Creating WordPress websites has never been easier. Web building technology has evolved so much in recent years that anyone can go online and design their own site.
A lot of tools are free and easy to use, making website creation simple even if you have no knowledge of coding or programming.
There are plenty of excellent website builders out there, but the most accessible and least complicated are of the drag and drop variety.
Since most people are unfamiliar with coding, these are the tools you want to use to create stunning websites.
This guide will explore and detail the best drag and drop website builders for WordPress. In other words, you'll find plugins that can be used alongside your WordPress website to improve the range of customisation options available and to make the overall design process easier.
Discover their features, pricing plans, and more, as well as information on how to choose the best drag and drop plugin for you.
Table of Contents:
- Understanding Drag and Drop Website Builder
- The Best Drag and Drop Page Builders
- 1. SeedProd
- 2. Elementor
- 3. Beaver Builder
- 4. Thrive Architect
- 5. Divi
- 6. SiteOrigin
- 7. Visual Composer
- How to Choose the Right Drag and Drop Website Builder for You
- Final Thoughts on WordPress Drag and Drop Website Builders
- FAQs on Drag and Drop Page Builders
Understanding Drag and Drop Website Builders 👀️
Before we delve into the best drag and drop website builders on the market, we first need to understand what exactly they do. Fortunately, these tools were created to simplify the whole web page creation process, so they're much easier to understand than coding programs. In fact, anyone can begin using them with almost no technical knowledge whatsoever.
Below, we briefly outline what a drag and drop website builder is and examine the benefits and downsides to the software. We've also included a short guide on using drag and drop website builders alongside a WordPress web host, so you can make the page creation process easier for yourself.
What is a Drag and Drop Website Builder?
Simply put, a drag and drop page builder allows users to create websites by adding pre-designed elements to a page. As the name suggests, users can customise their site by dragging and dropping various templates, add-ins, toolbars, and other features to design their page to their own preferences and requirements.
Since they require very little technical knowledge to use, these tools are essentially designed for anyone who wishes to enhance their digital presence but doesn't know a thing about coding. Before the drag and drop builder was developed, website creation typically involved writing code. This made the whole process rather exclusive and inaccessible to those who wanted a website but couldn't afford to pay a software engineer.
Since the drag and drop editor has emerged as an affordable website builder, however, the internet has exploded with new sites. Everyone from small business owners to personal bloggers now has a way to enhance their digital outreach without possessing technical expertise. In other words, websites have become more accessible to the general public.
Pros & Cons of Drag and Drop Page Builders
To get a better sense of what a drag and drop website builder is, we need to outline the advantages and disadvantages of the software. After all, what better way to understand something than to learn what it can and can't do?
Let's start with the benefits of drag and drop website builders:
- ✅️ Easy to use: The defining drag and drop functionality of these tools simplifies website creation massively. With intuitive interfaces and user-friendly features, almost anyone can use a drag and drop website builder with little to no technical knowledge or coding skills. Users simply click and drag various elements to the desired points of their site, and the tool will automatically embed the feature into your website.
- ✅️ Cost-effective: Small businesses, personal bloggers, and anyone else looking to start a website will likely not have the budget to afford a software developer or graphic designer. Using a drag and drop website builder is a great way to create your own web page, online store, or blogging platform without breaking the bank. Pair this with a free domain name and you've got an online business that's cost-effective.
- ✅️ Responsive and functional: Most website builders are designed to enable full functionality, no matter the scale of your site. A drag and drop editor will ensure your web pages are responsive on multiple types of device, such as laptops, mobile phones, and desktop computers. Since people tend to switch between devices when browsing the internet, it's important your site becomes optimised for various platforms.
- ✅️ Time-saving: With a drag and drop website builder, you can save masses of time during the initial stages of developing your online business. Some people can be put off by the sheer drudge of creating their own website, but a drag and drop website builder allows quick and easy page design in a matter of minutes. It's also perfect for those who need to make regular updates to their site.
- ✅️ Tech support: Since these tools are made for technical rookies, the best drag and drop website builders offer technical assistance that will resolve any issues you have. While not always a feature of the software, most site builders will provide a number, email, or live chat service that you can use for free.
