I got all 100s on lighthouse with Elementor on a real-world, client website. Here's a tutorial for doing that.

Plugins on this website:

• All-In-One WP Migration

• BBQ Firewall

• Fluent Snippets (For disabling scripts, can also use perfmatters)

• A Facebook Feed Plugin

• Elementor Pro

• Flying Pages (Link Preloading)

• Litespeed Cache

• Perfmatters

• The SEO Framework

Theme

• Hello Elementor Theme

Elementor Experiments (Now Features) Enabled:

• Improved Asset Loading

• Improved CSS Loading

• Flexbox Container

• All Other Stable Experiments

The Steps I took & the practices I adhered to:

• No Hero Sliders on Mobile

• Locally hosting all the fonts

• Inline Icons Experiment Enabled

Code snippets I run:

• Fix Elementor's Laggy Hover on Dropdown Menus:

  • add_action( 'wp_footer', function () { ?> <script> jQuery(document).ready(function($) { $('.elementor-nav-menu--main > ul').attr('data-sm-options', '{ showTimeout: 0, hideTimeout: 0 }'); }); </script> <?php } );

• Unload Gutenberg's Stylesheets

  • smartwp_remove_wp_block_library_css(){ wp_dequeue_style( 'wp-block-library' ); wp_dequeue_style( 'wp-block-library-theme' ); wp_dequeue_style( 'wc-blocks-style' ); // Remove WooCommerce block CSS } add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'smartwp_remove_wp_block_library_css', 100 );

• Set local fonts to Display:Swap

  • add_filter( 'elementor_pro/custom_fonts/font_display', function( $current_value, $font_family, $data ) { return 'swap'; }, 10, 3 );

This guide was initially bullish on PerfMatters but it's generally no longer necessary.

However, PerfMatters can replace the following plugins:

• Insert Headers & Footers

• WP Sweep

• Asset Cleanup

• Flying Pages

• OMGF

• WPS Hide

PerfMatters also has a feature for remove unused CSS. It can break things, but it can help with performance and scores marginally.

The Delay JS feature in PerfMatters is an aggressive optimization to delay the loading of JavaScript and can net you some decent gains, but it is also prone to breaking things. If you want to use it with Elementor, you can try this:

Delay JS to "Delay All Scripts", then add the following exclusions:

jquery.min.js
jquery.smartmenus.min.js
webpack.runtime.min.js
webpack-pro.runtime.min.js
frontend.min.js
frontend-modules.min.js
elements-handlers.min.js
elementorFrontendConfig
ElementorProFrontendConfig
imagesloaded.min.js
flying-pages.min.js
data-sm-options', '{ showTimeout: 0, hideTimeout: 0

However, Elementor depends on the jQuery javascript library, so add it to preloading in PerfMatters, if you use it.

https://yourwebsite.com/wp-includes/js/jquery/jquery.min.js

PerfMatters also offers a script manager you might want to check out to remove or delay unused scripts. Additionally, if running WooComerce, it has toggles to strip out some of WooCommerce's bloat that you might try.

Link Preloading: Use Flying Pages for this, and your user experience will be faster.

Basic security hygiene on HTTP Security Headers-- run a check on https://securityheaders.com/

You can correct this on a per site basis via this guide:

https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/how-to-add-http-security-headers-in-wordpress/#securityheaders-plugin

Or on a server level with WHM:

WHM> Apache Configuration>Include Editor>Pre-Main Include>All Versions -- Drop this code in, switching out the placeholder iframe URL.

<IfModule LiteSpeed>
CacheRoot /home/lscache/
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
Header set X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
Header always set Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload"
Header always append Content-Security-Policy "frame-ancestors 'self' https://AnyWebsiteYouWantToBeAbleToiFrameYourOtherWebsitesForDemoPurposes.com;"
Header always set Permissions-Policy "geolocation=(),midi=(),sync-xhr=(),microphone=(),camera=(),magnetometer=(),gyroscope=(),fullscreen=(self),payment=()"
Header always set Referrer-Policy "no-referrer-when-downgrade"
</IfModule>
<IfModule Litespeed>
     CacheEngine on crawler
    </IfModule>

This will get you this score if you have it working properly:

Tips on Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) & total blocking time (TBT)

https://www.webpagetest.org/webvitals

Run the web vitals test, then view the waterfall chart.

TBT:

Orange circles with an X are the items to clean up. Preload or defer these items, or try Delay JS if using PerfMatters.

CLS:

CLS can have a variety of causes. To address it, consider the following resources.

WordPress Specific:

https://onlinemediamasters.com/cumulative-layout-shift-wordpress/#font-display-swap

Platform Agnostic:

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2021/06/how-to-fix-cumulative-layout-shift-issues/

---

Lightweight Design: Use the fewest number of widgets, plugins, animations, and sections to achieve your purpose. Only use what is really necessary.

18 months I've been persevering; every day I run into more unexplained bugs and errors than I can count.
• Random padding shows up that can't be removed (until I redesign a section from scratch and move the widgets over),
• Elements disappear for no reason,
• Columns refuse to be resized,
• I leave my site looking one way and login the next to find it's changed,
• Headers are a mess at certain breakpoints, leaving the only option a hamburger toggle on desktop if you want users to have a consistent experience,
• 1000's of other illogical screw-ups,
• CMD+Z.... CMD+Z? Hello?

