Beaver Builder vs Elementor Pro: Which Is the Best WordPress Page Builder?

Trying to decide between Beaver Builder vs Elementor Pro as your tool to build custom WordPress sites using a visual, drag-and-drop builder?

These are two of the best WordPress page builder plugins. Both are also more than just page builders – you can also use them for full theme building.

So – how can you choose between them? Well, that’s what this post is about.

I think both of these plugins are excellent tools, so I won’t be declaring a single winner. Instead, I’m going to try to help you pick the best plugin for your needs and budget.

Let’s dig in!

Features

To kick off our Beaver Builder vs Elementor Pro comparison, let’s take a high-level look at the features that both of these tools offer.

Here’s what the icons mean in the comparison table below:

• ✔️ – the feature is available in the plugin.
• ✔️✔️ – the feature is available in both plugins but one plugin’s implementation is more flexible/powerful.
• ❌ – the feature is not available in the plugin.

Feature	Beaver Builder	Elementor Pro
Visual, front-end editor	✔️	✔️
Drag-and-drop	✔️	✔️
Inline text editing	✔️	✔️
Dedicated responsive editing	✔️	✔️
Content widgets	✔️	✔️✔️
Pre-built templates	✔️	✔️✔️
Reusable templates (your own designs)	✔️	✔️
Theme builder	✔️*	✔️
Insert dynamic content (incl. custom fields)	✔️*	✔️
Popup builder	❌	✔️
Form builder	✔️	✔️✔️
WooCommerce support	✔️	✔️✔️
Dedicated theme	✔️	✔️
White labeling	✔️	❌
Multisite support	✔️	✔️**
Copy/paste styles	✔️	✔️
Right-click support	❌	✔️
Dark mode (interface)	✔️	✔️

*Requires the official (but separate) Beaver Themer add-on.

**Elementor Pro requires an active license key for each network site in your multisite network.

Beaver Builder vs Elementor Pro Features Conclusion

In terms of features, Elementor Pro has the clear advantage. You get…

• Popup builder, which is a really powerful feature that can replace the need for a separate popup/opt-in plugin.
• More widgets to choose from, including unique options like a PayPal button to accept payments.
• More templates to choose from.
• A more powerful form builder.
• More design options (I didn’t cover these in the table, but I’ll share more on these a bit later).
• Better WooCommerce support. Beaver Themer does support WooCommerce, but Elementor Pro gives you more flexibility for working with WooCommerce.

However, one thing that’s hard to capture in the comparison table above is the trade-off between features and stability. If you want to add more features to a tool you need to have a faster development cycle, which increases the chance of bugs or issues.

Beaver Builder has a slower development cycle, which means it doesn’t have quite as many features. But this slower development cycle does mean that Beaver Builder is really rock-solid and you can be confident that an update won’t cause issues.

I’m certainly not saying that Elementor Pro is unstable. It’s the most popular page builder plugin and millions of sites are using it without issue. 

I’m just trying to highlight that stability is something Beaver Builder does well and deserves credit for. If you’re the type of person who values stability over getting more features, that might be important to you.

On the other hand, if you want the most features and you want to be regularly getting access to new features, Elementor Pro definitely has the edge.

Interface

Next, let’s dig into how the interface works with each tool.

Interface quality is subjective, so I’m not going to declare a “winner” here. Both tools have great interfaces and both are generally speedy and glitch-free.

One advantage that Beaver Builder has, though, is that it lets you customize the interface according to your preferences, whereas Elementor’s interface is pretty much just fixed.

On the other hand, Elementor does have some advantages in that it gives you some useful tools that Beaver Builder doesn’t, such as right-click support and a navigator tool for organizing your design.

Beaver Builder

As I mentioned above, Beaver Builder’s interface is quite flexible. When you first launch Beaver Builder, you’ll see a full-screen preview of your design with a toolbar at the top:

To insert modules or templates, you can click the “plus” icon to open a panel:

Similarly, to open the settings for a row, column, or module, you can hover over it and click the wrench to open a popup (which you can resize and move around as needed):

If you’d prefer having a fixed panel instead of the floating options, you can drag the panel to either side of the interface. This will create a fixed sidebar which is where you can add new modules and configure the settings for existing elements:

If you want to edit text, you can just click and type on the page or you can use the text editor in the settings area.

