WordPress is Divided: This Is Why..

[@darrelwilson]

What’s up all! Feel free to drop a comment below :)

[@innocentch]

Hi Darell, I want to start selling wordpress templates on my website, but I don't know how to add a live demo of a template

[@PeaceLoveGarden]

Page builders really bog down my sites. As someone who is starting out using shared hosting, I can tell you that using sites built with page builders was making it hard to get my pages ranked with Google for mobile. I've since switched all my sites to gutenberg using the Full Site Editor and the speed difference is amazing, a fraction of the load times. According to my stats, about 70% of my traffic is mobile ie people who will never see all the fancy things that page builders contribute to a site. People (myself included) want the content, they want to read the post, as fast as possible and could care less about the cutsy animations etc. Gutenburg all the way for me. I do however agree with your thoughts about one company monopolizing. and by the way, I love your videos and appreciate all the quality content you put out!

[@BneiAnusim]

I walked away from Page Builders because they BRUTALLY slow down my websites. The older the site gets the slowest. I understand that people use page builders because they are not designers or developers. Sure it cuts down productivity by 50% but it is just an illusion because the future will be dark! 🤣 I'm my case I'm a Designer and Developer so I design my sites and then code the HTML, and CSS (Tailwind), and then turn that into a PHP theme. You have more control over the theme this way and the ACF plugging gives it the final touch. For the future, I'm planning to go HEADLESS using WordPress as a backend only. 😉

[@fsbgaming1588]

well said, but even headless quite a pain and used more infrastructure. give htmx a try. recently i playing with it and quite happy with the performance wise and how it's turn out (ofc stripping wp out). but you miles may vary, you may like it.

[@John.Rearden]

More consolidation is good, as the solutions can be found under a single roof. I am an Elementor user, and I love how they have integrated forms, pop-ups, theme, and the like within their ecosystem, and I wish they would integrate caching and optimisation too, thus not requiring one to ship around for these solutions by installing countless plugins.

[@mfrapp20]

I do think Wordpress is trying to catch up to Elementor, but I also don’t think they’re forcing the use of block based themes. They’re just making it easier for the new, less savvy web designers. I think they’ve realized that stock Wordpress put them at a competitive disadvantage. At least Gutenberg provides a somewhat decent UI for editing without code

[@wherezthebeef]

I've seen coders and some designers go with Gutenberg, but how about your customers? In my experience, they can't figure it out, like it's something from outer space, makes editing their site a steep learning curve and unintuitive for most as well.

[@PixemWeb]

As a WordPress Developer, I’ve seen the splintering in the community that you’re talking about. From abandoned projects, to not knowing which direction to go in terms of Block themes vs Hybrid. I don’t think they’ll phase out hybrid themes anytime soon considering that Block Themes are less than 300 in total vs classic and hybrid themes accounting for over 10,000. But I think you’re correct when it comes to page builders evolving at a faster pace than Gutenberg. Ultimately I think the market is so large that there’s still room for theme and plugin developers to carve out their niche, but there’s definitely no low hanging fruit. The next few years are going to be interesting 🤔

[@kripler118]

gutenberg + block builders like kedence blocks, stackable makes designing websites great. I love it. My sites have become less bloated and faster.

[@johnjobling3692]

Indeed. Gutenberg combined with Kadence has been an absolute game-changer for me

[@darrelwilson]

glad its working out for ya

[@ChrisShawUK]

The whole architecture of wordpress is what's holding it back and causing these issues. Combining a front and back end in one package is just too restrictive (beyond personal/small websites) Wordpress is an excellent CMS. Using it in headless mode with a variety of front ends is probably the most scalable way forward.

[@bootsycoll]

Other cms’s like Drupal, Umbraco, expressionengine, Craft, ModX etc use a combined front end and backend with zero speed or SEO issues..I’ve pretty much used them all at some point and without doubt Wordpress is the worst performance wise..the main problem with Wordpress is it’s plugin architecture, every plugin runs at the same time and loads its own JavaScript or php which is the main cause of bottlenecks on the server (especially with shared hosting)..eg you install a form plugin, there is only one form on say a contact us page..Wordpress loads all the plug-ins assets at runtime instead of only when the plugin is needed (contact page)..also because of the open theme and plugin ecosystem there are loads of free…but many badly coded..themes and plugins that don’t help the situation either…a fresh Wordpress install is actually quite fast and responsive..once you start adding plugins that’s when it all goes to shit

[@ChrisShawUK]

@@bootsycoll yes, wordpress is an excellent backend CMS and a terrible front end for all those reasons. If you use it only to manage content (so the only users are the editors) and then serve that content through Graph API, then it's blisteringly fast. You then use a proper front end like astro, svelte, next or whatever to serve your application.