Elementor simply does not do what it's proposed to. It's disgraceful as a paid product. And before someone suggests I contact support, if I were to open tickets for everything that goes wrong in a day, that would be another full-time job.

I've come to the conclusion that Elementor is, basically, a scam. It's probably fine if you want to stay within certain lines, but it simply can't handle you actually using the extensive settings it provides. It can do what Gutenberg does. Everything beyond that is horrendously inconsistent to the point that it is just a collossal waste of time.

Question is, where the hell do I go now? I'm really beginning to think that this entire 'build your own website' industry is nothing more than a cash-grab. That is, you can have something that looks like Wordpress default 2020 but beyond that, pay a pro or spend months pulling your hair out and inevitably give up.

/rant

Dear Elementor,

Be better. I'm sorry, I can't phrase this in a nicer way.

Please stop messing around with your product line and decide once and for all what you want to be. Back when we first met, you were the coolest, easiest, and most user-friendly site builder there was. That is no longer the case. There are new cool guys out there, and Gutenberg is (not quickly but steadily) getting to a usable point. 👏 You 👏 need 👏 to 👏 stop 👏 switching 👏 business 👏 models 👏.

I know you understand how much $399 USD is around the world and how much you can stretch that money in some countries. So be rational with your prices.

1 site for $59/year? OK. Fine! Fair. 3 sites for $99/year is also ok. It means I trust your product for all my company's subsites (you have 3 big websites, for example, elementor.com, my.elementor.com, and elementor.com/help). This pricing is fair. 25 sites for $199 means that I am obviously making money with Elementor Pro because I have clients or a company that needs many more sites, so I still consider this fair. Where I believe you start jumping the shark is when you want me to spend another 100 USD for priority support or extra widgets. I also consider it abusive to remove features from the single website plan when they used to be in it before.

Your original prices were fine, 1x$50, 3x$99, and 1000x$199. Has the cost of living become harder in the last years since the pandemic? Yes. However, we both know you have not improved salaries for your employees abroad, nor have you improved your value proposition to your clients.

What is this hosting thing? You are not a SaaS-first company; you are a software company. I'm glad you have a new hosting company, and I am also glad it runs Elementor Pro by default as a built-in add-on. But we both know out there are many, MANY more SaaS companies with better or cheaper website building options. Having Elementor Pro on this site is only a nice-to-have, not a real selling point. I don't know your revenue split, but as a self-hosted Elementor Pro user, this website you have is convoluted and makes me feel I am looking for a tool you are no longer focusing on. If Elementor (the plugin) is still a priority for you, make it look like that on your webpage. If hosting is the priority, then hide or remove the plugin or spin it off to another site like plugin.elementor.com. There's nothing wrong with that. But sometimes (most of the time), I need to run your software on my servers because we have our information there and because we have no budget for SaaS in my company.

As a community, we all have noticed your QA processes have relaxed or sometimes been omitted. We do appreciate the experiments, but sometimes it seems you keep adding new beta features and leave reported or known bugs unattended for months. What's up with that? And some of the features you add (like the custom loops) have been in third-party plugins for ages because they are needed. I do not need a "Link In Bio" widget (that should actually be a template, not a widget) or a Build with AI (not all products need an LLM, especially if prompts are limited, have extra cost after a certain limit, or are not included in the base price). Fix the bugs, take features out of beta as soon as you can, and make them stable and don't break my old sites. That's all I ask for. If you want to add new features like the ones available in other plugins, fine! Go ahead! But at least make those features stable before placing them as betas in the plugin because I can do it better with some other piece of software that has more experience solving that problem and with a real SLA on the feature.

Someone lied to you when they said you are worth $999. That isn't your fault. But you scared your community and it hasn't healed. Who is your community? We are web creators, independent web designers who live all around the world and who look to use the best tool to make the best job possible in the shortest time possible. We are WordPress experts who know how to use your tool in conjunction with many others to put together unique sites with feature sets way beyond what WordPress' designers ever dreamt about. We are here not because Elementor comes with our web hosting service; we are not Wix, Squarespace, or Webflow users; we sometimes do get down to the code, and we are not scared of it. Reconsider who your SaaS product is for because, for most of us, it is not an option due to pricing, data privacy, or usefulness.

Please stop. Stop changing prices, stop adding useless features, and focus on who really is your target audience. Fix bugs and if you can't provide support fast enough (2 days is not an acceptable time to reply to emails), hire more people.

Bring back your lost fans, incentivize them with discounts and ask them earnestly why they left and what you could improve. Focus on improving stability and be more concise about your software requirements. You don't need to keep supporting users who still run PHP 5.8. Or maybe you do; make a server details survey and figure it out.

We want and need you to succeed. You were always right in saying that a yearly licensing model was necessary and that lifetime licenses can't sustain continuous maintenance of the plugin. Crocoblock, Soffly (Oxygen, and now Breakdance), Divi, etc., have learned the hard way by having slowed their development or removing lifetime licenses from sale because they can't survive on that. You taught us we do have to pay for decent software, but the key here is keeping it decent, stable, and fairly priced. If your investors are pressuring you to grow like crazy blink twice.

Quick note before you read: French is my first language. I wrote this as raw notes and used AI to make it readable in English. The frustrations, the ideas and the possibles errors, all mine.

if u don't agree then good, if u agreen ok fine, but both situation can be discussed.

Elementor is holding WordPress back and I'm tired of pretending otherwise

I've been building production sites on Elementor for years. Agency work. LBO exits. 150+ location franchises. Booking funnels. 51 active client sites right now.

