Looking for the best WordPress theme builders?
A theme builder allows you to build a responsive site through the use of a drag-and-drop feature. This is a great tool if you’re not able to come up with a theme that you like, or you just need a theme that will give you the flexibility you need to build your website (or your client’s).
You’re lucky because the WordPress theme market has improved drastically. This improvement is due to the stiff competition brought about by some of the most popular page builder plugins. Unlike years ago where you were limited to just a few options, you can now choose from a wide range of top-quality theme builders.
In this guide, we will look at five of the best options. All of these options allow you to fully customize your themes using a visual, drag-and-drop interface. This post will reveal great tools that you can use to customize your themes.
Let’s get started.
Quick Review
Here’s a glimpse at the best WordPress theme builders that will be discussed in this guide:
- Elementor Pro: You can use it to design templates for the header, footer, singles, and archives of your theme, and can apply these templates anywhere you want on your website.
- Thrive Theme Builder: A highly customizable theme.
- Divi: It allows you to extensively customize Divi’s headers and footers, and to also build your templates.
- Beaver Builder: It works with almost any WordPress theme.
- Brizy: It has a basic theme building feature.
5 Best WordPress Theme Builders
Let’s proceed by taking a look at each of the best WordPress theme builders.
1. Elementor Pro
Elementor Pro has over five million WordPress users all over the world. This makes it the most popular WordPress theme builder. The premium version of the tool allows you to take the same visual, drag-and-drop Elementor builder and then apply it to your whole theme.
The tool allows you to design templates for the header, footer, singles, and archives of your theme. You can then apply these templates anywhere you want on your website. For instance, you may decide to use one blog post design for all your posts. You could also create different templates for different tags, categories, and authors.
Some of the key features of Elementor Pro include:
- Responsive controls
- Popup builder
- The visual, drag-and-drop builder
- Conditional template display
- Ability to create unlimited templates for your theme
- Easy management of all templates from one interface (included in Elementor 3.0)
- Works perfectly with an existing theme
- Built-in email marketing integrations
- Pre-designed templates for different parts of the theme
- Importable full-site templates
- WooCommerce integration
- Dynamic content
Elementor Pro Pros
- It has a simple interface
- Elementor Pro features a drag-and-drop building
- Its themes are responsive with tablets, mobile devices, and PC.
- You can use it to create custom themes
- Features regular updates
- It allows you to create attractive-looking pop-ups
- The tool can be integrated with third-party apps
- It features real-time editing and previews
- There’s a free version
Elementor Pro Cons
- It has a limited number of templates
- The support is not too good
- It has inappropriate pricing
- The theme builder also slows down the loading speed of pages
- Elementor restricts users from adding custom CSS and codes
- There are fewer numbers of SEO tools
Pricing
Although the core Elementor page builder can be found at WordPress.org, you need the Elementor Pro to have access to the theme building feature.
Its pricing plans are in 3 levels. All the plans have the same features but different site limits. The pricing plans include:
- 1 website: Costs $49
- 3 websites: Costs $99
- 1,000 websites: $199
All the plans have one year of updates and support. You can continue getting the support and updates after the first year at a discount rate of 25%.
2. Thrive Theme Builder
Thrive Theme Builder is a highly customizable theme. You will need to start from the Shapeshift base theme; which has lots of different templates.
You can choose the templates you want from the setup wizard. This helps you to quickly get started with a cohesive website that is equipped with all the essential elements. If you want more control, you can fully edit the templates through the use of the visual, drag-and-drop interface. You may also decide to build your templates from scratch.
Some key features of Thrive Theme Builder include the following:
- Visual, drag-and-drop builder
- Build themes from the base Shapeshift theme
- Responsive controls
- Full control while editing templates or creating yours
- Simple setup wizard for choosing baseline templates
- WooCommerce integration
- List building tool integration
- Dynamic content
- Ability to create unlimited templates
Thrive Theme Builder Pros
- It is not a page builder that is trying to work as a theme; it is a dedicated theme builder.
- The tool includes a drag-and-drop visual editor.
- You can easily set it up within a short period through the site wizard.
- It integrates with other Thrive Themes plugins. For instance, you can add opt-in forms that were created with Thrive Leads.
- The WordPress theme builder contains multiple templates that you can use for different theme components.
- It integrates easily with important online tools and apps.
- Thrive Theme Builder has different templates for the different parts of your website theme (i.e. header, footer, homepages, and blog posts amongst others).
Thrive Theme Builder Cons
- It has only two companion themes (i.e. Shapeshift and Omni). However, you can build hundreds of websites with the current elements and design templates.
Pricing
Access to the Thrive Theme Builder costs $19 per month (charged annually). This also gives you access to other Thrive Themes’ products, such as Thrive Leads, Thrive Architect, and Thrive Optimize.
The price stated above will allow you to use the theme builder and the other products on about 25 personal websites. To use them on clients’ websites, you need to opt for the Agency License which costs $49 per month. You can use this license on about 50 personal or clients’ websites.
3. Divi
Divi is a WordPress theme with a frontend page builder integrated into it. The theme builder allows you to extensively customize Divi’s headers and footers. It also allows you to build your templates.
