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Are you curious about the new Block Editor for WordPress, i.e., Gutenberg? We all are! After all, it is the hype in the WordPress community these days. So, in this article, we will explore the Gutenberg Page Builder for WordPress in detail.

So, the first question that comes into mind is What is this Gutenberg editor in the first place. Let’s get to it.

What is Gutenberg?

The Gutenberg Page Builder, aka WordPress Block Editor, is the new WordPress page builder first incorporated in WordPress version 5.0 in 2018. Since then, Gutenberg has been the default editor for WordPress.

Gutenberg replaces the former WordPress Classic Editor, which uses TinyMCE (WYSIWYG) as the default post and page content editor. 

With Gutenberg, content is added in the form of discrete blocks rather than in one enormous content area. New WordPress blocks contain paragraphs, headers, lists, photos, galleries, embeds, and many more features.

Since its initial release in December 2018, the Gutenberg editor has shown tremendous. It has evolved from a minimal viable product (MVP) launch to a more mature project inching closer to its objective of a unified Full Site Editing experience for WordPress.

Gutenberg Page Builder

Okay, so that was a brief about Gutenberg. Let’s now move on to the next question; What do we mean by a Page Builder?

What is a Page Builder?

A Page Builder is a plugin or theme component that lets users design and organize responsive pages. With the Page Builder tool, you can construct pages for even the most complex websites with little time, effort, or technical experience.

Underneath are 5 reasons to use page builders for website designing:

  • Create websites more quickly by utilizing pre-built layouts and templates for certain page kinds.
  • Create websites with little or minimum coding experience.
  • Within minutes, you may add contact and sign-up forms with links.
  • Choose from a selection of pre-built modules (called blocks) and customize them using a variety of choices.
  • Add blog entries and photos with ease and Change themes with little effect.

Why WordPress Creates Its Own Page Builder?

Even if you have no prior knowledge of web design or development, page builders help you quickly create sophisticated websites. With WordPress page builders, you may design complicated websites without any coding knowledge.

Usually, page builders come with a set of pre-built elements that you may include on any of your pages. You can pick and choose exactly the components you want on your own website by using a page builder. 

Moreover, you can even rearrange and style elements however you like using most of these tools. When you put all those capabilities together, creating a website is like playing with Legos.

Here are the four main reasons WordPress came up with its own Page Builder.

1.     No prior Experience with Coding Required 

The majority of websites need hundreds of files and thousands of lines of code to function effectively. As a result, creating a website from scratch is time-consuming, especially without the aid of a Content Management System (CMS). On the other hand, WordPress page builders enhance your productivity by taking a lot of the work off your plate.

2.     Rapid Website Creation

The main benefit of using page builders is that they are quite efficient in creating websites from scratch. If you are programming everything from scratch, it could take weeks or months to build a website. On the other hand, with a page builder, you can build the same website in days or even hours.

3.     Pre-Built Modules to Design

Additionally, page builders come with templates as a jumping-off point for your ideas. Templates are pre-designed page layouts for different types of content that you can reuse multiple times throughout the site.

Moreover, page builders give you access to a variety of pre-built components that are referred to as “modules” or “blocks”. Lists, galleries, complete articles, headlines, and dividers are a few of the options accessible. Progress bars, countdowns, recent postings sections, and other more sophisticated options are also available. All of those components are typical.

4.     Customized Webstyles

The majority of page builders provide you with a ton of choices for customizing your modules. Thus, you can design stunning websites as per your liking.

Why React?

Gutenberg uses the React JavaScript library for its front-end. The following factors led to the choice of React over Vue:

  • React JS library “in its most basic form provides a basic input/output mechanism,” as stated in the Gutenberg documentation. In other words, the output displayed on the web is determined in accordance with the properties supplied to the block. It meets all of the specifications laid out in the block specification.
  • Moreover, React’s implementation does not necessitate any alterations to the WordPress source code, plugin, and themes. Thus, compatibility is ensured even if modifications are made to any of these.
  • Furthermore, React can be easily integrated with Redux, which is an excellent tool for adding dynamism to a block.

Gutenberg vs Page Builders

The primary distinction is that WordPress comes with Gutenberg page builder as its default editor. On the other hand, third-party developers produce and provide support for various page builder plugins.