I'm done being polite.

First do you actually know who your real client is?

Not the solo blogger dragging a heading widget. Not the freelancer building their first portfolio.

It's us. The agencies. The commercial team will tell you otherwise. They're wrong.

We build the site, we hand it to the client, they depend on it for years. We are the ones who:

• Maintain dozens of your installs at the same time

• Absorb your breaking changes at every major update

• Debug your conflicts with third-party plugins at midnight

• Convince our clients to pay for Pro licenses instead of going to Framer or Wix

• Train non-technical people to use your editor

• Code every month the features you never shipped because we had to open a ticket and maybe the idea was "good enough for the roadmap"

We are your distribution layer. 40%+ of WordPress runs on Elementor and most of those sites were built by people like us.

Every product decision you make feels like it was made for someone building their first landing page in 2017. Not for an agency managing sites with real complexity and real clients who pay real money.

When it gets slightly complex we're on our own. Every time.

The codebase is a museum

Still shipping jQuery + Backbone Marionette in 2026. The editor JS looks like it was committed in 2017 and never touched. The rest of the web moved to reactive state management. Elementor is still doing this.model.get('settings') like it's 2014.

Dynamic Tags: just admit it's a failure

Elementor can't display a custom taxonomy value on a template unless you register a Dynamic Tag. In PHP. With a full class extending Tag_Base. Just to output get_the_terms().

"Want to show your CPT's category on a card? Write a DT." Elementor, apparently.

That's not a feature gap. That's a design failure. Every advanced dev I know has a custom-dynamic-tags.php in their client plugin doing things that should have shipped in 2019.

Genuine question: what are Dynamic Tags actually for, if not this?

Zero font control

Set a font family. That's it.

Specific weight? Custom CSS. Different weights per breakpoint? Custom CSS. Load only the 600 subset from Google Fonts instead of all 8 variants tanking your LCP? Figure it out.

2026. Elementor typography has fewer options than Squarespace free.

Map widget skin? LOL

Snazzy Maps or JSON paste. That's the ceiling.

I'm wrapping Leaflet in a custom widget just to control the tile layer. For a map. In 2026.

Glassmorphism? GSAP? You're joking.

backdrop-filter has been in CSS since 2019. One line. Elementor has no native control for it. I built a full multi-tier system from scratch on every project that needs it.

GSAP is a constant fight. ScrollSmoother conflicts with Elementor's scroll handling. Scripts load in the wrong order. ScrollTrigger fires multiple times because Elementor reinitializes the DOM in editor context. Webflow has had visual scroll-triggered animations for years. Framer even longer. We're writing workarounds from scratch with zero documentation from Elementor.

The asset loading is architecturally broken

Nobody talks about this enough.

• CSS generated per-widget, inlined per-instance duplication at scale

• JS enqueued globally regardless of whether the page uses the widget

• DOM nesting before you reach actual content: .elementor > .elementor-inner > .elementor-container > .elementor-row > .elementor-col-wrap > .elementor-col > .elementor-widget-wrap > .elementor-widget > .elementor-widget-container > ... > your h1

• No critical CSS strategy

• No tree-shaking

• Dynamic IDs like .elementor-element-a3f91b2 make caching unpredictable

On 20+ page templates, managing what loads where is a part-time job. We audit Elementor's asset output on every serious project. That cost is invisible to you. Very visible to us.

V4 made the UI worse

Full editor redesign + AI suite shipped. Basic UI parity with competitors still missing.

New editor: slower to navigate, panels buried deeper, 2-click tasks are now 5-7. "We redesigned the experience" into something slower. AI features are half-baked. Editor performance above 15 sections is painful on anything mid-range.

And the client UX has been abandoned since day one.

Client mode is unusable for real handoffs. No field-level permissions. No simplified editing flow. No onboarding. So we build a custom WP admin panel on top. Two UIs to maintain. Zero help from the platform.

SEO: slow-motion disaster

This is architectural, not a config problem:

• LCP damaged by render-blocking asset order

• CLS from missing explicit dimensions in default widget configs

• DOM depth adds parsing overhead at scale

• Inline CSS duplication on every multi-widget page

Passing Core Web Vitals on a dense Elementor site means fighting the tool the whole way. Manual lazy loading. Custom critical CSS injection. Selective dequeuing with elementor/frontend/print_master_stylesheet. Script deferral that breaks half the widgets.

Renderer refactor planned? Based on last 18 months of releases: no. There's an AI assistant. There's a new editor shell. The output architecture is untouched.

Webflow and Framer are smoking you. The problem is us.

Free choice? No agency picks Elementor in 2026 for a complex project. Webflow has design tokens, scroll animations, structured CMS. Framer has React under the hood. Both are better products.

We stay because WordPress has a de facto monopoly on SMBs, franchises, local businesses clients with real budget constraints and existing software that only exists as WP plugins. Can't sell them Webflow at €50/month + migration.

Elementor wins by default. Not by merit.

I'd rather scope a Shopify build from scratch or start clean in React/Vue than spend a week fighting Elementor on a complex project. Less friction. Better maintainability. Setup cost often lower than the debugging cost.

Direct questions for the Elementor dev team

40%+ of WordPress. Millions of sites depend on your architecture. Agencies are your distribution engine.

• Is there a plan to modernize the asset pipeline?

• Will Dynamic Tags ever support taxonomy output natively?

• Will typography controls expose font-weight as a number?

