The Ultimate 2025 Guide to Choosing Between Elementor and Gutenberg
Choosing the right WordPress page builder can make or break your website creation experience. As of 2025, two of the most popular options remain Elementor and Gutenberg. While both serve the purpose of designing beautiful websites without code, they differ in terms of features, performance, learning curve, and scalability.
In this guide, we’ll compare Elementor and Gutenberg across multiple dimensions to help you decide which builder best fits your needs.
What Are Elementor and Gutenberg?
Elementor
Elementor is a drag-and-drop visual page builder plugin for WordPress. Launched in 2016, it allows users to create custom layouts and designs using an intuitive front-end interface. With a vast library of widgets, templates, and a theme builder, Elementor is favored by designers and agencies looking for creative control.
Gutenberg
Gutenberg is the default WordPress block editor, introduced in WordPress 5.0 (2018). It’s built into the WordPress core and focuses on a block-based editing experience, allowing users to create content using modular blocks (e.g., paragraph, image, columns, etc.).
In 2025, Gutenberg has matured significantly, with features like full site editing (FSE), global styles, and pattern libraries that rival third-party page builders.
Elementor vs Gutenberg: Head-to-Head Comparison
Let’s compare both builders on the most critical aspects:
1. Ease of Use
Elementor: Offers a real-time visual builder with a true drag-and-drop experience. Even beginners can design beautiful pages without touching code. The user interface is polished and intuitive, making it easy to build and customize layouts.
Gutenberg: Has a more minimal interface. While it’s not as visually intuitive as Elementor, it has improved usability over the years. It can feel less fluid for complex designs but works well for standard pages and posts.
Verdict: Elementor wins for ease of use, especially for complex designs.
2. Performance & Speed
Elementor: Being a plugin, Elementor adds extra code and can sometimes affect page load speed. However, with recent updates, Elementor has improved its performance through optimized asset loading and reduced JavaScript dependencies.
Gutenberg: As a native part of WordPress, Gutenberg is lightweight and fast. It doesn't load extra resources like third-party plugins, making it the preferred choice for performance-focused websites.
Verdict: Gutenberg is better for site speed and performance optimization.
3. Design Flexibility
Elementor: Offers complete design freedom, with 100+ widgets, global styles, animation effects, custom positioning, and theme-building features. It’s ideal for designers who want pixel-perfect control.
Gutenberg: While Gutenberg has improved with reusable blocks, patterns, and FSE, it still lacks the fine-tuned design controls and visual feedback that Elementor provides.
Verdict: Elementor is superior for advanced and flexible design customization.
4. Theme Building & Full Site Editing
Elementor: Includes a Theme Builder (in the Pro version) that lets you design headers, footers, single post templates, archive pages, and WooCommerce templates.
Gutenberg: Supports Full Site Editing (FSE) natively, allowing you to edit headers, footers, and templates directly from the WordPress Site Editor.
Verdict: Tie – Elementor is more user-friendly, but Gutenberg is more integrated into WordPress core.
5. Pricing
Elementor: Has a free version with limited widgets and templates. The Pro version starts at $59/year for one website (as of 2025), with higher tiers for multiple sites and advanced features.
Gutenberg: Completely free and open-source, as it comes bundled with WordPress. Additional blocks and enhancements can be added via free or paid block libraries like Stackable, Kadence, or Spectra.
Verdict: Gutenberg is better for budget-conscious users.
6. Ecosystem & Add-ons
Elementor: Has a huge ecosystem of add-ons like Essential Addons, Crocoblock, and PowerPack, offering advanced widgets and templates.
Gutenberg: The block editor ecosystem is also growing, with block libraries like Genesis Blocks, Kadence Blocks, and Spectra (formerly Ultimate Addons for Gutenberg) gaining traction.
Verdict: Elementor still has the larger and more mature ecosystem, but Gutenberg is catching up.
7. Responsiveness & Mobile Design
Elementor: Offers detailed responsive controls, letting you adjust styles and layout for desktop, tablet, and mobile individually. You can hide/show elements per device and tweak typography/margins with ease.
Gutenberg: Responsive by default, but lacks fine-grained control without additional plugins or custom CSS.
Verdict: Elementor provides superior mobile design flexibility.
8. Developer-Friendliness
Elementor: Not as developer-friendly when it comes to custom code. While you can insert HTML or use hooks, it’s more tailored for non-coders.
Gutenberg: Built for developers. Blocks can be extended or created from scratch using React and JavaScript. Ideal for building custom themes and scalable enterprise-level sites.
Verdict: Gutenberg is better for developers and agencies building custom solutions.
9. SEO and Accessibility
Elementor: Has improved SEO performance in recent updates. However, some issues like extra DOM elements and accessibility concerns still persist, though largely fixable.
Gutenberg: As part of WordPress core, Gutenberg adheres more closely to WordPress SEO and accessibility standards out of the box.
Verdict: Gutenberg is more SEO and accessibility-friendly by default.
Use Cases: When to Choose Elementor or Gutenberg
Choose Elementor if you:
Want drag-and-drop, real-time design editing.
Are building landing pages, portfolios, or marketing funnels.
Prefer pre-built templates and widgets.
Don't want to write code.
Run a web design agency or freelance business.
Choose Gutenberg if you:
Want fast-loading, lightweight websites.
Prefer native WordPress tools without extra plugins.
Are building content-heavy websites or blogs.
Are a developer or agency with custom needs.
Want to future-proof your website with core WordPress tools.
What’s New in 2025?
Elementor 2025 Highlights:
Better performance with minimal DOM output.
AI design assistant for generating templates.
Enhanced WooCommerce builder.
Dynamic content improvements and native loop builder.
Gutenberg 2025 Highlights:
Full Site Editing (FSE) is now stable and feature-rich.
Block-based navigation menus and global styles.
Pattern library with AI-generated suggestions.
Improved collaboration tools for teams.
🏁 Conclusion
There’s no one-size-fits-all answer. Your choice depends on your goals, skill level, and project type:
For design-heavy projects, marketing sites, and creative control, Elementor is the go-to.
For performance-focused sites, blogging, or custom development, Gutenberg is the better fit.