As a matter of fact, WordPress itself doesn’t refer to Gutenberg as a page builder. Instead, WordPress calls it the Block Editor and promotes it as a more modern method of creating websites in WordPress. Here are 5 key differences between Gutenberg and Page Builders:

Backend Block Editor vs Live Page Editing

Most of the page builder plugins provide you a live preview of your page while you customize it. Contrarily, Gutenberg is a backend editor, which means that it only displays the actual content layout after you click the preview button.

Whenever you update a post or page in the Gutenberg block editor, what you see on the screen is not a live preview of your actual post or page. Page builders, however, allow you to see how things will look even before saving the page.

Contrasting Scope of Gutenberg vs Page Builders

Giving users a contemporary writing experience is the goal of integrating Gutenberg into WordPress. It focuses on everyone, including businesses, blogs, authors, and photographers, among other creative types.

Contrary to this, page builder plugins help you create full pages visually using a drag-and-drop interface. Page builder plugins assist you in creating better landing pages that improve sales, increase subscribers, and help you expand your business, while the block editor aids in better content creation.

Mere Content Layout vs Complete Page Designing

Gutenberg blocks offer minimal content layout customization options, including columns, tables, and full-width cover images.

In contrast, page builders are more versatile. They allow you to completely change the page layout. They provide more design possibilities for each widget and block.

Limitation Formatting and Styling Options

Each block in the WordPress block editor has its own set of styling and formatting options. However, the possibilities are pretty limited with Gutenberg Page Builder. You’ll need to apply your custom CSS for a block if you want to add further styling and formatting.

Page Builders, on the other hand, provide significantly more style possibilities. You can modify the background colors of blocks, use gradients, font icons, font selection, line height, element width, image styles, and more.

Popular WordPress page builders

Followings are some of the best WordPress page builders available for you. 

Divi

DIVI Builder

Divi page builder by Elegant themes is arguably the most popular WordPress page builder. There are countless layout options available with the Divi Builder. It has 46 content modules, which you can use with any theme you like. Some of the modules include Divider, Testimonial, Audio player, Portfolio, Email opt-in, and Slider.

However, some of the more intriguing designs on the Elegant Themes website show long-form content for blogs and landing pages. Elegant Themes claims that Divi is perfect for telling an enticing story with a vertical display of imagery and interactive elements as Divi supports multicolumn layouts.

Thanks to the straightforward customization options, you don’t need any coding experience to use Divi. If Divi doesn’t have an element you need or if you want to incorporate a whole other element, you can apply your own custom CSS. Moreover, you can duplicate any element in Divi with just a single click. Lastly, if you want to store a module for later or prevent others from altering it, you can even lock or hide it on the backend.

Elementor

Elementor Page Builder for WordPress

Elementor is a simple yet powerful WordPress page builder with one of the most responsive interfaces available. Animations, shape dividers, gradient backgrounds, and headline effects are among the standard page builder features. Moreover, it has a free template library containing hundreds of cool free templates.

Furthermore, Elementor’s free edition is also mobile-friendly, with useful tools for maintenance mode, under construction pages, landing pages, and much more. Whereas Elementor Pro comes with over 26 additional widgets to help you create the perfect pages for eCommerce, portfolio work, or a standard business website. 

Lastly, the live form editor eliminates the need to spend time in the backend working with forms. Not to mention that you can save your widgets to reuse them on other pages or websites.

Bricks Builder

BRICKS Builder

Another quick and simple way to design and build complete websites from start is using Bricks Builder. Bricks is a drag-and-drop visual website builder for WordPress. With Bricks, one may create websites fully responsive to all screen sizes, including desktop, tablet, and mobile phones.

Additionally, you can create a completely customized website without any coding. It allows for the creation of any custom layout with dynamic data (including Metabox, ACF, Pods, etc.). The use of Bricks page builders keeps the website in compliance with Google’s Core web Vitals score.

Further, it aids in the website’s improvement in search engine rankings. Everything on a website may be customized, including the typography and brand colors. Bricks is faster, featured packed, and highly customizable WordPress page builder. It gives you complete control over creating the personalized website of your preference in minutes without any coding knowledge.

Beaver Builder

Beaver Builder

Beaver Builder is yet another powerful and popular WordPress page builder. It gives you complete control over your design elements. You may start with an attractive template of your choice and gradually clean up your site with a drag-and-drop interface.

Beaver Builder shines in live front-end editing. With Beaver Builder, you don’t have to continuously hit the Preview button to view your web page while making adjustments. Moreover, it’s a mobile-friendly builder, and websites created with it are fully responsive to all screen sizes.