As you can see, there are plenty of benefits to using a drag and drop website builder. The time and money you save make these tools a no-brainer for many people. However, there are certain instances where drag and drop software shows its limitations. In other words, it's not for everyone.
Let's now consider the downsides of a drag and drop builder and discover who these tools would not suit:
- ❌️ Limited customisation options: Despite offering a wide range of customisation options, drag and drop tools have their limitations when it comes to more sophisticated features. If you have a specific idea in mind of how you want your website to look or what you want it to do, you're likely better off hiring a developer to bring your vision to life.
- ❌️ Missing SEO tools: It's not uncommon for your drag and drop site builder to omit SEO marketing tools and integrations. This will often hinder the traffic to your website and limit the number of visitors you receive. Back-end coding features like jumbled programming are common and can hurt your page's ranking in search engines.
- ❌️ Unsuitable for larger enterprises: First impressions are everything in business. Larger firms need proper SEO coding, uniquely professional designs, and sophisticated features to compete with other companies at the highest level, which is why a simple drag and drop website builder is probably unsuitable for them.
While there are some evident limitations to these tools, the benefits massively outweigh the downsides in most cases. Unless you require sophisticated customisation options or are a larger firm, you'll certainly find an advantage to using a drag and drop website builder.
Using a Drag and Drop Website Builder in WordPress
Many prospective website owners turn to WordPress to kickstart the creation process, only to find that it's not so user-friendly if you don't possess any coding skills. While there are pre-installed themes and elements that provide a certain level of simplicity, it's still a little tricky to express your vision for your site without a drag and drop website builder.
With a drag and drop site builder plugin, elements such as text, images, videos, buttons, and dropdown menus can all be added and rearranged with just a few clicks. This simplifies the page creation process massively and allows for quick and easy editing.
By downloading a free drag and drop website builder for WordPress, you can create custom websites without paying a penny. Alternatively, there are paid-for drag and drop plugins for WordPress which can offer greater levels of customisation and technical support. But the point remains: drag and drop plugins for WordPress make website creation easy and affordable.
The Best Drag and Drop Page Builders 🔝️
Without further ado, then, let’s delve into the top drag and drop website builders out there. Read on to find more information on each website builder, including a detailed overview of their features, prices, and benefits. While our verdicts are insightful (not to toot our own horn), it all comes down to your personal preference as to which one you find most useful.
1. SeedProd: Best Overall
With thousands of five-star reviews from WordPress users, SeedProd is one of the best drag and drop builders on the market. It offers a highly intuitive interface and visual editor that allows you to customise your WordPress site quickly and easily. If you're after a professional website but can't figure out how to use WordPress, you need to install SeedProd.
Best of all, SeedProd is designed to optimise your site for search engines. It ensures your pages enjoy speedy loading times, improving your site's performance as your traffic increases. This is ideal if you're looking to scale up your business, as you'll have a website that can handle growth. So, what else can SeedProd do for your website?
Key Features
SeedProd boasts a range of sophisticated features that make the software a leader in its field. As far as drag and drop builders go, SeedProd offers one of the more extensive catalogues of pre-designed content blocks, ready-to-use templates, and built-in SEO tools. These serve to enhance the quality of your website and allow you to create professional-looking pages with ease. Check out some of what SeedProd has to offer below:
- Extensive elements: From contact forms and buttons to countdown timers and blocks, SeedProd provides every kind of element you'd expect from a drag and drop website builder. No need to write code for your website's features, they're all provided from the off with SeedProd!
- Intuitive design system: With its smart interface, SeedProd lets you reuse elements instead of repetitively placing them in. You can configure colour schemes, customise blocks, save font combinations, and much more to save you masses of time when designing.
- SEO-optimised coding: A strong focus on connection speed means that SeedProd's coding is fully SEO-optimised to help your pages load quicker and rank higher in search engines. This will bring more traffic to your site and boost your outreach.
- Vast range of templates: This drag and drop editor comes with hundreds of landing page templates and themes to help kickstart your website design process. It even offers pre-designed page modes, such as 404 error pages and login pages, which will add professionalism and range to your site.
