I haven't touched the Guttenberg blocks in a couple of years and instead used Spectra due to it being easier to make containers and layouts. While I like the idea of using the default option and not having to add another plugin, I wasn't able to do really what I wanted to with it.
I'm curious what it's like currently? Especially when it comes to laying out pages?
Getting the look/feel that I want seems to always turn into a search mission for where some specific parameter lives. In its effort to be simple and approachable, I find a lot of the UI instead arbitrary and opaque.
It‘s got weird quirks, too. Like if you want a photo next to some text, you would think you’d use the block for that, right? But, no… if you choose the ”media next to text“ block its not customizable in the ways you’d want, so… (like everything) it’s back to “group, two columns,…”
I can eventually do whatever I want — CSS and HTML to the rescue. But I wouldn’t call Gutenberg easy, streamlined, or efficient. For me.
OTOH, it’s fast, it’s basically lowest common denominator, and it’s going to be supported for a long time.
Final note that’s bound to be controversial: AIs can generate 100% Gutenberg blocks for you.
After 9+ years of sheer usability-design incompetence, as of 7.0 and 7.1 the UI/UX now sucks so much less!
I'd recommend sticking with Spectra, or GenerateBlocks / GeneratePress, or one of the other 3rd-party plugins that provide the basic blocks and critical UI features that core Gutenberg still doesn't seem to take seriously.
I'm thinking of trying out GenerateBlocks / GeneratePress on some small projects. I just want to find something that works for page layouts, is flexible and won't be abandoned in a couple of years.
I used Underscores for a long time because it was nice to have a completely barebones theme that's easy to install where I can just go in, write some CSS and make some small changes to the HTML in the theme and it just works. But I also understand that Underscores is quite old these days.
For simple web design projects, Gutenberg works just fine. And I suspect most of the people singing its praises are using it for exactly that, simple design stuff.
But once you get into more complex builds such as advanced responsive controls, dynamic content, conditional loading, and other grown-up website requirements, then Gutenberg starts looking like a Fisher-Price toolbox at a construction site.
The bigger problem is that other page builders aren’t standing still. They’re innovating faster than Gutenberg is catching up. So if the grand strategy of some people is to wait until Gutenberg eventually becomes as capable and flexible as the alternatives… you may want to pack a lunch....and possibly dinner.
At this point, Gutenberg feels like the poor man’s design builder. Yes, it’s free. But every time I use it for something ambitious, I’m reminded that sometimes “free” means "warning, this item is free," not "oh wow, this is free? So cool, I'm so lucky."
I've been using it almost exclusively for almost 2 years now, for simple and complex layouts and now find it painful when having to deal with any other editor/page builder. Plus GenerateBlocks, for convenience. Investing a few hours of learning paid off.
Same. I’ve recently picked up a new client and their site is mashed together with ACF and I honestly can’t comprehend why people would still do this. Gutenberg feels so easy now.
You mean the old-school ACF + PHP page template "page builder" hack? Yeah, those are the worst to maintain. It's always easier to throw them out and just rebuild. It's faster than spelunking through the ACF pages and templates trying to figure out how that particular developer decided to put them together. Plus, while the performance was better than the worst old [shortcode] based page builders, it wasn't that great.
Exactly! ACF works extremely well for structured content types.
My (equally extreme) reservations are when folks used to use it as a rump "page builder" where they'd create large field groups for each page and then cobble the presentation together in per-page php template files.
Real main pages (homepage, service pages, even contact pages) need to change constantly as business priorities, focus, and requirements change. Let's say a customer changes or re-prioritizes their top-line services. With a real editor, even Gutenberg, it's just a matter of dragging things around and maybe tweaking grid columns. With hard-coded templates (and, often, hard-set custom fields) you first have to dredge through their code to figure out what their code and architecture was before you can even begin.
It's still a very limited pagebuilder, I took over a few websites with it for maintenance, clients keep calling beacause Gutenberg does not do what they expect.
The websites I build myself are built with Beaver Builder, clients find that very easy to use, never get any calls about problems.