[@bootsycoll]

@@ChrisShawUK in that scenario I wouldnt even bother with wordpress, I'd just use a headless cms like strapi or storyblok

[@ChrisShawUK]

@@bootsycoll yeah maybe. But there's a ton of functionality for managing content, users, images etc available in wordpress. Not to mention blocks which could also be styled in your front end if you wish. There's very little point in throwing away the rich functionality of the content backend just because the front end is naff.

[@nicoledonners]

Thanks for your video! Great info. I love to work with WordPress and page builders. It will be interesting to see how they will all develop. To #6 I don’t like the new widget feature of WP. It’s crazy that we are now using a plug-in that let’s you reset this 🙈

[@darrelwilson]

Same although I do think Guttenberg is necessary, and there needs to be a default editor. I don’t think they should’ve applied it to widgets.

[@kerawelt2008]

Excellent video Darrel ! Should we conclude from this that we should get rid of themes like say... Blocksy ?

[@kcjstudio1]

Hey thanks for the breakdown. As a wordpress developer my real question is, would wordpress still be the future? Not sure.

[@lebonron]

Page builders are bloated and slow. Not all sites need all this. It is really easy to tap into core blocks and add to them functionalities. The future, at least to me, is very light block themes, and some additional capabilities with plugins and blocks. Also with today's patterns and pages and posts templates, and the ability to easily build and style whatever you need in the site editor, page builders will be a thing of the past. What you and since 6.2 the editor, site and posts and pages, has some really good things.... By the way, also drag and drop.

[@aerial558]

Yes you are spot on 100% in your thoughts on bigger companies buying up small companies. The only person looses is the end user WP and the price they pay not health for the market. I love using WP it’s changed how design websites and page builders are great product to use a learning curb but it gives you the freedom to design what you like. Unfortunately the landscape with the tech industry will be very choppy for the next 3 years as finance becomes more expensive or even worse drys up😬 Excellent subject Darren a 👍

[@darrelwilson]

its darrel lol, but thanks for the comment!

[@aerial558]

@@darrelwilson 😮my humble apologies got distracted Darrel 👍

[@morizanova]

I do believe every each client need different solutions . I love learning about DIY website from scratch and keep watching those non WP tutorials in my spare time . But since I`m in Asia which almost impossible to get several thousand of dollar for a website work , I would pick the easiest and cheapest solution as possible. My hosting provider also included Elementor pro in their top tier package , so why not use it in term of my cost+ profit POV ? But I agree , having several options about how we want to build a website is something should be always available in WP universe . Let keep user to choose whatever best for them or their clients . Dictating opensource community what they should do mostly not gonna end in good place . if some people enjoy working with GB let them be , it also should applied with page builder users . Both solution come with pros and cons . And with proper learning and tricks we can tackle those cons

[@arahimkhan]

Wordpress dashboard spam ads i totally agree, also it affects "Cumulative Layout Shift" within the dashboard a bit headache when we are working on a bulk products or pages.

[@inspiremenow5633]

I also noticed a lot of themes are using only bakery page builder and not using Elementor, I was wondering what was happening so you are right

[@darrelwilson]

yup, most of them use those 2 builders on themeforest

[@johnaweiss]

i believe in optimization. Optimizing web dev with page builders may put developers out of work, but it's faster, saves money, and puts customers in control. That's more optimal. As smarter tech puts devs out of work, people need to innovate new ways to deliver value.

[@FluffyNuggets369]

Do you think ClassicPress has a chance to grow and be more popular?

[@wherezthebeef]

Great stuff Darrel, hey, can't tell you how many clients who wanted to go with Gutenberg or some Blocks theme/plugin, when handed the keys to their website, take one look at Gutenberg and change their mind, just cannot wrap their heads around it, want nothing to do with Gutenberg. Wordpress is hell bent on ramming Gutenturd down our throats whether we want it or not.. and most, definitely do not.

[@moncholo_]

Really nice video my friend ! Keep goinggggg

[@jamess5542]

I love WordPress, but all the theme and plugins updates take up a lot of time which is annoying. I'm wondering what you think of Ghost(Pro)?