Pricing Plans
Unfortunately, SeedProd is not for those with budget restraints. While there is a free version available, it's very limited and doesn't provide the same level of quality features as the paid version does. Pricing for the Basic plan starts at $39.50 (about £32) per year; the Plus at $99.50 (£80) annually; and the Pro at $199.50 (£160) a year. For larger companies, the Elite package offers everything you could hope for from a website builder for unlimited sites at $239.60 per year (about £192.50).
Pros & Cons
If you're willing to pay, SeedProd is one of the best drag and drop WordPress plugins out there. It boasts numerous benefits, but the cost factor may deter some people.
That said, let's quickly summarise the advantages and the downsides to SeedProd.
PROS
CONS
Verdict
All in all, SeedProd is worth its price if you can afford it. The sheer range of its features and customisation options mean it ranks high among its competitors, not to mention the SEO-friendly coding that enhances your site's outreach. Unfortunately, SeedProd knows its worth and charges accordingly.
2. Elementor: Best for Widgets
Elementor is a powerful and popular drag and drop website builder plugin for WordPress. It's one of the simplest site builders in terms of usability, as you just select the amount of columns you want and drag widgets to fit each section. You can build, edit, and rearrange your website in real time without much hassle. This makes Elementor an obvious choice for those who want minimal fuss when building websites.
Key Features
As the name suggests, Elementor prides itself in its catalogue of elements. With over 300 different add-ins you can choose from, creating websites is simple. The drag and drop functionality is seamless, boasting an easy-to-use interface with a high-quality display. So, what features does Elementor provide?
- Widget integration: Aside from the extensive library of built-in elements, Elementor also allows you to integrate widgets that have been created using other WordPress plugins. This facilitates customisation and gives you more control over what you include in your website.
- Well-designed themes and templates: Either choose one of Elementor's many pre-designed templates or use the theme builder to create your own. Each template is produced with the professional in mind, so you can guarantee that you're getting high-resolution designs that add a touch of quality to your website.
- Built-in maintenance mode: This allows you to make changes to your site even while it's up and running. You can display a custom “coming soon” page or select a pre-designed template to give your website visitors some transparency in your maintenance.
Pricing Plans
There is a free version of Elementor available, which is offered as a plugin for WordPress. However, it offers limited templates and doesn't come close to its full potential as a website builder. For those looking for the best version of this tool, there are three different payment plans each suited to varying levels of requirements.
The Essential plan comes in at $59 per year (that's about £47), while the Expert plan is a bit more expensive at $199 per year (£160). The Agency plan is the most expensive, at $399 (£320) annually, but covers the most features and allows up to 1000 Pro websites.
Pros & Cons
Here are the benefits and the disadvantages of Elementor :
PROS
CONS
Verdict
From commonly used website widgets like buttons and images to more niche inclusions like sliders, testimonials, and social media links, Elementor really does have it all. That's why we've rated this site builder as one of the best drag and drop tools for widgets. For those who like a bit of range in their design, Elementor can provide it.
3. Beaver Builder: Best for Beginners
Beaver Builder is a popular drag and drop website builder that offers easily accessible tools for every kind of website. Through simple software and easy-to-use tools, anyone with limited tech experience can effortlessly create their own sites. This ease of use extends beyond first-time bloggers, too, as even large firms can benefit from Beaver Builder.
Key Features
Beaver builder has all the features you'd expect from a quality website builder. Its intricate features, coupled with simple functions, make the software ideal for beginners. With different modules, you can add almost any kind of feature you want with little fuss.
- One licence for unlimited websites: With Beaver Builder, you won't have to pay for multiple licences. Instead, one licence covers your entire range of websites. This makes it much easier to handle your web hosting accounts.
- Online community: One thing that Beaver Builder excels in is its customer support. Not only does it offer a smart ticketing system, but there's a Facebook group, a Slack group, and an online community forum where users can help each other out and share insight into the software.
