportunity to make that happen while rebuilding your site. This prevents me doubling up the work later. If you are on a basic maintenance package, this does not include redesigns, so your site will look mostly the same.

Will this migration cost anything to clients?

No, there will be no cost for clients whose sites are migrated. As this is a decision that was made from my end, I don’t feel it would be right to force any cost onto my clients.

However, for clients who remain with Elementor, there actually will be a small cost added to your yearly invoice of $100. This cost is designed to cover the costs of a unique license for the Elementor page builder. In the event that you no longer need the services of Rocket Grove Creative Studios, this license will be completely under your control to maintain going forward, unattached from me and my personal accounts.

In addition, if you decide you do not want to make this transition, but later change your mind, there will likely be costs involved due to the way I am timing these transition plans. But these costs and details are not set in stone yet.

Will you have to learn a new builder?

Yes. If a client is involved in creating or editing content on their site using the Elementor builder, this process will change significantly. This is the hardest part of the decision for me, as my desire is to never create extra work for clients, or to mess with their workflow. However, due to the reasons outlined above, this is a change that I feel is for the best.

I will be providing a full combination of training materials and one-on-one options for learning this new workflow. I will meet with each client as needed to determine the best method of training for them, and will remain available as always to assist as you familiarize yourself with this new builder.

If you don’t handle any content on your site, nothing will change for you. However, if you ever do start creating or editing content, you will need to become familiar with the basics of this new builder.

How long will this change last? Will I have to change to yet another builder down the road?

Because this new builder is directly a part of WordPress core, My intention is for this to be the last ever change to the page building process. Some clients have gone through having their sites built in multiple builders over the years, and learning a new builder is a huge pain. And while new page builders come along all the time (some are really good, too), my anticipation is that I will not need to explore any new options for many, many years to come.

There may be smaller changes that come for some sites. As I will still be utilizing some third party addons for the built-in page builder, you may see additional buttons or options that appear from time to time. But the core building experience should remain the same as long as the WordPress team themselves don’t choose to make larger changes. But these would always be smaller gradual changes.

Ultimately, you should plan for this to be the last major builder change.

In the coming weeks, I will begin to post helpful articles that will assist clients in getting familiar with this new builder. If you actively edit pages on your site, I encourage you to watch this space and go through these articles and videos as they pop up.

In the meantime, if you have any questions at all, please feel free to email me and I will be happy to help you further understand these changes.

Sincerely,

Brent Randall