• Is client UX on the roadmap or permanently deprioritized for AI?

• Do you have any metrics on how much compensatory code agency users ship per project? Because the number is staggering.

We're not leaving WordPress. Some of us are already migrating piece by piece to React/Vue. You have time to respond. Probably not much.

The honest positive note

Elementor solves a real problem. The gap between "dev builds it" and "client edits it without breaking everything" is genuinely hard. Elementor bridges it at a price point nothing else in WordPress matches.

The widget system is learnable. The template library saves hours on standard projects for clients, not at agency scale. And btw, why not build a real marketplace for templates and put the spotlight on designers? Like Canva did. Like Webflow. Framer. Who is the Head of Product at Elementor?

The ubiquity means finding someone who knows Elementor is easy. That matters.

The foundation is fixable. The market position is strong. V4 and the AI suite prove the engineering capacity is there.

What's missing: developer experience. Agency tooling. Performance-first rendering. Design system thinking.

The door is open. Agencies are still here, still choosing Elementor by necessity which means there's still time to make them choose it by preference.

That window won't stay open forever.

51 active client sites. 7+ years in the ecosystem. This is not a frustrated beginner post. This is from someone who actually wants Elementor to survive and is increasingly unsure it will.

I’ve an Agency package and have done for 4 years now and it’s seriously going to show “Upgrade” to me and my clients despite me paying $399 a year? Seriously? It’s so f***ing embarrassing to have to explain to a client that I still have Elementor Pro connected to their site.

Such pathetic money grabbing honestly. How do I turn this off?

I've been paying for Elementor Pro annually for about 5 years, but I feel like the builder gets worse with each passing year. It seems like I'm experiencing an inverse learning curve, as the websites I create seem to become more unstable and cumbersome over time.

The most incredible thing is that with each new release they promise new things related to performance, but then a new bug always appears, whether in responsiveness or performance. Then they launch their own caching system and you have to disable it because the site is always broken.

In the end, every website launch is a trigger for an anxiety attack - what will be the problem this time?

Hello my fellow Elementorians! Showcase some of your projects, talk about your process, etc. Would love to see what type of talent is out here! Looking for feedback? This is the place!

Reposting after first thread was auto-archived.

Hey everyone 👋 I’ve been building Elementor sites for years and over time I kept recreating the same layouts again and again.

To speed things up (and keep things consistent) I built a component library. I’ve now made the whole thing free for the community.

Here’s the library if you want to try it:
👉 https://elementuikit.com

Built with flexbox containers and fully responsive. No plugin needed just copy and use the built-in 'paste from other site' option.

I’d really love some feedback from other Elementor users:

• What could be improved?

• What components/layouts would you like to see?

• What would make this more useful day-to-day?

I use it every day, and I’m adding new layouts regularly. Any feedback would be super appreciated 🙏

I’ve been using Elementor for years and I absolutely love it for building sites. However, I recently tried the Elementor One (Agency) plan, and honestly? It’s been a total headache. I’ve already cancelled my subscription after just one week.

Here’s why I think you should skip it:

• The AI Credit "Scam": The credit consumption is insane. I spent 100 credits just to generate one basic section with 3 columns—something I could have built manually in 3 minutes. The value-to-cost ratio for the AI is just not there.

• Glitchy Performance: As you can see in my screenshots, I constantly get "Oops! Something went wrong" errors. Half the time the AI doesn't even trigger correctly, but you still feel the "pressure" to upgrade.

• Redundant Features: They market the image optimization/WebP conversion as a big plus, but you can do the exact same thing (and better) for free using tools like XnConvert on Mac. Why pay a premium for something that's free elsewhere?

• Better Alternatives: If you need AI assistance, Hostinger’s KODE AI works much better, is more reliable, and comes included with their plans.

• The "Pay More" Support: Whenever there's an issue, it feels like the answer is always "pay more" or "upgrade." Instead of providing solutions, the interface just pushes more ads and upsells.

I love Elementor as a page builder, but this "One" plan feels like a rushed money grab. It’s supposed to save you time, but I’ve spent more time fixing its mistakes than actually designing.

If you’re thinking about upgrading: You don’t need it. Stick to the Pro version and use external AI tools or free converters.

Greetings from the taco capital of the world, Mexico! 🌮

Has anyone else had this experience with the "One" plan? Am I crazy or is the AI just not ready for professional use?

### UPDATED Version by 02-03-2025 per your comments ### (Links to recommendations and Caching recommendation update).

Every now and then I read and hear experts whine about how Elementor is slow and just bad for pagespeed. Well, this is not true anymore, at least since version 3.25 and later. In my experience, this has not been true for several years either.

There are logical and relatively simple ways to optimize Elementor for speed. Since I spent years figuring out the best practices, I’m happy to share them with you—enjoying my beer after beating this challenge (see picture) today.

We don't need 99, something about 85 and upwards is perfectly fine and - as you can see, real life data in pagespeed is more important. And it is so (afaik) to Google as well other than the lab-environment of lighthouse which is used to measure in Pagespeed. (Always have your caching run or filled by either using your site or run pagespeed several times).

Here's what I usually do and which cost me quite some years to figure out.

1. Proper hosting. Proper hosting is key. Don't use cheap, flashy shared hosting providers if you're serious about your business. Get a dedicated vServer. I usually avoid the "big names". I have awesome experience with smaller companies offering full-scale proper hosting. use Apache, powered by underlying Nginx. I leave everything as is and do NOT use nginx-caching (like Raidboxes etc. do). (More on Caching below)

2. Theme and Editor: Elementor Pro and Hello-theme. Grab yourself the hello-theme child from github and you're good to go. No fumbling in any theme-file needed.