- 30-day money-back guarantee: Since Beaver Builder can be a little pricey for smaller businesses, those on the lookout for a website builder may be hesitant about this particular one. To help ease concerns, Beaver Builder gives you your money back up to 30 days if you're unsatisfied with the software.
- SEO-optimised code: Instead of short codes that hinder your website's performance in search engines, Beaver Builder uses HTML and CSS to create productive code that will boost your site's ranking on the net.
Pricing Plans
There's no free trial for Beaver Builder, but there is a money-back guarantee and a hosted demo that contains all the features for you to play around with. As soon as you're ready to make a purchase, Beaver Builder has 4 different pricing plans: the Standard, the Pro, the Agency, and the Ultimate. At $99, $199, $399, and $546 per year respectively (that's £79.50, £160, £320, and £439), these prices are by no means the cheapest.
Pros & Cons
Beaver Builder is a neat tool for website creators to use when building and designing their own sites. So, what are the positive aspects of Beaver Builder and by contrast, what are the negatives of Beaver Builder?
PROS
CONS
Verdict
Beaver Builder is an all-round pleasant website builder that almost anyone can use effectively. It's mainly suited to beginners and small businesses, as there isn't as extensive a feature library as other site builders, but the design and interface are extremely user-friendly. That said, smaller companies may be deterred by the pricing plans.
4. Thrive Architect: Best for Customisation
A powerful and well-liked website builder plugin from Thrive Themes, Architect offers sophisticated yet simple drag and drop capabilities for easy website creation. This WordPress plugin boasts over 350 pre-designed templates and themes — every single detail of which can be customised to suit your preferences and requirements.
Key Features
What Thrive Architect excels at is its extensive library of features, pre-designed templates, and editing options. This gives you more control over your designs, so you can adjust your website's aesthetic to suit your personal vision. As far as drag and drop builders go, Thrive Architect offers some excellent features. Here are a few of the best:
- Extensive customisation options: Thrive Architect's front-end visual editor allows you to customise virtually everything, from features to themes to colour schemes. You can even add custom JavaScript and CSS coding!
- Responsive design: With professionally written code, Thrive Architect optimises your website for any kind of device. This means that your pages will look just as crisp on desktop computers as mobile phones.
- User-friendly interface: It's important for users to understand what they're doing, which is why Thrive Architect is a popular tool. Using simple point-and-click motions, users can see what they're doing in real time, taking the guesswork out of website creation.
- Large catalogue of templates: With more than 350 pre-created templates and themes, the Thrive Architect plugin removes a lot of the effort of creating your own website.
Pricing Plans
Unfortunately, there's no free version of Thrive Architect and no free trial either. Paid plans start at $99 (£79.50) per year for just the software itself, but you can upgrade to more expensive packages for deals that include other Thrive products.
You can purchase Thrive Optimize — the A/B testing software — alongside Architect for an annual fee of $199 (£160). Or, for the entire Thrive range of products, you can buy Thrive Suite for $299 (£240) per year.
Pros & Cons
So, let's sum up the pros and cons of Thrive Architect to see how it fares against its competitors.
PROS
CONS
Verdict
Thrive Architect is one of the best drag and drop WordPress plugins out there. Its clever design paired with its almost unbeatable range of customisation options ranks it high in usability. If you're looking for more control over how you build your site, you'll find what you need with Thrive Architect.
5. Divi: Best Theme
Another popular drag and drop website builder is Divi, run by Elegant Themes. They operate a what-you-see-is-what-you-get model that allows users to create websites in real time. By clicking and dragging the elements you want, you can create visually stunning websites with greater control. There's no nasty surprises when you publish, either, as your site will turn out exactly how it looks during the creation stage.
Key Features
The most notable thing about Divi is its huge range of customisation options. With the Divi theme alongside the website builder, you can gain access to over 800 templates and 100 full website packs. This bolsters your drag and drop builder to no end, but if you choose another theme you can still use the Divi page builder plugin. So, what key features does Divi offer?
- Magic Colour Manager: This feature remembers any colours you use during the design stage so you don't have to go trawling through the colour chart to match ones you used previously. It also suggests complementary and matching colours via an algorithm, so you can improve your website's entire colour scheme.