For responsive design, you can open the Responsive Editing mode which lets you see a live responsive preview and customize your design based on the device:

One feature that I love in Beaver Builder is the ability to create multi-column designs just by dragging one module next to another one:

Most page builders force you to set up the column structure before adding elements, which adds some extra time (Beaver Builder also lets you do that if you prefer that method).

In addition to what I showed you above, Beaver Builder also offers its own Assistant plugin to help you quickly jump between designs (though it doesn’t require Beaver Builder).

Elementor Pro

With Elementor and Elementor Pro, you get a fixed sidebar on the left side of the interface and a live preview of your design on the right:

If you want to see a full-width preview of your design, you can collapse the sidebar to hide the Elementor interface:

The sidebar is where you can add new modules and configure an element’s settings:

To edit text, you can just click and type on the page or you can use the text editor in the sidebar.

Elementor also comes with some useful options to help you work more efficiently. For example, Elementor supports right-click, which lets you access key options like copy/paste (elements or styles), duplicate elements, and more.

You also get a Navigator tool that lets you see the layout of your page – you can also rename sections and elements in the page to help you remember them and quickly select the right element:

Elementor Pro also includes a responsive editing mode that shows you a responsive preview and lets you customize the design for certain devices:

If you want more control over the Elementor interface like Beaver Builder allows, you can use a third-party plugin like Flexible Elementor Panel.

Design Options

If you’re interested in a visual builder, you probably want a tool that will help you set up your design without the need for any custom CSS. To do that, you need a wide array of built-in design options.

Both tools are quite flexible when it comes to the basics. You can easily control:

• Colors
• Typography
• Spacing via margin/padding
• Backgrounds
• Responsive design
• Etc.

However, Elementor Pro also goes further than the basics, which is why I think it’s the pretty clear winner when it comes to design flexibility.

Basically, when it comes to design, Elementor can do pretty much everything that Beaver Builder does plus “more”. For example, here are some of the unique design features in Elementor Pro:

• Motion Effects – add cool effects like scrolling effects, 3D tilt, mouse tracking, and more. Learn more and see examples here.
• Custom Positioning – use absolute and relative positioning to perfectly place widgets in your designs.
• Add CSS Directly to Elements – you can add CSS directly to widgets/columns/sections, whereas Beaver Builder only lets you add a CSS class or ID.

Of course, there are lots of other smaller options and differences between the plugins. I’m just trying to highlight that, overall, Elementor Pro definitely has more design options.

The only builder that I think can rival Elementor Pro in terms of built-in design options is the Divi Builder plugin (learn more in our Divi review).

Performance

When you use a page builder, you’re always going to make some tradeoffs when it comes to performance. No matter which page builder you choose, it’s never going to create designs that are as lightweight as the native WordPress editor.

With that being said, some plugins are better than others.

Beaver Builder has always been one of the more lightweight options (for a page builder) and the Elementor team has been putting a big focus on performance improvements lately, with improvements such as simplifying the DOM and optimizing asset loading to only load scripts where needed.

To assess the performance of these two tools, I created an identical design with each. The design is quite simple – I’m just trying to get an idea of the basic “weight” of each tool. It just includes a text widget, button widget, and contact form (from the page builder). I’m using the default settings in both tools.

	Page Size	HTTP Requests
Beaver Builder	71 KB	11
Elementor	315 KB	32

*These numbers include my theme, which is GeneratePress.

Overall, Beaver Builder is a bit more lightweight, at least in this test. Elementor Pro gives you more features and design effects, so it’s natural that it needs to load more assets to achieve that. For example, Elementor is loading scripts for its Motion Effects, which is a feature that Beaver Builder doesn’t have.

If you enable Elementor’s new improved asset loading feature (which is still just in alpha testing), the difference gets smaller because Elementor gets better at only loading certain assets where they’re needed:

	Page Size	HTTP Requests
Beaver Builder	71 KB	11
Elementor	239 KB	30

And this is all without any performance optimization plugins. If you use something like WP Rocket, you can get those numbers down even further.

