Kadence and GeneratePress are the best WordPress theme builders for beginners, though experienced users who want a faster building experience would like these options as well.
Developers and more advanced users prefer Bricks, a powerful visual site builder.
A theme builder is a WordPress theme or plugin (more often than not, it’s a combination of the two) that gives you the ability to edit your entire site, including your header*, page templates and 404 page.
This is why theme builders are also referred to as “website builders” that enable “full site editing.”
In this post, I list the best theme builders for WordPress and key features they offer when it comes to full site editing.
*Note: Theme builders offer what’s known as a “header builder,” which is different from the predesigned header layouts a typical WordPress theme offers. A header builder allows you to build your own header design.
The Best WordPress Theme Builders: An Overview
- Kadence – A block-based theme, and a powerful, lightweight option for beginners and experienced WordPress users alike.
- GeneratePress – A block-based theme combined with a blocks plugin. Another lightweight option, and a fantastic choice for users with a lot of sites (offers 500 site licenses).
- Breakdance – A visual builder for WordPress that includes theme building capabilities. It has an element builder that allows you to create your own elements.
- Bricks – Advanced visual builder that’s easy to use but optimized for developers and advanced WordPress users.
- Brizy – An intuitive, visual page builder that includes theme building capabilities.
- Elementor – A popular page builder plugin with a lot of third-party support. It comes with a theme builder for full site editing and a free proprietary theme called Hello.
- Oxygen Builder – A visual builder built on the code of Breakdance that offers more complex features for developers. Also includes Oxygen Classic, a simpler theme builder.
- Divi – A WordPress theme that includes page and theme building elements.
1. Kadence
Rating: 4.9 stars (430+ ratings) | Active Installations: 400,000+
Kadence is primarily a block-based theme that’s designed to work with WordPress’ block editor, also known as “Gutenberg.”
It’s made up of the Kadence theme itself and the Kadence Blocks plugin, a page builder built for the block editor.
Together, they create a powerful website builder that includes full site editing, global styles, a header builder, single post templates, a child theme builder, and more.
The only drawback to Kadence is its pricing structure. Not every feature is available on every plan, so you’ll need to purchase the Plus plan or higher if you want to unlock this theme’s true potential.
Key Features
- Drag-and-drop editing
- Patterns for saving block and section designs
- Header builder
- Customizable footer
- Blocks plugin for the block editor in WordPress
- Starter templates
- Customizable post template
- Customizable archive template
- Customizable 404 page
- Navigation menu templates
- Mega menus
- Child theme builder
- Theme hooks
- Dynamic content
- ACF support
- WooCommerce support
Pricing
Free versions of theme and plugin available. Premium pricing starts at $69/year.
2. GeneratePress
Rating: 5 stars (1,420+ ratings) | Active Installations: 500,000+
GeneratePress is primarily a WordPress theme that’s designed to work with the block editor in WordPress. This makes it an incredibly lightweight theme.
It’s also pretty powerful as it comes with theme building elements, global styling, customizable templates and more.
You can use it seamlessly with the developer’s Generate Blocks plugin, a collection of lightweight Gutenberg blocks that are designed to help you build and save your own designs in WordPress.
Key Features
- Visual builder
- Collection of blocks for the block editor
- Starter sites
- Global styles
- Pattern library
- Header builder
- Mobile headers
- Mega menus
- CSS styling control
- Advanced layout system
- Advanced hook system
- Dynamic data
- Single post template
- Content templates
- Archive templates
- Page hero template
- Post meta template
- Custom 404 page
- Local font library
- Custom field support
- Support for WooCommerce
Pricing
Free versions of the GeneratePress and GenerateBlocks plugin are available as are premium versions of each individual product.
There’s a bundled plan (called GeneratePress One) for both products that costs $149/year.
This plan supports up to 500 sites.
Visit GeneratePress | Free Version
3. Breakdance
Rating: N/A | Active Installations: N/A
Breakdance is the best of both worlds: it’s a very powerful visual builder that’s also quite intuitive and easy to use.
It offers a number of different theme building features, giving you more options for customizing your site.
One unique feature Breakdance offers is an element builder that allows you to create your own elements with HTML, CSS and Twig.
Key Features
- Visual builder
- Starter templates
- Elements
- Global styles
- Header builder
- Mega menu builder
- Page and section templates
- Single templates
- Custom templates
- Custom 404 page
- Element builder
- Dynamic data
- Accepts custom CSS
- Accepts custom HTML and PHP
- ACF support
- WooCommerce support
- WordPress multisite support
Pricing
Free plan available. Premium pricing starts at $99.99/year.