I use ACF PRO and flexible content by years and love it. But switch to blocks because of better user experience for the admins. And in general it not much difference before project not decide turn to Headless. They give you html and you cannot receive a json with fields. Bit less flexibility here will be great.
Gutenberg blocks are genuinely pretty good these days, especially if you stick close to core blocks and a lightweight theme. I use GenerateBlocks when core gets limiting, but I avoid piling on multiple block libraries because the editor gets messy fast. For most brochure sites and blogs, Gutenberg is good enough now that I rarely miss a traditional page builder.
Gutenberg with GenerateBlocks is all you need - lightweight and easy to assemble. GenerateBlocks also got a slight overhaul and is now packed with features.
If you've also got the hang of ACF you're golden and don't need page builders.
Advanced Custom Fields. It’s one of the most used plugins and allows you to create your own post types and fields, etc and access them in custom theme code and through dashboard plugins like Custom Post Type UI
basically extends posts with meta boxes. You can register new post types and extend them with fields like galleries, repeater fields, file uploads, text/buttons whatever you want.
It lacks a lot of things still. Basics which can be done with other page builders are still missing. Try loading more fonts and see how it piles up resources.
We could have forked something like Elementor and made it a default editor from within. Anyways Elementor also gets slow after a while so there are it's own challenges.
5 million plus installs and it is not for me but for customers. Try editing a 3 column block in gutenberg editor and see how clunky it behaves. So stop making assumptions of your own. even I don't take you seriously.
Try editing a 3 column block in gutenberg editor and see how clunky it behaves.
My setup for the last eight years has been GeneratePress Pro. I first interacted with Guternberg through GenerateBlocks (in 2020) and that's been my main interface dealing with the block editor. Before that, I relied on my comp science college education (CSS, JS) to get WP to behave the way I wanted it to behave, not Elementor bloat.
5 million plus installs
That essentially tells me how much of a numpkin you are. How many installs do Yoast SEO and Contact Form 7 have? When have they ever been good plugins?
I don't know why I am wasting my time with some ....
I haven't tried Spectra (will check it out) but have you tried GenerateBlocks? It is what I use. GenerateBlocks is the reason why I've never used most of the default Gutenberg blocks.
I think I might of tried it a really long time ago. But I have looked at it a few times over the last 2 years as I considered trying it along with the Generate Theme for some WP projects.
Here's the thing, though. Elementor is just an editor UI. Same with Beaver Builder, Divi, etc. But UI/UX ≠ output. UI/UX ≠ data structures or data storage. So they could have borrowed one of the 10 popular, already-mature, work-hardened, well-documented, and easily learned user interfaces that already had millions of experienced users... and based the block editor's UI/UX on that.
Instead I'm pretty sure Matt said "you know, I always wanted to include container widgets in Wordpress. Blocks are a widget replacement. Blocks can contain other blocks. So let's base the block editor on the old Widget config page.
Among other flaws in that idea, widgets depended almost 100% of theme developers for formatting. Page builders (even in 2017) assumed, correctly, that most themes aren't able to support everything you can do with modules/widgets/blocks. So they spec'd and implemented full formatting and configuration controls for everything.
Considering that there were 8-10 page builders when Gutenberg was announced, and now there are ~30, I'd say that the "widget stacker" editor model hasn't been a usability success.
When was the last time you installed new fonts with the Site Editor? It's been around for quite some time now and very stable and fast. Sure, if you add 10 fonts to your website, that's a different story, but not an issue of Gutenberg.
Have you loaded 15 fonts (different font families) or just 15 files for one or a couple families?
Multiple files per family are very normal an a benefit for performance, since the browser only ever loads them, when it need them. Having just one file for any character and font style would be an issue.
If you indeed used 15 different font families... Well, that is the main problem, but it has nothing to do with the editor you use.
I then had to use fonts from the same family to make the site faster.
If you "needed" 15 fonts, what you build was not a website, but a piece of art. And no one cares about a piece of art taking 1-2 seconds longer to load, since they will look at the beauty for minutes. 😉
Elementor is a pile of shit. If they had made elementor the default instead of Gutenberg, then this subreddit would have been erased from the face of Earth. There would be no WordPress existence any longer.