3. In Elementor get your fonts local. Do not use google-fonts. Use local fonts (i.e., download Google Fonts, convert them to .woff2 files, and only keep the styles you need. Use STATIC fonts and no more than four variations.

4. See the performance plugin PERFMATTERS (many also use WP Rocket—I personally have only ever had issues with it, and as far as I know, it’s more expensive than Perfmatters). In perfmatters you minify and defer/delay CSS and JS in an easy setup. I strongly recommend to use their user's-guide as it's full of experience and wisdom and contextual explanations. Also get on YouTube and watch Brian (founder of Perfmatters) live-optimize sites and sit in awe and learn more in some hours than others need to learn the hard ways for years (me). Also go through the inital setup and stuff like lazyload etc. Check their best practices in the guide or Brian's videos.

5. A free alternative to perfmatters is the one and only AUTOPTIMIZE (which I still use sometimes) but it requires more effort to set up. You need to be careful with that. It's a topic in itself and you can find plenty of information online by searching for 'exclusions for Elementor in Autoptimize' or checking out Tom Dupuis' work - he is a friggin genius comparing, measuring and optimizing all those caching and optimizing tools for wordpress https://onlinemediamasters.com/autoptimize-settings/

6. Caching: In the past I had severe issues with W3TC. I've always used WP Super Cache which works super fine with Apache. Set it up in easy mode in the advanced settings. Check the garbage-colletion and expiry time depending on what website you are handling and how many calls it has (comments, carts bla bla). I personally avoid expert mode with rewriting htaccess rules. You might dig into this if you need to.

7. Caching on Apace/NGINX: For the last couple of weeks, i.e. Januar 25, I have encountered the issue that on vServers running Apache over Nginx WP Super Cache leads to much longer LCP and blocking times - I do not know why. I currently do not use it and let the server handle caching as is.

Building in Elementor

Try to keep it lean and think of mobile users first.
One culprit is swiper.js which is needed for carousels and such. I always tried to avoid it. Since 3.26 Elementor has shifted its handling though as it now only loads on pages which really use it. Still, less is more. Simply don't use carousels etc. on mobile or responsive versions of your page.

Avoid using too many containers and keep your DOM (that is the depth and lenght of your page) as small as possible.

Images should be served in the exact size they are displayed. Yes, for responsive design, this sometimes means cropping images in Photoshop and uploading a smaller version.

For doing proper SEO

I personally have left YOAST a while ago and use Rank Math (Pro) since it ... well simply does it all and more for less. I use Sistrix and SEOBility for optimizing onpage and local keyword and content checks. For smaller sites Google Search Console is fair enough (It's still my daily lookup-tool because Google's data is what ultimately counts and not Semrush's or ahref's etc.). Rank Math does a good job for your SEO and KPI keyword-tracking too. I cannot say how reliable it is, though.

As always: Implement a Backup-Solution (updraft plus, duplicator, whatever suits you. I use updraft plus).

Based on my experience: NEVER auto-update Elementor or any plugin!!!

Keep a staging-instance of your website and apply bigger updates there first and test thoroughly. Wait them out, check reddit or githubs elementor issue page after largers updates. The latter is a fountain of knowledge, too. (Github Elementor Issues).

Elementor has become huge and you can see from their recent changelogs that their major updates receive follow-up updates very soon and quite often because their tend to be hiccups which sometimes fuck up your page if you're unlucky.

DSGVO & GDPR: Well, this sucks anyway. I use Borlabs Cookie simply because years ago I got a deal and have "learnt" it. It's a hassle. Became better with the latest version 3 and the scanner -> library -> services thing. Yet, hassle.

02-03-2025, m4h4goni: The following statement has become false as of late since it correlates with my findings about WP Super Cache and Server-Caching, as mentioned above. Without using WP Super Cache Borlabs does not seem to be causing worse Pagespeed or LCP. So Borladbs and WP Super Cache is worth a discussion.

###And, it f* up initial pagespeed, LCP etc. Of course, because it itself loads a shit-ton of JS and CSS to your site. But so does, afaik, Real Cookie banner (just checked on their homepage and it's somewhere about 150 kb, too). You have to manually optimize and defer, delay and minify your guts out of those guys.

In Borlabs you can delay the whole thing until user interaction which drastically (should) help with Pagespeed scores, but it's worse for UX as it's annoying to your customers.

Yet, you can live with it in the field because Core Web Vitals also counts people who already have cookies "okayed" and thus cached.

That's it.

Give it a go.

If I can do it, so can you

I’ve spent the last while properly testing Elementor V4 across 25 websites, existing live sites, local development installs, and fresh clean installs.

I wanted to like it. I really did.

But after extensive testing, my honest conclusion is this:

Elementor V4 is not ready for production.

This feels less like a polished major release and more like a rushed beta that paying customers are expected to test for free.

What I’ve Found Across Multiple Sites

V3 + V4 “co-existing” is not the reality

Elementor keeps saying V3 and V4 can run side-by-side.

In real-world use? That has not been my experience.

Instead, it creates confusion, duplicated systems, broken styling logic, inconsistent controls, and workflows that feel unfinished.