4. Bricks
Rating: N/A | Active Installations: N/A
Bricks is an advanced visual builder that includes full site editing capabilities. It’s one of the most powerful website builders available for WordPress.
Although it offers an intuitive editor and drag-and-drop editing, it’s often regarded as a more complex tool designed for developers.
This is due to more advanced, developer-focused features like a query loop builder, advanced CSS, HTML, PHP and JavaScript support (including built-in editors for each), and a hook and filter system.
One unique feature this tool offers is a block builder for WordPress’ block editor that allows you to create your own Gutenberg blocks.
Key Features
- Visual builder
- Starter templates
- Component (element) library
- Reusable components
- Header builder
- Menu builder
- Custom element builder
- Custom block builder
- Section templates
- Single post templates
- Archive templates
- Dynamic data
- Advanced CSS support
- Accepts custom PHP, HTML and JavaScript with built-in editors
- Query loop builder
- Triggers, actions and targets
- Hook system
- ACF support
- WooCommerce support
Pricing
Plans start at $79/year.
5. Brizy
Rating: 4.7 stars (950+ ratings) | Active Installations: 70,000+
Brizy is a lightweight, drag-and-drop page builder that offers visual editing and global styles.
Although it’s a page builder, it still offers theme building capabilities, such as global headers and footers, custom templates, and dynamic elements.
Key Features
- Visual builder
- Elements
- Starter templates
- Global styles
- Global headers and footers
- Custom author pages
- Custom category pages
- Custom 404 page
- Dynamic elements
- ACF support
- WooCommerce support
Pricing
Free plan available. Premium pricing starts at $59/year.
6. Elementor
Rating: 4.5 stars (7,100+ ratings) | Active Installations: 10 million+
Elementor is the one of the most popular page builder plugins available for WordPress, if not the most popular page builder plugin available for WordPress.
But it’s more than just a page builder: it’s a theme builder with full site editing, allowing you to build your own header, single page templates and more.
A major drawback of Elementor is its performance. It’s known for creating bloated designs that are hard to optimize, leading to web pages that look nice but load slowly.
Key Features
- Drag-and-drop visual builder
- Large element library
- Starter templates
- Free starter theme (Hello theme)
- Design library
- Header and footer builder
- Single page template
- Single post template
- Archive template
- Custom 404 page
- Dynamic content
- Hooks
- ACF support
- WooCommerce support
Pricing
A free version of Elementor is available. Pricing for the premium version starts at $60/year.
Visit Elementor | Free Version
7. Oxygen Builder
Rating: N/A | Active Installations: N/A
Oxygen Builder (also known as Oxygen 6) is an advanced version of the classic Oxygen Builder that’s based on the previous builder (now called Oxygen Classic) and built on the code of the Breakdance site builder.
It’s a powerful visual builder that’s focused on offering more intricate full site editing capabilities for WordPress developers, offering a “smoother developing experience.”
Key Features
- Visual builder
- Global styles
- Element library
- Prebuilt components
- Reusable elements
- Animations and interactions
- Dynamic data
- Support for custom HTML and CSS
Pricing
Oxygen is available for a one-time fee of $399.
Unlimited site licenses, Oxygen Classic, and Breakdance Elements, WooCommerce and Forms are included.
8. Divi
Rating: N/A | Active Installations: N/A
Divi was one of the first page builder plugins and theme builders available for WordPress. It’s still a worthy visual builder that offers everything you’d expect in a full site editing experience.
However, it has since fallen behind other page builders due to its tendency to create bloated designs based on shortcodes.
Fortunately, a new version of Divi (Divi 5) will be released, which promises to be “fast, lean, and packed with modern features to lead the next generation of page builders.”
It abandons shortcodes and adopts the block editor. It’s built on a new tech stack and will give developers the ability to build custom modules and integrations with a new version of the Divi API.
Key Features
- Combined theme and page builder
- Visual builder
- Module library (elements)
- Reusable modules
- Starter templates
- Global styles
- Animations
- Header and footer builder
- Single page template
- Single post template
- Archive template
- Custom 404 page
- Dynamic content
- Custom CSS support
- WooCommerce support
- AI code generator
Pricing
Plans start at $89/year.
Honorable Mentions
Here’s a list of WordPress theme builders that weren’t included in this article but are still worth checking out:
- Beaver Builder
- Themify Builder
- Visual Composer
- SeedProd
- Thrive Theme Builder
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