- Split testing: With this feature, Divi allows you to create two versions of a webpage using different colours and designs and publish them to different kinds of people. This will give you data on which performs better, helping you resolve any design disputes and improving the decision-making process with proven results.
- Business support: With friendly IT support for new businesses, freelancers, and marketing agencies, Divi helps new website owners optimise their pages to get better rankings and greater traffic.
Pricing Plans
You can try Divi for 30 days and if you're not satisfied, you can claim your money back. This is ideal if you're not ready to commit to any particular website builder just yet. Otherwise, Divi costs $89 (£71.50) per year to use, or you can pay $249 (£200) for lifetime access.
Pros & Cons
In summary, here's what Divi does well, but like everything, Divi has its bad points too.
PROS
CONS
Verdict
Divi is a solid website builder that's perfect for those looking for greater control over how their pages look. There are some excellent features, as well as helpful customer support. Overall, Divi performs well as a drag and drop website builder, but is a little less advanced compared to other website builders.
6. SiteOrigin: Best Free Website Builder
SiteOrigin already has over a million downloads from the WordPress directory, making it one of the most popular free drag and drop builders out there. It's suited to varying degrees of technical ability, so you don't have to be an expert to use it. You'll also benefit from enhanced code that optimises your sites for both computers and mobiles.
Key Features
SiteOrigin strikes an excellent balance between simplicity and sophistication. Its easy-to-use interface is perfect for beginners, while the range of advanced features allow technical experts to craft their websites using the right tools. Here are some of SiteOrigin's top features:
- Row builder: This advanced tool allows users to construct their websites easily and have greater control over their design. Users can adjust the spacing, borders, and padding of their widgets and rows by writing simple input prompts instead of technical code.
- Enhanced compatibility: You can use SiteOrigin alongside many other WordPress themes and even with numerous WordPress widgets. It resembles the WordPress interface, too, so you won't have to learn a new tool.
- Optimised code: With SEO-friendly coding, your pages will rank high in search engines. The optimised code also enhances your website's performance, speeding up loading times and improving the overall experience for your visitors.
Pricing Plans
SiteOrigin is free to use, so it's no wonder why the tool has proven a popular choice for website developers. However, the free version does have its limitations, which is why SiteOrigin also offers premium plans. For a single website, Premium costs just $29 (£23) per year. The Business plan allows up to five websites and costs $49 (£39) annually. Finally, the Developer plan allows unlimited websites but will set you back $99 (£79.50) each year.
Pros & Cons
SiteOrigin is a comprehensive drag and drop builder that performs well for its value. Here are the benefits and the downsides of this page builder:
PROS
CONS
Verdict
As a free drag and drop editor, SiteOrigin punches well above its weight. It outperforms some paid tools in terms of both customisation and usability, although the free version does lack some features and pre-designed templates. All in all, though, SiteOrigin is ideal if you're looking for a drag and drop page builder that's both affordable and thorough.
7. Visual Composer: Best for Professional Designers
A hugely popular drag and drop website builder, Visual Composer is known for its incredible design capacity. It's great for professional designers, since there are tons of customisation options, as well as cool features that allow you to manipulate elements and get more control over your designs.
Key Features
On top of the regular features you'd expect from a drag and drop website builder, Visual Composer offers great scope for customisation. Additionally, the tool is very well-designed with sophisticated code that makes your websites high-performing and high-ranking. Here are some of the main features of Visual Composer:
- Cloud hub library of templates: The tool uses a cloud-based library to store hundreds of professionally designed templates, elements, and add-ins that you can easily bring into your website. Add and modify things like posts, headers, footers, and forms.
- Customisable elements: With Visual Composer, you can add a myriad of effects to practically any element. Customise your widgets with shadows, borders, backgrounds, animations, and many other effects.
- High-performance design: High-definition graphics and SEO-optimised code make for a truly high-performance tool in Visual Composer. As a result, it's well-loved by professional developers and graphic designers, who praise the high standard of the software.