[@westinruud]

I wonder if it's a good idea to use Wordpress for bloging with all the no code on tools on the market like webflow for exemple and the use of Bard and the upcoming Arc

[@darrelwilson]

I think WordPress is ideal for blogging. It’s a great CMS.

[@hamidazad9667]

I like block themes. They are fast ,easy to use and free

[@hadisanad]

I'm not the person who comments on KZbin but you are totally right, wordpress need to organised better

[@catg5105]

It would be really great if you interviewed Bill Erickson about hybrid themes.

[@gabriellandaeta]

I think the idea behind the block editor per se is not a flawed concept, but the way WordPress tries to force it is not a good one. I see a resemblance from Bootstrap in Block editor and I like that but I know a lot of issues that dislike me

[@WolfgangHanus]

Totally agree with you 👍🏻

[@Jajaky]

did you use ai to give the intro to #11??

[@Sonya_Makepeace]

I've never been able to get my head around how Wordpress works. You see, I love web development. I am pretty good with HTML, CSS and a bit of PHP, but I just tried WP again and now whenever I make a home page, the site loads to some default page that I didn't make. I just cannot work out how to get rid of it. When I make an index page with VS Code, I know that is going to be my main page.

[@bootsycoll]

By default Wordpress displays the blog as the homepage, to change this go to settings/reading and select your static page as the homepage…something else that might be happening is if your theme has a homepage.php file this will override the reading settings

[@securityranger773]

Yeah, change is hard and my best advice is not to become a fanboy of any platform. Use what works for your goals and comfort level, but accept the fact you’ll most likely have to move on from it.

[@darrelwilson]

Thanks Gary I totally agree. I keep telling people there’s no such thing as the best page builder, I feel like whatever works out for you and your business is the tool you should choose.

[@GrantAmbrose]

I haven't used a Widget for years. Do people still use them? :S

[@ben_lyngdoh]

I'm back after 6 months on this channel... Why is Darrell Wilson's younger brother running the show? 😅

[@darrelwilson]

Thank you sir, I run every day and stay away from fastfood to retain my youth :)

[@KariposTheOne]

Elementor isn't really that great nowadays due to way too many issues, slow development, and performance still being a big issue. Bricks and Breakdance are already many steps ahead, and the future looks better because they are built on new technology.

[@darrelwilson]

I’ve used them both and while I do think they are interesting, I’ll wait a little longer until they’re more developed to make some tutorials on them

[@njualematm]

WordPress for life! Elementor = less plugins.

[@StreetFamzz]

Darrel, can you please make your Elementor templates using the container instead of columns please.

[@darrelwilson]

will look into this

[@petruciucur]

I really don't like the direction Wordpress has been going in for a while. I'm thinking of giving it up, BUT, which way to go? Any good alternatives for developers?

[@darrelwilson]

i dont have any atm, i hear webflow is good

[@IslamicAudiobooksCentral]

See if Publii covers your use case. It's a static CMS that makes it easy to create secure, fast, and GDPR compliant websites with a user-friendly GUI.

[@tumzarelaxing]

what you think of webwave, i wish there was builder in wordpress like this.

[@darrelwilson]

I haven’t really used it yet. I can’t really make an honest opinion on it.

[@chrisalton1]

great video. spot on.

[@darrelwilson]

thanks bro!

[@on5tl]

Slowly but steady Gutenberg is the future

[@spreadsheetinteraction1088]

Great video

[@darrelwilson]

thanks!

[@kellyfarrell4971]

I hate Gutenberg. I also miss the old widgets. Classic WP is my fave by far. But I'm part of the problem so I can't complain, I use Divi now.

[@AhsanParwez]

WordPress or any other open source software will be divided no matter what happens. That's how it has always been.

[@abdullahowolabi1351]

I feel webflow is catching up too

[@Zatchurz]

WP has been divided for many years and over the same issues too

[@darrelwilson]

agreed

[@jasonetaylor]

Page builders are indeed light years ahead of Gutenberg

[@Mehdemohamad]

I think block themes are here to stay with Gutenberg and developers will build blocks and patterns.

[@dixogaming926]

The fastest and easy to drive car (software) will always win the long run race at the end.

[@zaidmackay]

Bro love your channel for newbie WP insights but saying "coding websites from scratch is a thing of the past" could lead your audience to believe that learning to code is totally not needed....which is a mistake. Sure these builders help but anyone will be infinitely better at building websites if they learn the basics....html, CSS and JavaScript.

