This is one of the most common questions we get from people planning a new site or a redesign. Both can build a good-looking website. They differ in speed, long-term maintenance and how locked in you are. Here is a straight comparison.
The short answer
- Block editor (with a lean theme and a block plugin like GenerateBlocks): faster sites, lower ongoing cost, no lock-in. This is what we build with.
- Elementor: a familiar drag-and-drop experience with lots of templates and widgets. A reasonable choice if your team already knows it and you accept the extra weight.
What each one is
The block editor is built into WordPress. Every page is made of blocks (paragraphs, images, columns, buttons) and the content is stored as normal HTML with small comments. Themes and plugins add more blocks and styling.
Elementor is a plugin that replaces the editor with its own visual builder. It has its own widgets, layout system and theme builder, with a free version and paid Pro plans.
Speed
Block-editor sites usually load less code because they use WordPress’s own markup. Elementor has improved a lot (Flexbox containers produce cleaner output than the old section and column structure) but it still loads its own CSS and JavaScript framework. On a typical brochure site, the difference shows up in Core Web Vitals and on slower phones.
Ease of use
Elementor feels more like a design tool: you drag widgets onto a canvas and see exactly what you get. The block editor has caught up, especially with patterns and full-site editing, but it still feels more like a document editor. For clients who mainly update text and images, a well-built block site with locked patterns is often easier, because there is less to accidentally break.
Lock-in
This is the big one. Deactivate Elementor and your pages turn into shortcodes and fragments. Moving off it means rebuilding. Block content stays readable no matter which theme or plugins you switch to later.
Cost
The block editor is free. Elementor’s free version is limited, so most sites need Pro, renewed every year. Either way, the larger cost is maintenance: a heavier stack takes more time to keep fast and updated.
What we build with
We build on GeneratePress with GenerateBlocks for layouts and core blocks for content, plus custom ACF blocks where a site needs something specific. We still support many Elementor sites and will not push you to rebuild a site that works.
Thinking about switching?
If your Elementor site is slow or hard to manage, a free site review will tell you whether a tune-up or a rebuild makes more sense.