Why I Started Using Gutenberg Instead of Elementor: What is the truth behind it?

Introduction — My Early Days With Elementor

The reason I started using Gutenberg instead of Elementor was not a sudden decision. It happened slowly — through frustration, curiosity, and eventually, a genuine change in how I think about building websites.

When I first discovered Elementor, it felt like a superpower. I had been trying to learn how to code websites, but the learning curve felt steep and slow. Then someone showed me Elementor — and suddenly I could build things visually, drag elements around, and see the result in real time. It felt magical.

I started building websites for clients almost immediately. The speed was incredible. What used to take days now took hours. Clients were happy. I was happy. It felt like the perfect tool.

But as my experience grew, so did my understanding. I started noticing things — performance issues, bloated code, mobile problems — that I could not easily fix inside Elementor. And that is when things started to shift for me.

What I Liked About Elementor

Let me be fair here. Elementor is genuinely impressive — especially when you are new to WordPress and web design. I want to give it credit before talking about its problems, because it deserves that credit.

Drag-and-Drop Simplicity

The biggest advantage of Elementor is how visual it is. You can see exactly what you are building as you build it. You move a section here, add an image there, change a colour, adjust padding — and everything updates instantly. There is no guessing. There is no refreshing the page and hoping it looks right.

For someone who had never built a website before, this was genuinely life-changing. It removed the fear of making mistakes. If something looked wrong, I just undid it and tried again. The whole experience felt approachable and forgiving.

No Coding Required

Elementor lets you build complete, professional-looking websites without writing a single line of HTML or CSS. For clients who want to manage their own content after launch, this is a massive advantage. They can edit text, swap images, and change colours without ever touching code.

For freelancers who are just starting out, this matters a lot too. You can start taking real client projects before your coding skills are fully developed. That is not a bad thing — it is a practical reality of how many web developers begin their careers.

Fast Website Creation

With Elementor’s template library and pre-built sections, you can put together a complete website in a single day. Choose a template, customise the colours and fonts to match the client’s brand, swap the content, and you are nearly done. The speed is genuinely hard to match with any other approach.

Beginner-Friendly Controls

Every padding, margin, font size, and colour has its own slider or input field. You do not need to know what margin: 0 auto means. You just move a slider and it happens. For beginners, this kind of accessibility is genuinely valuable.

The Problems I Started Facing

After building many websites with Elementor, I started noticing problems that I could not ignore. These were not small inconveniences. They were real issues that were affecting the quality of the work I was delivering to clients.

Website Speed Became a Serious Issue

The first problem I noticed was speed. Elementor adds a significant amount of CSS and JavaScript to every page — even the elements you are not using on that particular page. When I started running Google PageSpeed tests on my Elementor websites, the scores were often disappointing. Sometimes embarrassingly low.

As I continued building websites with Elementor, I started noticing that some pages felt heavier and slower than I expected. Even after optimizing images, using caching plugins, and reducing unnecessary elements, the websites still didn’t always feel as lightweight and fast as I wanted.

That was one of the moments when I became more interested in exploring Gutenberg and cleaner website structures.

A slow website is not just an inconvenience. It directly affects search engine rankings. Google has been very clear that page speed is a ranking factor. A website that loads in 4 seconds will almost always rank lower than a similar website that loads in 1.5 seconds.

Too Many Plugins and Add-ons

Elementor’s core functionality is useful, but to get the widgets and features that most client websites actually need, you end up installing Elementor Pro — and often additional add-on plugins on top of that. Each plugin adds more code, more potential conflicts, and more maintenance overhead.

I reached a point where some of my websites had Elementor, Elementor Pro, Essential Addons for Elementor, and one or two other add-on packs all running at once. Every update carried the risk of breaking something. Managing all of it became a job in itself.

Dependency on Elementor

This is the problem that bothered me most. When you build a website entirely in Elementor, you are locked in. If a client ever wants to move away from Elementor — or if Elementor ever changes its pricing, discontinues a feature, or introduces a breaking update — the entire website is at risk.

I once deactivated Elementor on a test website to see what would happen. The entire content disappeared. What was left was a mess of shortcodes and empty blocks. That moment made me realise how fragile the structure really was underneath.

Mobile Responsiveness Was Frustrating

Elementor has responsive controls — you can adjust settings for desktop, tablet, and mobile separately. But making things look perfect on every screen size often required a lot of manual tweaking. Things that looked great on desktop would sometimes look broken on mobile without significant extra effort.

The more complex the layout, the worse this problem became. Sections with multiple columns, custom spacing, and overlapping elements were particularly painful to make truly responsive.

Why Gutenberg Started Looking Better

When I first started using WordPress, I mostly relied on Elementor and didn’t pay much attention to Gutenberg. In those early days, it deserved some of that criticism. It was clunky, limited, and felt unfinished compared to polished page builders like Elementor.