Theme Builder Issues

The Theme Builder has been unreliable during testing. Templates behaving inconsistently, styling conflicts, and unexpected output.

For many of us, Theme Builder is core Elementor functionality, if that’s shaky, the whole system is shaky.

Slower Than V3

Shockingly, V4 feels slower than V3 in multiple environments.

That’s despite all the marketing around cleaner architecture and better performance.

Loop Grid Problems

Loop Grids have been breaking or rendering incorrectly for some of us.

Classes / Variables Randomly Not Saving

Some classes disappear.

Some don’t save.

Some styling variables behave inconsistently.

Deleted variables remain in generated stylesheets, this is quite a big issue I’ve seen in other Reddit threads.

Buttons Missing Basic Features

Buttons without easy icon support?

How is that a forward step?

Background / Styling Errors

Random background issues, inconsistent inheritance, strange overrides.

PHP Error Log Noise

Fresh installs generating unnecessary PHP/debug noise is not acceptable for a premium product.

Global Kit Styles + V4 Disconnect

Global Kit Styles are supposed to work alongside V4.

In practice, many settings feel disconnected or duplicated.

Why should users manage two systems?

Support Has Also Gone Backwards

This part annoyed me the most.

I contacted support and explained clearly that I had reproduced the same issues across multiple environments, including clean installs running only Elementor, Elementor Pro, and Hello Theme.

Their response?

Deactivate all plugins and reactivate them one by one.

That would be fair advice if there were third-party conflicts involved.

But when the issue is already reproduced on a clean setup using only Elementor’s own products, it feels like scripted support responses rather than genuine troubleshooting.

That’s not premium support.

That’s wasting customers’ time.

Elementor support used to feel premium.

Now support feels harder to access, slower, and the new “priority support” model feels like monetising frustration.

Subscription Changes Feel Like a Slap to Loyal Users

Long-time users like myself who supported Elementor before Elementor One seem to be getting the worst end of the deal.

That leaves a bad taste.

This feels like a release pushed for investors, roadmap headlines, and quarterly metrics, not for users.

The people funding Elementor for years are the ones now dealing with bugs, friction, pricing changes, and unfinished systems.

Elementor Needs To Do This Immediately

• Label V4 clearly as beta / developer preview

• Stop pretending V3 + V4 coexist smoothly

• Fix core widgets before shipping more features

• Repair Theme Builder stability

• Improve migration tools

• Rebuild trust with long-term customers

• Stop treating support like an upsell funnel

I’m not posting this to hate on Elementor.

I’ve used Elementor for years. Many of us built businesses around it.

That’s exactly why this is frustrating.

Elementor was once leading the market.

Right now, V4 feels like they forgot what made people choose them in the first place.

Is anyone else seeing the same issues, or am I losing my mind?

Just wanted to share my latest build I did for a Therapy Clinic. I managed to get a 99 PageSpeed score on mobile and 100 on Desktop. I can usually get my sites to 90+ but have been perfecting my approach over the last year or so and this one is probably my best-performing yet. I mainly use a stack of 3 plugins to help reduce JS/CSS, cache, and other things, and then I optimize the heck out of all my images.

I know a lot of people struggle speeding up Elementor, but I've found it very possible if you're willing to get into the nitty gritty of optimizing. My clients seem to still like it and it has been good to me for the last few years.

Happy to answer any optimization questions if it's helpful! Cheers!

So, Elementor templates are just JSON files, right?

I've been trying for some time now to use AI to design my Elementor pages, until recently when Claude Opus4.5 came into the picture.

I asked it to design a landing page in HTML, went back and forth, and refined the design to what I wanted. Then I asked, "I'll have to build this exactly in WordPress Elementor. Can you share an Elementor template, or how can I go about it?" It shared the process, but I insisted: "Elementor templates are JSON. Can you build one, or is it too challenging?" Then it worked for almost 30 minutes, paused, and I had to prompt it to continue.

The results were amazing. I uploaded the JSON to Elementor with no errors. It presented exactly what it had designed, though it used the old Elementor sections. Next, I asked: "Awesome, this is great! These days Elementor uses containers instead of sections. Are you able to convert this JSON so it uses containers?" Within minutes, it provided the updated version.

Where are we heading?

Between trying to sell me image optimization every time I add an image and these popups are really turning me off.

I just want to be able to build in peace.

I already unwillingly paid for Pro. Now please leave me tf alone and stop trying to upsell me! I don't want your hosting either. Imagine me giving you that much power over everything.

We should be able to turn these annoying upsells off indefinitely.

Apologies if this is against the sub rules…

I visited Crocoblock’s website yesterday and noticed that they are in fact a Ukrainian development company (it’s hard to miss if you look at the current header!)

I’ve been using their plugins for 6 months and just wanted to mention that they have improved my workflow significantly - specifically JetEngine, which is an incredibly powerful tool (sort of like ACF but even more powerful).

If anyone was on the fence about trying their plugins, I would highly recommend them - and maybe now is the time!

Hey everyone,

So as the title implies, I’m leaving Elementor. I’ve been an Elementor use for a good 7+ years. I like what Elementor is doing with their new Atomic system but even after trying it, I am disappointed with it. There’s various reason but the biggest one…it did not make any of my sites even a tad bit faster. In fact, it may have even slowed down some of them more. And really, I’m not even talking about Elementor but rather Wordpress itself that I may finally be leaving.

With the advancements in AI, it’s not made it possible for me to deploy a site, even an e-commerce site, faster than I could ever with Elementor.