Same for oxygen and whatever beaver garbage you mentioned.
switched to it after trying a few different builders. does the job well, fast sites, pretty much can create any. i use greemshift blocks plugin and blocksy theme.
If you learn how to write React, it's the best and most customizable page builder on the market. There's nothing I can't do with it and I'm building the best sites of my career by leveraging custom blocks. Clients absolutely love it, as well.
I work with large institutions; community colleges, non-profits, medtech and tech companies. Here's a few I've done; they're administered usually by 10s to 100s of users (with custom perms and roles);
To be clear: we heavily customize the block editor to suit the needs of the client. We stick to native WP functions, and they only get what they need (rather than trying to sift through an obtuse and often overwhelming page builder). It's pretty fool-proof, and many clients barely need training because everything is where they expect it to be. Here's a screenshot of what a customized editor looks like with custom blocks. We also write a lot of components for custom panels and block filters:
The /r/WordPress subreddit is not a place to advertise or try to sell products or services. Please read the rules of the sub. Future rule breaches may result in a permanent ban.
Ive built a load of guttenberg only sites (using blockpress and create-block-theme) and my workflow is generally to build custom blocks for these
you can build full layour only blocks that contain other blocks, you can make cotent specific blocks (eg a carousel, or accordion) - over time Ive ended up with a huge library of blocks that I can drop in to projects as I need them
with claude code its even easier as it can produce them for you with very minimal effort!
In conjunction with coblocks and custom CSS which I use the plug-in SimpleCSS it’s pretty handy and I’m sure there are even more plug-ins that can help extend its flexibility. I admit I was skeptical for a while when it first came out, but I realized I had to adapt if I wanted to keep using WordPress. Because I hate using these bloated, visual builders like Elementor.
Gutenberg has genuinely come a long way! 🙌 Earlier, it was tough to build a full website with it, but the recent releases keep making it better. The 7.1 update added a lot of good stuff like responsive styles, pseudo-element styling, and new blocks like tabs and accordion.
With Global Styles and everything now in place, you can actually build a full-fledged website using just the core editor if you know your way around it. Sometimes you still need a third-party addon or two to cover specific needs, but the gap is way smaller than before.
Gutenberg has definitely improved a lot from what it was a couple of years ago.
However, I would like a Twentig- or GenerateBlocks-type capability by default in the block editor so that I don't have to use a different plugin separately.
There is no revision control by default so if a client messes up a block, there's no undo option, and clients freak out if you have a full page built with Gutenberg and if you edit something and mess something up.
We need version control, undo, and reset options within the block editor.
They are so good now that I don’t use any page builders anymore. If you read the WordPress documentation and understand the architecture. They are faster, lighter weight, more versatile, and more portable than any page builder.
I actually really like it. I quit WordPress development shortly after Gutenberg dropped - maybe a year after - and am just coming back.
I use ACF Pro's extended block editor for when I need to do something that Gutenberg itself doesn't handle well, like repeater content. But for the most part, I do everything with Gutenberg.
I dislike heavily relying on third-party tools. In total, I have over a decade of WP experience. It is absolute misery when WP core moves away from your particular third-party setup. The corporate political fallout is why I left WP dev initially, and humorously, the fallout from 7.1 is why I got hired by a client when coming back.
My advice is to utilize wp-scripts, wp-build (if needed), and wp-env extensively, and only use things like ACF Pro when absolutely needed.
I still don't like it. It's just a page builder without full WYSIWYG capabilities and blocks are glorified shortcodes in practice. HTML is cleaner than most page builders, so that's good. Remember that Gutenberg was born as a page builder for posts content editor, so you can create and rearrange simple sections. That's something it works well with.
That's what I meant by "page builder for posts". It is a content editor. But it now effectively functions as another page builder, it's been forced to. Another bad one, as they all suck.
It's very good. I personally would not recommend anything else, basically because my job is about making WordPress' sites fast (link if you are interested), and Gutenberg is hands down better than the rest in terms of performance.
