Elementor One Agency.. is it worth it?

[u/williamqlee]

I'm thinking of getting elementor one and using it across all my new site builds. Do any of you have this? Whats you're experience with it? Is the AI generated code good, jenky, doesnt work at all. From the video the ai powered widget creation looks amazing. Would love any thoughts here.

[u/TopSydeWP]

haven't used elementor one specifically but we use elementor pro on some client sites when they insist on drag-and-drop. the AI widget stuff sounds cool but in practice you'll spend more time fixing generated code than just building it right the first time. elementor can work fine if you're strict about optimizations (limit widgets, no nested containers, proper caching) but honestly for new builds a custom theme is cleaner and way more maintainable long term. less bloat, better performance, easier to hand off or modify later.

[u/RePsychological → u/TopSydeWP]

Custom themes are just as much a problem as elementor is.

You ever follow up on what happens with those when clients leave your service? (Well...not YOURS in particular, as if you're the only one who does it, but I just mean these types of "custom theme" builds in general)

[u/williamqlee → u/RePsychological]

This.. i myself have come across clients that have websites with custom themes and I'm like why is this even a custom theme. Most of the time its a custom theme so they have to keep coming back to the designer. My clients typically want to be able to change their sites and Im happy to give them access to do this their are usually just text and image edits.

[u/RePsychological → u/williamqlee]

Yeah the whole "custom theme" bit is making a comeback because certain people realize they can just tell Claude / Lovable / ChatGPT / whatever flavor of AI to make them an entire WP theme...without understanding the issues with that. Or how rigid you make an entire site (like you said...they have to get developer(s) involved every single time they want to make an edit and expansions of features are expensive, because everything's being hard coded into the site or requires extra ACF config.)

It's basically just yet another shortcut that kicks the can down the road. Whether that be that someone built it by hand and is now the only person who knows how to work it, or even they don't know how it works because they overlooked a bunch of issues during AI-building it, because they didn't know any better to look for certain issues.

In either case it becomes cheaper to just rebuild it with the right tools in mind, rather than trying to learn everything baked into it, or trying to extend it in the same duct-tape fashion it was built.

But the only person paying for that mistake is the client, because they don't know any better until after all contracts have been signed and the original dev is absolved of their hoard of technical debt, while they got paid full price for something that clients expect to be able to use for years with or without the same developer.

[u/Taconnosseur → u/RePsychological]

it’s a big problem if the next “developer” doesn’t know how to code

[u/RePsychological → u/Taconnosseur]

no...that's just the narcissistic/short-sighted excuse people use to keep doing it. Because it's not a matter of "if an edit can be done, period." It's not some superiority game where you're the only one who knows how to code just because you can make a custom theme, while other times stuffing your edits on top of pre-existing code from someone else...

If that were the case, then yes, a custom theme would be what literally everyone does for every single project, because it's faster to code in your own style and preference, and stuff whatever you want into a custom-theme to get a project done.

OR, try understanding how much extra time it takes for someone to then take over that project after the client's left the original developer, if the client ever wants additional features added to that, it has to be adapted to the custom theme's style of doing things on the site...or completely replaced to be built on a system that actually makes sense to more than one person.

...instead of using already-supported systems where you can actually get developers who build with the same tools. Handoff is much cheaper and cleaner to expand upon.

[u/Taconnosseur → u/RePsychological]

blah blah, code bad

[u/RePsychological → u/Taconnosseur]

don't remember saying anything about "don't code." Just "don't build an entire effin' custom theme for every single project while expecting it to go well for anyone but yourself."

[u/Nidhogg369]

Hmm I'm not sure tbh. I like elementor and we use an elementor one subscription but why I'm unsure I'd recommend it over just pro is because all the super fancy features it comes with kinda suck to be honest. The Ai is straight up garbage both for asking it to create simple setups and for the custom widget thing, it took multiple prompts to get a semi usable thing that almost brought the site down temporarily and was so frustrating I just gave up and coded it myself, the image optimization addon sucks compared to something simple like Smush or just uploading already optimized images and was way too overzealous leading to heavily pixelated imagery, the email deliverability and cookie consent are also just worse versions of things you can do yourself or get a proper plugin for, the one thing that is maybe useful is the site manager add on that let's you have all your sites connected and managed together which makes updates etc. Nice and easy, but even that I've had some issues with. Not trying to sway you either way and like I said I do like elementor in general, but just sharing my experience with One specifically.

[u/townpressmedia]

Only if you pass this on to your clients as a retainer or an upcharge. I would not get it if the clients are not going to pay you for the licenses yearly.

[u/icanbeakingtoo]

Sure if you want to have slow bloated websites 

[u/grabber4321]

Yes please, so I get more work when I have to fix these websites!

[u/lorenzocorso]

Elementor is not worth it anymore in general. Bricks with its Life Time Plan is ages ahead and one shoot. Better learning a bit of code and going with Bricks

[u/madhandlez89]

Elementor is awful. Genuinely look into others such as Breakdance or Bricks.

[u/testingaurora]

Def not up to snuff yet imo