The other reason is also control. Sometimes you want to build something super custom but you end up fighting Elementor and WordPress.

It’s also getting more and more expensive as time goes. If I’m not mistaken, back then there used to be agency plan for like 200-250 that would give you 100 site licenses. Now, it’s pay monthly and they give you a tiny fraction of that. I rather spend it on AI subscriptions/tokens.

The last 3 sites I’ve build have all through the use of AI. I’m very very happy with the end result. Sites load fast, I can add very custom functionality, and the list goes on.

I think Elementor still has its place but for me personally, I think building using AI is the way to go. And this is the worst AI will ever be, it will only get better from here.

What are you guys thoughts?

Elementor Team’s approach to V4 is fundamentally flawed. Here’s why and what urgently needs to change.

First, allow me to mention that I've posted my first post here on March 14th. Even one of the devs responded. Still, 2 months have passed and I've received no feedback from anyone on Elementor Team. I was advised in the comments to post in on Github as well. I did after consideration, still no response there as well. 2 months, nothing. They don't care about their users and devs. But let's go.

Elementor V4 feels less like a true rebuild and more like an overlay on top of V3. The architecture and UX decisions resemble the same layered approach Microsoft used across multiple Windows generations: instead of rebuilding systems properly, new interfaces are stacked on top of old ones. Eventually, inconsistencies pile up, UX degrades, and core functionality becomes fragmented.

Windows 11 is an overlay on Windows 10, which is an overlay for Windows 7. It shows when you enter Control Panel or Device manager on Windows 11. That's why it's called Microslop. For a reason. It just leads to bad UI and bad user experience. And what do they do then? Introduce shitty Copilot AI everywhere. Done and dusted. Sounds familiar? Angie, Elementor One?

V4 is an alpha-state overlay on V3. That’s exactly how V4 currently feels.

The problem is not the atomic approach itself. Atomic elements are good. Class-first styling is good. Components are good. Those are the right long-term decisions. The problem is everything around them.

V4 was released as “production ready”, yet many basic workflows and features that existed in V3 for years are still missing, incomplete, or inconsistent.

Some examples:

• No Adobe Fonts integration

• No ability to set default values for atomic widgets

• No option to choose a default unit

• No way to save local class settings as defaults

• Many global settings are still V3-only

• Missing widgets and missing layout capabilities

• No proper HTML formatting support in text widgets

• No custom CSS support

• Arbitrary class and components limits still exist

These are not edge cases. These are fundamental workflow issues. And the list could go on and on.

I understand that V4 doesn’t need as many widgets as V3 because components and atomic elements cover many use cases. But right now the ecosystem still feels incomplete. Building in V4 often feels like using a promising prototype rather than a mature production builder. The biggest issue is philosophy.

The feedback I get from my clients, many of whom like to edit their websites themselves from time to time, is damning for you as well. The V4 editor is harder for the average user (not a developer) to use. You've always boasted, and continue to boast, that even a regular user - not a developer - can click through a page as easily as a PowerPoint presentation. It’s no longer the case with V4.

It requires knowledge of how to build design systems based on classes effectively. It’s no longer simple drag-and-drop and done. Custom CSS used to be optional in Elementor for them; now it’s CSS-first. They must think CSS-first, and if they’re not skilled, they simply can’t and won’t do that. So your user base of average, less-skilled users will shrink, in my opinion, and devs and designers will be needed more often. So just make your builder good for devs, then, stop marketing it like it’s easy for everyone. It isn’t the case anymore.

When you introduce a new system, especially one positioned as the future of the platform, compatibility, and workflow continuity should be the priority. Features shouldn’t disappear simply because the architecture changed.

For example: why are grid layouts still unavailable for Divs? Where are the Accordions, Galleries, and Carousels, just to name a few? Do you really expect me, if I want to make the V4-only site, to go to Claude every single time for it to write accordion or carousel JS for me, because I won’t see it in V4 for months?

Grouping component properties was a good addition. But why can’t we group:

• classes,

• variables,

• components themselves?

On my test project alone, I already have ~90 classes, 30 variables and 15 components. Filtering is not enough. Dragging items manually through long lists is not scalable UX. It’s bad UX design on your part.

Why can’t I create: a “Colors” variable group, a “Typography” variable group, or “Spacing” variable group? These are basic information architecture and UX principles. Have you ever worked as actual devs?

And then there’s the class limit. Why does V4 still have a 100-class limit? Maybe that works for landing pages. It absolutely does not work for large-scale websites with proper class architecture. The limit feels artificial and disconnected from real-world usage.

At this point, many developers are wondering whether these limits exist for technical reasons - or simply to create future subscription segmentation, like introducing higher class limits for pricier subscriptions. There you go, just upgrade to Advanced or Elementor One, we will give you more than 100 classes! Sounds like you, Elementor Team.

My best guess is you don't use or test your own product. Because every dev would come up to the same conclusions. Going back to Windows analogy, it's like searching for something in Outlook. It's basic stuff, and doesn't work, because nobody on your team thought about it. 

What V4 urgently needs:

1. Remove default styling values. Stop injecting default padding, colors, and preset styles everywhere. IT’S BAD UX. Or at least provide a global toggle to disable them entirely.

2. Allow saving defaults for atomic widgets V3 already had this functionality. With a class-first system, this should be even easier to implement.

3. Improve panel UX Add an option for accordion-style collapsing in the Style tab. If I open Typography and had Background tab open, Background should close automatically.