I guess I would summarize performance like this:

• Beaver Builder is a bit more lightweight than Elementor Pro, which makes sense because it has fewer features and effects to load.
• Elementor gets better if you enable the new performance features, which are still in testing when I’m writing this.
• Most importantly – you can create a fast-loading site with both tools as long as you create your designs in an optimal way and implement WordPress performance best practices.

Pricing

In terms of pricing, both tools have some advantages. Elementor Pro is cheaper if you only need a tool for a single site or a small number of sites, while Beaver Builder is cheaper if you need a tool for lots of websites (25+ sites).

Before we can compare pricing, though, you need to think about what your needs are.

Elementor Pro includes all of its features in a single plugin. So when you purchase Elementor Pro, you get access to everything – that includes the theme builder, popup builder, etc.

Beaver Builder, on the other hand, separates its page builder and theme building features.

• Core Beaver Builder Pro plugin – only supports page building.
• Official Beaver Themer add-on – adds support for full theme building (and requires the premium page builder plugin to function).

So with Beaver Builder, you’ll pay one price if you just want page building and another price if you want to add theme building.

Another important difference is that Beaver Builder supports unlimited sites on all plans, while all of Elementor Pro’s plans have site limits.

Let’s go through the pricing for each and then I’ll compare them and show when each tool is cheaper.

Elementor Pro Pricing

Here are Elementor Pro’s prices – all of these prices are for a one-year license:

Beaver Builder Pricing

Here are Beaver Builder’s prices for the core plugin. Unless you need multisite support or white labeling, I think you should be fine with the cheapest $99 Standard plan:

To add Beaver Themer, you’ll pay another $147 ($246 total).

With both Beaver Builder and Beaver Themer, you’ll get a 40% discount if you renew your license to continue receiving support and updates after the first year.

When Is It Cheaper to Buy Elementor Pro vs Beaver Builder?

To summarize all that information above, let’s go through the different situations when each tool is cheaper:

• Elementor Pro is a lot cheaper if you only want a tool for a single website ($49).
• If you only need a page builder, the breakeven point is three websites. If you only need a tool for three websites, the tools are the same price ($99). But if you need more than three websites, Beaver Builder is cheaper.
• If you need page building and theme building, the breakeven point is 25 websites. If you have under 25 sites, Elementor Pro is cheaper. But if you have more than 25 websites, Beaver Builder is cheaper.

These are all first-year prices. If you renew after the first year, Beaver Builder gets cheaper because Beaver Builder offers a 40% renewal discount whereas Elementor Pro doesn’t.

Should You Use Beaver Builder or Elementor Pro?

I think Beaver Builder and Elementor Pro are two of the best (if not the two best) WordPress page builders, so I don’t think you’ll make a “wrong” decision when it comes to Beaver Builder vs Elementor Pro.

Instead, I think it’s just about picking the best tool for your situation:

• If you want the most features and design options, Elementor Pro is probably the best pick for your needs. You get unique features like a popup builder, unique design options like motion effects and custom positioning, and more. Simply put, Elementor Pro is one of the most feature-rich WordPress design tools out there, which is why it’s the most popular builder plugin.
• If you just want a rock-solid builder that’s a little more lightweight and has all the core page building and theme building options, Beaver Builder is also a great choice. 

Either way, you’ll have a great tool to help you build some awesome designs.

Of course, there’s also another distinction that might play an important role in your decision – the price. Remember:

• Elementor Pro is cheaper for a single site and equal in price for 3 sites.
• Beaver Builder is cheaper for 3+ sites if you just need a page builder OR 25+ sites if you need page building and theme building. Otherwise, Elementor Pro is still cheaper.
• Beaver Builder offers a 40% renewal discount while Elementor Pro doesn’t.

To learn more about both plugins, you can read our full reviews:

• 👉 Elementor review
• 👉 Beaver Builder review

Do you still have any questions about Beaver Builder vs Elementor Pro? Let us know in the comments!