[@darrelwilson]

you can always make a multupurpose domain name :)

[@zaidmackay]

@@darrelwilson no clue what that means. Guessing this is a response from one of your team members.

[@web_gonza]

Need to talk about brekdance builder

[@ecommerce9926]

imagine if webflow launch a page builder plugin for wordpress

[@mounaimzine1664]

Please we need how to create website iptv

[@spchacal]

Elementor is the future! I can't wait for the date that the elementor will announce its own platform 😂 that will be the game over! Regarding the themes, I only use the most flexible in header/footer (when I am using the free elementor)... of course... It's true...themes are for templates... I used divi many times, it has great features but it's slow and heavy and many css injections are necessary...anyways...have I said that elementor is the best?😂

[@MohdMuhaiminulHoque]

Hey Darrel, did your youtube revenue dropped since November 2022? Lost of youtubers are complaining the same like me.

[@darrelwilson]

mine has dropped as well

[@sunilmenon6344]

if hosting companies create good dynamic caching solutions then yes, caching plugins will be endangered. But to my knowledge that has not been the case yet. Also WP Rocket are compatible with soooo many other plugins, so these hosting companies have a lot to do before I can say bye bye to 3rd party caching solutions

[@darrelwilson]

think we are heading to that soon

[@annette-in-vegas]

In my opinion, a lot of cool plugins I want to use are already too expensive.

[@devtanvir]

Elementor is Elementor!

[@darrelwilson]

thanks for the comment

[@devtanvir]

@@darrelwilson you are most welcome :)

[@criticalpoint7672]

Elementor is going to develop their own platform and ditch Wordpress.

[@khairt1731]

Those 2 arent even the same thing. Learn what a CMS is and what a developer plugin is.

[@JoeGator23]

And charge you an arm and a leg to use it. They already do with their dedicated hosting... and the results are not spectacular for the price. Developing their own platform will cost more that the money spent to develop Elementor; and, it would likely always be behind Gutenberg. Elementor has it's uses for a certain DIY market, but for now they are working uphill to keep up with non-page builders. Many WP content makers agree.

[@darrelwilson]

Well, I think the page builders have done something similar, like Brizy cloud and Elementor cloud. Essentially, they are their own platform using WordPress but they have a lot more control over updates and stuff.

[@letitbeai]

TBH most page builders code are/is bloated af... Give me a theme like Generatepress any day...

[@darrelwilson]

I think this is a big misconception, the kilobytes loaded per most page builders is less than a few hundred 200-400kb. My website uses Elementor and the website loads at around one to two seconds like most other websites. I don’t think it’s significant anymore because each update they reduce the amount of kilobytes loaded

[@letitbeai]

@@darrelwilson No, i have worked with Elementor plenty of times and the loadingtimes suck (around 80% with pageloadtimes above the 2 seconds across the board) even though everything was optimized to a T. Why bother when you can get even a free theme with a little bit recoding and some plugins have 100% and loading-times under a second. Overprized and bloated.

[@outlawgeek420]

WordPress page builders are definitely the now and the future at least until AI can do what it can do 🤣. Especially now that page builders are improving the speed issues and caching within these hosting companies are also getting a lot better. But like every other tool in the field of technology, it all boils down to what the user can do with that tool. People especially freelancers who are more adept in programming will always prefer to use Gutenberg and Oxygen because of the simplicity of those tools for which they can add only the necessary features for each project. However, most freelancers who are better at user experience, design, strategy, and branding will always prefer to use page builders because it removes the difficulties of coding. The division like every polar opposite of concepts is caused by our brain's own division i.e. left brain vs. right brain. Of course, there will always be hybrids who can code and design but prefer to use block-based themes or the other way around. Elementor, Divi, Beaver Builder, and many page builders will have pros and cons same goes for block-based themes. Gutenberg really does not have a clear advantage even from outside the WordPress platforms like Webflow, Duda, and even High Level. Also, the speed of the internet is relative but ever-improving at an exponential rate (5 years ago 100mbs in the Philippines was a dream) so the speed of the website's loading is a factor that is temporary. The best tools in any industry are the ones that make all our lives easier, skills or no skills. Tools are here to make everybody's life easier. Programmers need to accept that it is inevitable because computers are essentially logic-based so sooner or later programming will be as easy as drag and drop. This was also true when the calculator was invented.

[@TheBeeOBee]

Im on team Gutenberg.