Some of the essential features of Divi include the following:
- The ability to customize key theme components, such as headers, footers, category pages, post templates, 404 pages, product templates, and search pages.
- Comes with pre-made theme builder packs.
- Intuitive page builder with content modules and pre-designed page layouts that you can use to build different unique landing pages within a short period.
- Comes with extra marketing tools like Bloom (an email opt-in plugin) and Monarch (a social sharing plugin).
Divi Pros
- It is a multipurpose WordPress theme that can be used for any project.
- Divi also acts as a powerful page builder that improves productivity.
- It supports WooCommerce.
- The theme-building capabilities added to Divi have taken the customizations to a new level.
- There are regular updates and improvements.
- It offers good support and helpful documentation.
- The theme builder also offers value for money through its lifetime updates.
Divi Cons
- It is associated with a long learning curve. Its huge number of features make it overwhelming for those that are not familiar with it.
- Most pages built with Divi will have shortcodes embedded in them. This can make it more difficult to move away from the theme when you start using it.
Pricing
The Divi theme builder is bundled into the membership club of Elegant Themes. You can become a member of the club by paying $89 per year. You can also purchase a lifetime membership for $249. The membership is backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee.
4. Beaver Builder
Beaver Builder, which is available in free and premium versions, works with almost any WordPress theme. The second tier of its premium version gives users access to the Beaver Builder Theme; a tool that gives you different ways to make your website’s design and style uniform with the pages you build with the Beaver page builder.
You need to purchase the Beaver Themer for the premium version so that you can easily customize the different elements of themes found in third-party themes.
The features of Beaver Builder are listed below:
- Easily customize components of themes such as custom headers and footers and templates for blog posts, search pages, archive pages, custom post types, and 404 pages.
- Choose conditions during which templates are displayed, and use dynamic content in templates.
- It uses a frontend editor in its theme and page builders. Non-developers can easily use the editor and it has lots of modules and page layouts.
Beaver Builder Pros
- It is beginner-friendly
- The tool has a decent collection of page templates
- You can save templates and content sections for future use
- It allows you to save modules and rows
- Beaver Builder has great support channels
- It has different reliable options
Beaver Builder Cons
- Beaver Builder does not have any unique feature
- It is quite expensive
Pricing
Beaver Themer is found in the premium version of the Beaver Builder WordPress plugin, so you need to buy a license for the Standard version. This will set you back by $99 for your first year and automatic renewals attract a 40% discount.
The Beaver Themer costs an extra $147 for the first year and also renews at a 40% discount. All purchases have a 30-day money-back guarantee.
5. Brizy
Brizy is a WordPress page builder with a basic theme-building feature. It has one of the best page builder experiences on the market. The tool supports 26 elements and it has more than 150 template sections that you can use to get in deep while adjusting the appearance of your web pages.
Although Brizy offers one of the best page builder experiences, its theme builder feature is not complete and also not straightforward to use. It supports only headers and footers at the moment.
Brizy also includes a popup builder, global content, and can be integrated with popular email marketing tools. The page builder also has a cloud-hosted version.
Since it supports only headers and footers, it is ideal for those that want to build more static-based websites, or people that want a page builder with header and footer design options.
Brizy Pros
- It has a straightforward visual editor
- You can integrate it with many leading tools
- It has a pop-up form editing feature
- Brizy supports WooCommerce
- There are lots of block-style modules that you can explore
Brizy Cons
- Its theme-building functionality supports only headers and footers.
- The theme-building functionality is not as user-friendly as its competitors.
Pricing
The pro version of Brizy starts at $49.
FAQs
1. Which theme builder is better between Elementor and Beaver Builder?
Although Beaver Builder has fewer templates than Elementor Pro, it has a better collection of designs. Some of the templates in Elementor Pro are obscure while the ones in Beaver Builder appear to be suited to more website owners.
2. Is Elementor faster than Divi?
Both Elementor and Divi have advanced page-building functionalities. Divi is user-friendly but Elementor is faster than Divi.
3. Why is Divi better than Elementor?
Divi features Layout Packs and contains more templates. Elementor, on the other hand, has just templates. Although both have lots of awesome templates that you can work with, what you can accomplish with their templates are slightly different.
Conclusion
Which of The Best WordPress Theme Builders Should You Use?
The WordPress theme builder that you choose will depend on the stage you are in with your website. If you haven’t built your website, yet, you can work with Thrive Theme Builder or Divi. These use their themes, so you can use them for new website builds and rebuilds.
If you’ve already built your website with another theme, you can go for Elementor Pro, Brizy, or Beaver. These theme builders work seamlessly with third-party themes. They also have refund policies if your theme is not compatible with them.
Note that Brizy does not have a full theme building feature yet. It can only handle footers and headers, not blog posts or archive pages. So, if you are interested in building a website with a blog, Brizy is not an ideal option. It is, however, great for simple websites with ‘brochure’ styles.
What if you need the easiest WordPress theme builder? Thrive Theme Builder is the option to go for.
Check out each of the best WordPress theme builders we considered through the links below:
If you are searching for WordPress themes that can boost your ranking in Goolge search results, check out our guide on the fastest WordPress themes.
Our post WordPress page builders will also show you the best page builder plugins for WordPress Ensure you check it out to pick the best page builder that aligns with your need.