But Gutenberg kept improving. Quietly and steadily, with each WordPress update, it became more powerful, more stable, and more capable. By the time I started paying serious attention to it, it was a genuinely good editor — not a compromise.

It Is Part of WordPress Itself

One of the most important things about Gutenberg is that it is not a plugin. It is the native editor built directly into WordPress. This means it is maintained by the same team that maintains WordPress. It loads faster because it does not need to load a separate plugin’s worth of code. And it will not suddenly break your website because of a plugin conflict or a licence issue.

Cleaner Output

When you build something in Gutenberg, the HTML output is clean and straightforward. It is close to what a developer would write by hand. This makes it easier to style, easier to debug, and easier for search engines to read and understand.

Better Writing Experience

This might sound small, but it matters: Gutenberg is simply a better writing environment. The distraction-free editor, the clean block structure, and the focused layout make it genuinely pleasant to write long-form content like blog posts. Elementor’s writing experience, by comparison, always felt like you were trying to write inside a design tool — because you were.

Learning HTML and CSS Changed My Perspective

This section is important. Because Gutenberg alone — without any coding knowledge — is still fairly limited. The real power of Gutenberg opens up when you understand HTML and CSS.

When I started investing serious time into learning proper HTML and CSS, something clicked. I stopped thinking about websites as things you drag and drop together. I started thinking about them as structures you build with purpose and intention. Every element had a reason. Every style rule had logic behind it.

The Custom HTML Block Is Powerful

Gutenberg’s Custom HTML block lets you write raw HTML directly inside your post or page. Combined with CSS in your child theme or a custom style block, this gives you complete control over every element on the page. No plugin needed. No page builder overhead. Just clean, purposeful code.

This is how the blog posts on wpkhan.com are built now. Each post uses Gutenberg’s standard blocks for content — and Custom HTML blocks for special elements like callout boxes, comparison tables, and promotional sections. The result is fast, clean, and completely under my control.

More Control, Less Guessing

With a page builder, you are always working within someone else’s system. You tweak settings until something looks approximately right. With HTML and CSS, you write exactly what you want. If the spacing is wrong, you change it in one place. If the colour needs adjusting, you update the variable. There is no mystery. You are in control.

Why I Prefer Gutenberg Now

After months of using Gutenberg as my primary editor, I can say with confidence that it fits my workflow significantly better than Elementor ever did. Here is an honest breakdown of exactly why.

Performance Is Dramatically Better

Gutenberg-built pages consistently score higher on Google PageSpeed Insights than equivalent Elementor-built pages. Because Gutenberg does not load its own heavy JavaScript and CSS libraries on every page, the browser has less work to do. Pages load faster. Users have a better experience. Search engine rankings improve.

On websites where I migrated from Elementor to Gutenberg with a custom theme, I saw PageSpeed scores jump by 20 to 35 points. That is not a small improvement. That is the difference between a slow website and a fast one.

Cleaner Structure Makes Maintenance Easier

Because the HTML output is clean and readable, making changes to a Gutenberg website is much easier. When a client asks for a small layout change six months after launch, I can find the relevant block, make the edit, and be done in minutes. With heavily nested Elementor sections, the same task could take much longer and carry the risk of accidentally breaking something else.

No Plugin Dependency

This peace of mind is worth a lot. My Gutenberg websites do not depend on any page builder plugin to display correctly. If I ever need to change themes, migrate hosts, or make significant changes — the content remains intact. The structure is solid.

Better Long-Term Workflow

Writing blog posts, updating content, and managing pages in Gutenberg is genuinely faster once you are comfortable with it. The block-based structure is logical. Adding a new section, rearranging content, or duplicating a layout is quick and clean. There is no lag from heavy editor scripts.

• ✓ Faster page load times for all websites
• ✓ No dependency on a third-party plugin to display content
• ✓ Cleaner HTML output that is easier to style and maintain
• ✓ Better writing and content editing experience
• ✓ More flexibility when combined with HTML and CSS knowledge
• ✓ Lower long-term maintenance costs for client websites

Elementor Is Still Useful — And That Is Okay

I want to be clear about something. This article is not a case against Elementor. Elementor is still a powerful, well-supported tool that helps a huge number of people build websites every day. My switch to Gutenberg was right for me — but that does not mean it is right for everyone.

Great for Beginners

If you are just starting out and you have zero HTML or CSS knowledge, Elementor gives you the ability to build real websites right now. That matters. You can take client projects, earn money, and build experience while you develop your technical skills in parallel. Elementor makes that possible in a way that Gutenberg alone simply cannot — at least not yet.

Perfect for Quick Turnaround Projects

Sometimes a client needs a landing page built in two days. They have a template in mind. They know what they want. In that scenario, Elementor’s template library and drag-and-drop speed is hard to beat. Not every project needs to be optimised at the code level. Sometimes speed of delivery matters more than anything else.