[@darrelwilson]

Well, you could say I’m on it too. I would just like to see the builder improved to something more feasible for web design companies

[@michaellray]

Plugins always need maintence

[@darrelwilson]

tru

[@believe-in-righteousness]

Replacing plugins is good

[@darrelwilson]

replacing plugins can help your website reduce security issues and speed issues so i agree here

[@alhaythum]

Excellent takes on all points; WordPress have no clear roadmap & lacks the guidelines. I think this is mostly because the company is competing with the open-source instead of driving the community for the profit. I do explore my options & it may be just a matter of time when most developers/builders will seek another technology...

[@Risheeraj]

Divi is just amazing

[@darrelwilson]

I love divi, the main reason why I stop making tutorials on them is because they never added anything, and they are sort of in a reconstruction phase at the moment

[@Risheeraj]

Totally but in comparison to elementor is easy to understand and great ui experience just the 3rd party supports seems less then what elementor has currently.

[@tonybp]

I stopped spending time and energy on something that has its days numbered. There's no denying what's coming and we all know what it is.

[@teewhite7061]

I'd rather use a page builder and optimize it for performance than use the God awful experience that is Gutenberg with FSE themes. That is backwards to me. I'll take a 88 with Elementor and WP Rocket which I have than trying to pull out my hair with the experience of Full Site Editing. I see great things out of builders like Breakdance, Bricks etc. If Gutenberg stays the way it is and Page builders go away I'll take my bag and head to Webflow.

[@parvezhasan5047]

How are you sir❤️❤️❤️❤️???

[@darrelwilson]

Hey man, just hot! In asia the weather is really getting High.

[@parvezhasan5047]

@@darrelwilson yes sir, 😥😥

[@naphatmakeup]

Ohh you are looking good 😍

[@darrelwilson]

thank you kup!

[@amandag5072]

We used to use Wordpress, but found it unsuitable for our site. So we moved back to our old system. We also tried Elementor and found it very un-friendly to use, very clunky and spammy. We used Divi instead, but that become so slow and laggy that it was almost unusable in the end, which was a shame. We don't regret moving back to our old system, and would never consider going back to Wordpress or Elementor.

[@khairt1731]

Whats your "old system"?

[@darrelwilson]

Interesting yes, some people have this experience with the wordpress and it scares them off, but hopefully Gutenburg will develop into something where people would like to stay :)

[@amandag5072]

@@darrelwilson It wasn't Gutenberg that "scared us off".

[@omarduenas5593]

What is your old system

[@NorthTonawanda1]

I think you should recuse yourself for bias.

[@dougscott188]

I want to like Gutenberg but in reality it sucks.

[@abdullahowolabi1351]

Who could blame elementor, they developed a stellar product, other companies have the chance to do the same

[@mfrapp20]

Wordpress is good for many applications, but I’d say Webflow is quickly overtaking it. And it’s not even close. Webflow is infinitely more customizable

[@darrelwilson]

right, ill have to take a look. I havent used them much but will look into webflow

[@poppingjaz]

No it is no infinitely more customizable than 'ALL' Wordpress builders, especially ones like Bricks. It serves its purposes but has it's limitations. Enterprise Webflow for example is $65,000 a month. Design wise Webflow is the standard but functionality wise Wordpress can do so much more and you own your site.

[@wzt9376]

Webflow is not there yet imo it has limitation one of those being the webflow environment itself in the wordpress sphere bricks for me is the best page builder right now in terms of proper clean code (as much as a page builder can do so)

[@ravikirangolla8804]

I feel like WordPress need to stop developing their own end to end products and leave it to third party developers. WordPress should bring new innovations to core platform and let developers enhance the features to meet requirements of industry and make living out of it

[@darrelwilson]

agreed. I was hoping gutenberg would of brought more to the table so we dont have to use page builders, but i think its a bit more opposite at the moment.

[@catg5105]

You realize that WordPress is open source, right?

[@seang2012]

Has anyone else noticed that Darrel is kind of hot?

[@darrelwilson]

I noticed too :)

[@chadgarber]

Guten is a joke.

[@darrelwilson]

I think it’s necessary for a default editor. I think all platforms should have a default builder. I just wish it was a little bit better than what it is now at its current state

[@chadgarber]

@@darrelwilson I think it was better the way it was honestly. Maybe a default builder is necessary but that's not it for sure. They should have something that at least competes with the competitors (as you say). But it gets in the way of doing basic things without a builder. (IMO)

[@phisit8813]

Wordpress " Developers " are like kids playing with lego and called themself a real engineer :).

[@darrelwilson]

hey , if you need help feel free to ask .