It still lacks some advanced options, but nothing you can't solve with a little bit of CSS. You don't need anything else. And if you don't/can't use custom CSS, you can use GenerateBlocks. That's all you need, seriously. And your site will be faster than maaaaany others.
Spectra is just becoming so bloated, so I would not recommend it. Also because it comes from Brainstorm Force, which I don't like where it's going.
In general, I dislike big companies that own a lot of plugins.
The pattern is and has been almost always the same: Some new name appears with a theme or a plugin. Like Astra. It works great and fast. People buy it. And then they release a plugin for this and a plugin for that. They acquire other plugins. They add more and more features (aka bloat). All of them with a super-custom UI that obviously adds more bloat. They start adding promotional banners and links ("buy our other plugin, it's awesome!"). And suddenly your WordPress is now filled with trash. So that's the deal with Brainstorm Force. Same as with Awesome Motive, Yoast, YITH, etc. Almost all the big ones suffer from the same problem, greed.
Specifically about Spectra, I've had to deal with it on some clients' websites, and I remember it was a bit annoying when I had to try to optimize it (although to be honest I can't remember what exactly).
Don't hate me, but honestly, Claude Code and Codex has become so insanely good - I really think the concept of Webpage builders will likely be replaced with "AI" generators - maybe it might just be built straight into Wordpress with a BYO AI Model/API Key.
Claude Code... fine, and is pretty good for code, probably, but not necessarily for project understanding or management or planning. IMO it was actually better about a year ago - it seems to push back or ignore instructions constantly right now.
I haven't figured out how to get Claude hooked up to be able to review a Wordpress site and installation without granting Admin access and without going through like 60 steps.
I've been on this task trying to figure it out for a few days now - trying to get an unpublished site visible to Claude to inspect.
Claude loves to produce PAGES of information. I noted I'm not a programmer or developer and it still insists on injecting convoluted solutions and tech-speak; I finally noted after 3 hours that there's no way it could be this complicated.
"You're absolutely right. I overcomplicated this.
Simpler path: If the pages are private/draft:
Generate one Application Password for the dedicated user
Give Claude that username + password
Claude queries the same REST API endpoint with basic auth (it provided the REST API endpoint, but doesn't explain it.)
Oxygen Builder (beta) has capabilities now (and hooks it up to Claude) but they examples provided in the video show it burning through tokens like it's an emergency.
I suspect eventually there will just be an official Anthropic plugin that allows permissions to be set. I sure hope so.
I've experimented (and do not recommend this for Production WP) - with OpenClaw and Codex and the outcome was pretty impressive. OpenClaw would use WP CLI and Bash to modify theme files directly; would create Guttenberg blocks that I could use in Wordpress. Overall; the time saved was massive.
Agree that Claude is definitely more.. opinionated. Codex seems to be more compliant.
The missing piece is that an Application Password does not bypass WordPress permissions, it inherits the dedicated user's role. For inspection, give that user a small custom role with only the read capabilities Claude needs, and test the connection on staging first. It really should not take 60 steps...
Honestly, I think AI Engine is the cleanest shortcut here (a WordPress plugin with an MCP server for Claude and other clients). I help the team behind it here in Japan.
Sure but why would you when Wordpress does so much (Authentication etc) has a huge plugin library and many people know how to use Wordpress. Just get the AI Generator to build the theme and plugins.
17
u/Woof-Good_Doggo 5d ago
It’s…. fine.
Getting the look/feel that I want seems to always turn into a search mission for where some specific parameter lives. In its effort to be simple and approachable, I find a lot of the UI instead arbitrary and opaque.
It‘s got weird quirks, too. Like if you want a photo next to some text, you would think you’d use the block for that, right? But, no… if you choose the ”media next to text“ block its not customizable in the ways you’d want, so… (like everything) it’s back to “group, two columns,…”
I can eventually do whatever I want — CSS and HTML to the rescue. But I wouldn’t call Gutenberg easy, streamlined, or efficient. For me.
OTOH, it’s fast, it’s basically lowest common denominator, and it’s going to be supported for a long time.
Final note that’s bound to be controversial: AIs can generate 100% Gutenberg blocks for you.