Ideal for Non-Technical Users

For clients who want to manage and update their own website without any technical knowledge, Elementor gives them a familiar visual environment. They can edit their homepage, update their service descriptions, and change their call-to-action buttons without ever asking you for help. For many small businesses, that kind of independence is exactly what they want.

Gutenberg vs Elementor — Full Comparison

Here is a straightforward side-by-side comparison of both editors across the areas that matter most to web designers and developers.

Who Should Use Gutenberg — and Who Should Use Elementor

The honest answer is that neither tool is universally better. The right choice depends entirely on your experience level, your goals, and how much you care about performance.

Website Speed and SEO — Why This Matters More Than Your Editor Choice

I want to spend some time on this because it is one of the most misunderstood areas of web development — and it directly affects whether your clients’ websites actually succeed online.

Most beginners focus on how a website looks. Experienced developers know that how a website performs is equally — if not more — important. A beautiful website that loads slowly will frustrate visitors, hurt search rankings, and ultimately fail the client’s business goals.

Google Rewards Fast Websites

Google’s Core Web Vitals are a set of performance measurements that directly influence search engine rankings. They measure things like how quickly your main content loads, how quickly the page becomes interactive, and how stable the layout is while loading. A website built with clean, lightweight code — like a well-built Gutenberg site — naturally performs better on these measurements.

Mobile Users Are the Majority

Over 60% of web traffic now comes from mobile devices. If your website is not genuinely fast and well-designed on a phone, you are losing the majority of your potential visitors before they even see what you have to offer. Gutenberg, combined with a properly coded responsive theme, handles mobile significantly better than heavily nested Elementor layouts.

Clean HTML Helps Search Engines Understand Your Content

Search engines read the HTML structure of your pages to understand what your content is about. Clean, semantic HTML — with proper heading hierarchy, descriptive alt text on images, and logical content structure — helps search engines index and rank your content correctly. Gutenberg produces cleaner HTML by default. Elementor can produce clean code too, but it requires more intentional effort to achieve the same result.

User Experience and Bounce Rate

When a website loads slowly, people leave. This is not an opinion — it is well-documented behaviour. Google reports that as page load time increases from one second to three seconds, the probability of a visitor leaving before the page loads increases by 32%. A fast website keeps people on the page longer. That directly improves conversions, enquiries, and sales for your clients.

Personal Lessons and Honest Experience

I want to share the lessons I learned through this process — not as a lecture, but as honest reflections from someone who went through the same journey many of you might be going through right now.

Bloated Layouts Are a Trap

When Elementor makes it so easy to add sections, rows, columns, animations, and widgets — it is tempting to keep adding. Every new section feels like an improvement. But at some point you end up with a homepage that has fifteen sections, eight different font styles, animations on everything, and a PageSpeed score of 42.

I fell into this trap. I thought a more complex, feature-rich design showed more skill. The reality is the opposite. The most skilled designers often create the simplest, most focused layouts — because they understand that every unnecessary element is a burden on the visitor.

Simplicity Is a Skill

Learning to remove things is harder than learning to add them. Knowing what to leave out — which section to cut, which animation to skip, which widget to replace with plain text — is a genuinely advanced skill. Gutenberg, by offering fewer out-of-the-box options, actually pushes you toward that kind of disciplined thinking.

A Cleaner Workflow Makes Better Work

When my editor is fast and clean, my thinking is clearer. When I am not fighting lag, plugin conflicts, and mobile tweaking issues, I can focus on what actually matters — the content, the structure, and the user experience. Gutenberg gives me that environment in a way Elementor rarely did.

Learning Code Was the Best Investment I Made

If there is one piece of advice I would give to anyone who is currently relying entirely on a page builder — it is this: learn HTML and CSS. Not to replace your page builder necessarily, but to understand what is happening underneath it. That understanding will make you a dramatically better designer and developer, regardless of which tools you choose to use.

Final Thoughts

If you have read this far, you now have a clear picture of why I made the switch — and what that switch actually looked like in practice. But I want to finish with something important.

Neither Gutenberg nor Elementor is the “correct” answer. They are different tools with different strengths. The right choice is the one that matches your current skill level, your project requirements, and your long-term goals as a web designer or developer.

If you are a beginner and Elementor is helping you build real things for real clients — that is valuable. Do not let anyone make you feel like you are doing it wrong. You are learning. You are growing. Keep going.

If you are a more experienced developer who is starting to feel constrained by page builders — and the performance issues are becoming harder to ignore — Gutenberg, combined with solid HTML and CSS skills, might be exactly what you need to take your work to the next level.

For me personally, Gutenberg fits my workflow better. My websites are faster. My code is cleaner. My maintenance burden is lower. And the writing experience — which matters a lot when you publish content regularly — is simply more pleasant.

That is why I switched. And I have not looked back.

FAQs — Gutenberg, Elementor, and Everything in Between

Here are the questions I hear most often from beginners who are trying to decide between Gutenberg and Elementor.