Comparison — WordPress builders

Bricks vs Elementor

A complete, side-by-side comparison of the two leading WordPress page builders — Bricks (performance-first, developer-focused) and Elementor (the most popular, ecosystem-rich builder). Performance, ease of use, features, pricing and a verdict.

Bricks and Elementor solve the same problem — building WordPress sites visually — but from opposite philosophies. Elementor optimises for reach and approachability: a free tier, a massive widget and template library, and thousands of third-party add-ons. Bricks optimises for output quality and speed: lean, semantic HTML, native query loops, and a workflow developers trust on performance-critical projects.

Which is right depends on what you value. Below we compare them across performance and markup, ease of use, ecosystem, developer features and pricing — then give a clear verdict and who should pick which.

At a glance

1. Performance & markup

This is Bricks’ home turf. Because it was built performance-first, Bricks outputs lean, semantic HTML with few wrapper elements, which translates into faster pages and stronger Core Web Vitals with little tuning. Elementor has improved a lot — optimized DOM, reduced output, flexbox containers — but historically generates more markup, so hitting top scores usually needs caching and cleanup.

For content sites and simple pages the difference is small; on large, component-heavy builds it compounds. If green PageSpeed without gymnastics is a priority, Bricks has the edge.

2. Ease of use & learning curve

Elementor wins for newcomers. Its drag-and-drop is forgiving, the template kits get you started fast, and the sheer volume of tutorials means any question is already answered somewhere. Bricks is very usable but assumes more — it rewards people who understand structure, classes and the box model, which is exactly why developers like it.

3. Templates & ecosystem

Elementor’s ecosystem is unmatched: thousands of templates and kits, and a huge market of third-party add-ons (Essential Addons, Crocoblock and more) that extend it in every direction. Bricks’ ecosystem is younger but growing fast, with a passionate community and a strong set of add-ons. If you rely on pre-built kits and plugins, Elementor is hard to beat.

4. Developer features

Bricks leans into power users: native query loops, first-class custom code, clean class-based styling and a structure that scales to systematic, design-system builds. Elementor covers dynamic content and theme building too (mostly in Pro and via add-ons), but Bricks generally gives developers more direct control with less weight.

5. Pricing

Elementor is freemium — a capable free plugin plus Pro from around $59 a year, scaling by site count. Bricks has no free tier; it is sold annually (around $79 a year) with a lifetime option, and every plan is the full product. Elementor lowers the barrier to entry; Bricks’ lifetime option can be cheaper long-term.

Who should choose what

The verdict

For beginners, content teams and anyone who lives off template kits and add-ons, Elementor is the pragmatic choice — the ecosystem alone saves time. For developers and agencies who care about lean markup, Core Web Vitals and systematic builds, Bricks is the stronger tool. And if you want to go further than either — fully clean, component-driven output — many teams convert to EtchWP. NibWP can automate that conversion between builders so you are not rebuilding by hand.

Bricks vs Elementor FAQ