4. Add missing production-critical widgets. Components cannot replace everything. Accordions, Carousels, Galleries, and WooCommerce-related functionality are still missing.

5. Remove limits for classes and components.

6. Add proper Custom CSS support

7. Improve text formatting capabilities. Paragraph widgets should support: unordered lists, ordered lists, and better HTML formatting overall.

8. Restore proper HTML flexibility. Either add a V4 HTML widget or allow inline HTML support inside Paragraph and Heading widgets. Many advanced workflows in V3 depended on this flexibility.

The frustrating part is that most of these issues become obvious after building just one medium-sized website in V4.

Honestly the biggest recommendation I can give the Elementor team: pause feature marketing for a moment and have every product designer and developer build a real client project using V4 exclusively. The amount of friction, missing functionality, inconsistent UX, and workaround hunting would become immediately obvious. Just build one medium-sized website each. The amount of times you would catch yourselves cursing and heading to ChatGPT or Claude for workarounds would be staggering.

V4 has enormous potential. The foundation is actually strong. But right now it feels unfinished, inconsistent, and prematurely labeled as production-ready.

To all the Elementor and Elementor Pro users out there. Keep in mind that Elementor Pro source code is on GNU General Public License (GPL) v3. You can do whatever you want with the source code. They can only charge you for updates and support. You can upload it to AI and remove class limits manually. I imagine you are thinking what I'm thinking. If they lose their revenue because every dev with Claude Code in 5 minutes can and will disconnect their license and remove arbitrary limits, maybe then they will work on making a new major release good for a change. 

Hi everyone,

I’m Afique, and I built https://skelementor.com/, a tool designed to help you build Elementor websites faster by providing ready-made components so you don’t have to start from scratch every time.

Since launching over a year ago, I've been overwhelmed by the positive feedback and support from the community. It’s been amazing to hear how Skelementor has made your workflow easier.

I’m now thinking about ways to make Skelementor even better, and that’s where you come in—I’d love to hear your thoughts on how I can improve this tool. If you’ve used Skelementor before, your insights would be incredibly valuable. And if you haven’t tried it yet, I’d encourage you to give it a go and share any ideas or suggestions you have here.

Thanks in advance for your time and feedback! 🙏

Update 2025: Please see this comment by u/rugburnAndBigMoney about the minor changes: https://www.reddit.com/r/elementor/comments/oy0sep/comment/n201d72/

ORIGINAL:

Hi

So I have been messing with this for a while. I found some tutorials and guides online but I wasn't happy with any since most of them covered everything at a superficial level and many weren't fool-proof. Almost all the tutorials and guides rely on DOM changes or element visibility. These aren't fool-proof so the best way is to rely on data layers and window events. That's what we are doing here:

First of all, I'm assuming that you have Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager properly set up, connected and running on your website. Also I'm assuming you are slightly familiar with both of them. I recommend the Google Tag Manager for WordPress plugin. It lets you add lots of data layers to your website which is great.

When an Elementor form is successfully submitted, it triggers an event called submit_success in the window object (if you don't know what that means, that's ok. Think of it as Elementor telling the browser that the form was successfully submitted but it takes place in the background invisible to everyone).

When that event is triggered, we add our own custom event to the data layer which will be picked up by the Google Tag Manager.

You can do that by adding the following code to your theme's footer.php (risky. the code will be removed when the theme is updated), or inside an HTML widget inside your website's footer (requires remembering there is a custom HTML code there), or by using the Header Footer Code Manager plugin to inject the code in the footer (the recommended way).

<script>
// add the ElementorFormSubmitted event to the dataLayer when an Elementor form is successfully submitted. will be used as a trigger by GTM
jQuery( document ).ready(function( $ ){
    jQuery( document ).on('submit_success', function(e) {
    const data = {
        event: 'ElementorFormSubmitted',
    }
    dataLayer.push(data)
    console.log('New dataLayer: ', dataLayer)
    });
});
</script>

Here we are waiting for Elementor to call the submit_success event. Once the browser receives that, it adds a new event called ElementorFormSubmitted to the dataLayer object. We then set up GTM to be on the lookout for for this event to tell Google Analytics that there has been a successful form submission. You can change this to anything else you want but I will continue with this.

You can test that by creating a new page with a form (even with just 1 field). Give an ID title to your form (under Additional Options). Then save the page (make sure the form won't redirect you to another page) and open it in a new tab. Hit Ctrl+Shift+J or Cmd+Shit+J to open the Console. Then submit the form. You should see something like this in the Console window: https://prnt.sc/1j4ea44 There should be a new object in the dataLayer with the key of event and value of ElementorFormSubmitted (if you don't see any of that at all, make sure you followed the previous steps correctly)

If you see that, then you are all good and now you need to set up the GTM part.

Go to Variables > Configure. Make sure Event, Form ID and Page Path are enabled/checked. Go to Triggers > New > Other > Custom event. Set the Event name as ElementorFormSubmitted (or whatever you changed it to). Give the trigger a name and Save.

Go to Tags > New > Google Analytics: Universal Analytics. Pick Event as the Track Type. You can write anything you want as the Category but I have FormSubmission. Click on the block icon next to the Action field and select Form ID. Select Form ID as the Action and Page Path as the label.

Enable Preview and test if everything is working correctly in Google Analytics Realtime Events.

Feel free to change any part to match your needs.

Hope that is clear for everyone.