If you’re building a WordPress website in 2025 or planning for 2026, you’ve probably found yourself caught in the crossfire of one of the platform’s most heated debates: Gutenberg vs. Elementor. Both are powerful tools for creating WordPress sites, but they take fundamentally different approaches to the same problem.
So what’s the difference between Gutenberg and Elementor for WordPress, and which one should you actually be using? More importantly, which one represents the future of the platform that powers over 40% of the internet?
Let’s cut through the noise and look at what really matters.
What Is Gutenberg?
Gutenberg is WordPress’s native block editor, introduced in December 2018 with WordPress 5.0. Named after Johannes Gutenberg (inventor of the printing press), it replaced the classic WordPress editor with a more visual, block-based approach to content creation.
Instead of writing everything in a single text field, Gutenberg lets you build pages using individual blocks – paragraphs, images, headings, buttons and more. Each block can be customized, moved around and styled independently.
The key thing to understand about Gutenberg is that it’s not a plugin. It’s baked directly into WordPress core. Every WordPress site has it by default, and WordPress is actively developing it as the future of the platform.
What Is Elementor?
Elementor is a third-party page builder plugin that launched in 2016, before Gutenberg existed. It’s a drag-and-drop visual builder that lets you design WordPress pages without touching code.
Unlike Gutenberg, Elementor operates as a separate layer on top of WordPress. It has its own interface, its own design system and its own way of storing content. When you build with Elementor, you’re essentially using a different content creation system that sits on top of your WordPress site.
Elementor offers both a free version and a Pro version ($59-$399/year) with additional features like theme building, popup creation and advanced widgets. It’s been installed on over 5 million WordPress sites and has built a massive ecosystem of templates and add-ons.
The Real Difference Between Gutenberg and Elementor
The Gutenberg vs. Elementor debate isn’t just about features – it’s about philosophy.
Gutenberg is WordPress. It’s the direction the platform is moving. When you build with Gutenberg, you’re using the native tools that WordPress developers are actively improving. Your content is stored cleanly in the WordPress database, and switching themes is relatively straightforward.
Elementor is a platform within a platform. It gives you more design freedom right now, but you’re essentially betting on a third-party company to maintain compatibility with WordPress updates. Your content is locked into Elementor’s proprietary format, and switching away later can be painful.
From a pure capability standpoint, Elementor currently offers more design flexibility out of the box. You get precise control over layouts and a seemingly endless library of widgets to use. The interface is more polished, and the learning curve for creating complex layouts and functionality is gentler.
Gutenberg, on the other hand, feels more constrained. The design options are more limited, and creating truly custom layouts requires either theme support or additional plugins. But what you lose in flexibility, you gain in simplicity, performance and long-term sustainability.
We asked Azuro Digital, a WordPress development agency that uses both Gutenberg and Elementor, what they prefer. Here’s what their creative director (Daniel Houle) had to say: “We still use Elementor for most sites due to Gutenberg’s lack of advanced features, but we’re increasingly using Gutenberg and we expect it to overtake Elementor at some point.”
Performance and Speed
Here’s where things get interesting.
Gutenberg is generally faster than Elementor. Because it’s native to WordPress, it doesn’t load extra CSS and JavaScript libraries that slow down your site. Pages built with Gutenberg typically load faster, which matters for both user experience and SEO rankings.
Elementor sites can still be fast if optimized correctly, but the plugin adds overhead by default. You’ll need to be more intentional about performance – minifying code, optimizing assets and using a caching plugin.
For clients who deeply care about Core Web Vitals and Google PageSpeed scores, Gutenberg has a natural advantage.
Design Freedom vs. Content Portability
The difference between Gutenberg and Elementor for WordPress really comes down to a trade-off: design freedom versus content portability.
Elementor wins on design freedom. Want a three-column layout with custom spacing, background overlays and hover animations? Elementor makes it easy. You can build virtually any design you can imagine without touching code.
Gutenberg wins on content portability. Because your content is stored as standard HTML blocks, switching themes or page builders later is relatively painless. Your content isn’t locked into a proprietary format.
This matters more than most people realize. We’ve seen businesses spend thousands of dollars migrating away from Elementor because they wanted to switch themes or consolidate their tech stack. With Gutenberg, your content is future-proof.
The WordPress Roadmap Points to Gutenberg
If you’re thinking long-term, you need to pay attention to what WordPress itself is doing.
The WordPress core team has made it clear that Gutenberg is the future. They’re actively developing Full Site Editing, which will let you build entire themes using blocks – headers, footers, templates and all. They’re adding more design controls, pattern libraries and customization options with every release.
Elementor isn’t going anywhere soon, but it’s swimming against the current. The plugin will need to continually adapt to WordPress changes, and there’s always a risk that a major WordPress update could cause compatibility issues.
Meanwhile, Gutenberg gets better with every WordPress release – because it is WordPress.
Which One Should You Actually Use?
Here’s our take after building websites with both:
Use Elementor if you need maximum design flexibility right now, you’re building complex custom layouts and you’re comfortable accepting vendor lock-in. It’s a powerful tool that delivers results quickly.
Use Gutenberg if you want a leaner, faster website that’s aligned with WordPress’s future direction. Accept that you’ll have fewer design options initially, but you’ll gain performance, portability and sustainability.
The Future Belongs to Blocks
The Gutenberg vs. Elementor debate will probably continue for years, but the trajectory is clear. WordPress is betting everything on blocks, and the ecosystem is following.
Major theme companies are building block-based themes. Plugin developers are creating block libraries. Even Elementor has started exploring block-based features.
The question isn’t whether blocks will dominate WordPress – they already do. The question is whether you want to build with the native system that WordPress is investing in, or with a third-party tool that will need to continuously adapt.
For websites built in 2025 and going into 2026, Gutenberg represents the safer, more sustainable path forward. It might not have every bell and whistle that Elementor offers today, but it’s where the platform is going.
And in technology, betting on the future usually pays off!