Moving on, WooCommerce compatibility is a substantial area for Beaver builder for individuals who have online stores. It’s challenging to find a WordPress page builder with as many capabilities as Beaver Builder. One that includes reusable templates, an open API, and an import/export feature.

How to deactivate Gutenberg?

If for any reason, you want to deactivate the Gutenberg Page builder, you can always switch back to the Classic Editor or another third-party page builder. Here are some quick methods to turn off the Gutenberg editor so it won’t obstruct your everyday workflow. Then you may carry on using WordPress as you have been for the past decade.

These three options are your go-to options for deactivating Gutenberg Block Editor:

Option 1: Disable Gutenberg Page Builder by installing the Classic Editor

WordPress has come under a lot of criticism ever since the launch of the Gutenberg Block Editor. In response, they published their official plugin allowing users to use their preferred editor.

Thie Classic Editor plugin for WordPress offers the following features:

  • Administrators can set a default editor for all users
  • Every Gutenberg feature is hidden by default
  • Enabling users to customize the built-in editor
  • Users can select the editor they want to use for each post
  • The previous editor is always applied by default when a post is accessed again, regardless of who last made an update.
  • Allows filters so that other plugins may regulate the options the editor has for every post and post type.

How to Activate Classic Editor Plugin

From your WP Admin Dashboard, Go to Plugins>Add New. Search for Classic Editor or simply download it from the WordPress repository. Click on the Install Now button to install the plugin. Afterward, hit the Activate button to activate it.

Activate Classic Editor for WordPress

2 Different Modes to Disable Gutenberg

To Disable Gutenberg, choose between two different modes:

Mode 1: Default Editor by Always using Classic Editor

By setting the default editor for all users to either the Classic Editor (Default) or the Gutenberg block editor, you can always utilize the classic editor (which entirely removes Gutenberg).

Mode 2: Switching between Gutenberg and Classic Editor

Allow users to alternate between the traditional editor and Gutenberg (using distinct URLs). You will have the option to switch between the Classic Editor and the Gutenberg block editor.

Option 2: Deactivate Gutenberg Using the Disable Gutenberg Plugin

The Disable Gutenberg plugin lets you choose which editor to use for each post. It is absolutely free.

Disable Gutenberg Page Builder

If you wish, this lightweight, user-friendly plugin can entirely conceal any traces of the Gutenberg editor. It also provides a multitude of additional features, such as restoring the initial Edit Post screen. 

Moreover, it disables the admin notification in Gutenberg and links each post on the Posts screen to the Classic Editor. It disables the front-end stylesheet for Gutenberg as well.

Option 3: Disable Gutenberg using Code Snippet

Before we proceed to add code snippets in WordPress, we strongly recommend you create a full backup of your site. Any small mistake while adding code to your functions.php file may crash your whole site.

The Gutenberg Editor can be turned off using a simple code snippet. Just add the following line of code at the end of the functions.php  file of your child theme. If you don’t know, follow this guide to create a child theme in WordPress.

Alternatively, you can use the Code Snippets plugin to add custom code to your site. With the Code Snippets plugin, you don’t need to worry about the child theme at all. So if you aren’t comfortable meddling with core WordPress files, the Code Snippets plugin is the recommended way.

add_filter(‘use_block_editor_for_post’, ‘__return_false’, 10);

That’s it. Save the changes, and Gutenberg will be deactivated as the default editor for your WordPress site.

Conclusion

All in all, it is not the goal of the Gutenberg Page Builder to replace other page builders. Simply put, WordPress’s new content editor, Gutenberg, is superior to the one it had before. The robust page builder plugins for WordPress are not supposed to be a comparison for Gutenberg.

Having said that, Gutenberg is an essential component of WordPress, and its significance will only increase in the future. With Full Site Editing, the functionality of Gutenberg will expand to more areas of the website, including menus, widgets, and even the customizer.

With the continuous development of the Gutenberg editor, you won’t be able to avoid it for too long. Soon enough, you will see Gutenberg used everywhere in WordPress, and eventually, you will have to deal with it. Gutenberg’s advantages include improved website speed, code efficiency, and more. Moreover, a number of Gutenberg blocks plugins enable you to extend the editor’s functionality.

What are your thoughts about WordPress’s new Block Editor, Gutenberg? Do you think it can become the primary tool for creating websites in the future, replacing all the popular page builders? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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