Page builders might not be a good idea

Here’s what I think: page builder might not be a good idea. In this post, I wanted to share my thoughts about page builders and why you might think twice before you consider using it (again).

The observations are subjective but based on my experience. I am referring to the WordPress and Shopify ecosystems here, but these problems could be found on other platforms, too.

If you use page builders and you don’t have these problems, please let me know in the comment section. I would very much like to learn how you manage to do it.

During my time in web development, I have stumbled continuously on projects that are built using page builders. Page builders are tools that allow the building of website pages without writing code (mostly).

Back in the day in 2014, I tried to build my page builder (Twitter page still exists :)). It was conceived as a drag-n-drop solution like most modern page builders work today. After a while, I realized that the world doesn’t need another tool. Although that was the right decision, it was based on the wrong arguments. At that time, I didn’t know anything about performance or accessibility or maintainability, which I would never get right if I would develop an all-around solution. These were only a few of the worst enemies of a page builder. Now, let me tell you a story about other problems with page builders.

When using page builders, most users build page by page. There is no original design or structure. Why would you pay for something that you could do by yourself?

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