Pricing Plans
For business on a tight budget, Visual Composer offers an entirely free version that still offers a good amount of useful features and templates. However, its scale is quite limited, so larger businesses are much better off paying for one of the four premium plans. These are the Single ($49/£39 per year), Plus ($99/£79.50 per year), Accelerate ($149/£120 per year), and Agency ($349/£280 per year) plans, which mostly differ in the number of websites you can use the software with.
Pros & Cons
There are a number of great benefits to Visual Composer that make it a worthy website builder for many different types of businesses. Let's take a look at a few of them and briefly examine the downsides to Visual Composer.
PROS
CONS
Verdict
Visual Composer offers huge potential as a drag and drop website builder, but only in the right hands. Its great emphasis on design elements and customisation make it perfect for professional website developers, but less ideal for beginners or those just looking for an easy way to build a website.
How to Choose the Right Drag and Drop Website Builder for You 🤔️
Choosing the right website builder for you can be challenging, not least because there are so many options out there. The right one for you will depend on your individual requirements, as well as your personal preferences and opinions. Here are some questions to consider before selecting or buying a drag and drop website builder:
- What is your budget?
- How many websites do you want to host?
- How much control over the design do you want?
- Do you need any special features?
- How important is customer support to you?
- How will you scale your business in the future?
What to Look for in a Drag and Drop Builder
Choosing the right drag and drop website builder for you is also about finding the features that suit your needs. Not all builder tools offer every function, so look out for the ones that are top of your list in terms of priority. Here are a few features to note when comparing website builders:
- Intuitive interface: If the tool isn't easy to use, it's likely not worth the hassle. Unless you're a professional designer, of course, you'll struggle to create a website without simple drag and drop functions.
- Extensive template catalogue: Pre-designed templates can save you a world of time and effort, so tools with a wide range of them can prove much more valuable than others.
- Flexible customisation options: Even if you're not an expert in building websites, you still want some control over how it turns out. Flexible customisation options are a must-have.
- Compatibility with WordPress: Chances are, you'll be using WordPress to create your website. This means you should look out for drag and drop plugins that are compatible with WordPress. Other website builders — like the GoDaddy Website Builder — won't work with WordPress, since they're effectively competitors.
- SEO-friendly features: Without adequate SEO coding, your website cannot hope to rank high in search engines. Ensure your website builder provides SEO-friendly code.
Final Thoughts on WordPress Drag and Drop Website Builders 💡️
Drag and drop builders are incredibly popular, since they simplify the website creation process in a way that makes it accessible for everyone. No coding knowledge is required to create your own digital sites and publish them, which is why drag and drop tools are perfect for beginners and small businesses.
The best drag and drop builders offer seamless functionality, vast customisation options, and SEO-friendly code that boosts your website's performance. Every tool listed above has its merits, but the right one for you will depend on your individual requirements. Ultimately, though, it all comes down to personal preference as to which one you pick.
FAQs on Drag and Drop Page Builders 🗯️
How do you even use a drag and drop website builder? And what's the best one to use? If you've still got questions about page builders, we've got the answers. Check out some frequently asked questions below.
How do I Create a Drag and Drop Website?
You need a certain tool to create a website using the drag and drop function. Once you've purchased this, the drag and drop feature lets you simply click on an element you want to add (such as text, an image, or a button) and drag it to where you want to position it on your web page. It's as simple as that!
Which Online Website Builder Gives its Users a Drag and Drop Interface?
Not all website builders offer a drag and drop interface. Some are more technical, requiring lines of code to add elements without a clear interface or preview of your site. Drag and drop builders are more user-friendly, offering a much clearer way to build websites.
Is WordPress a Drag and Drop Website Builder?
While WordPress itself offers certain drag and drop functions, many people choose to download or purchase a plugin to simplify the whole process even further. If you want quality drag and drop capabilities, it's usually worth integrating a free or paid plugin into WordPress.
What is the Best Website Builder Plugin for WordPress?
Choosing which website builder works for you is difficult, but there are some criteria to look out for. The best website builders for WordPress are typically affordable, substantial, and professional. Their coding should be optimised for mobile devices and they should offer a wide range of templates and customisation options.
