As a professional web designer, I have worked with Elementor and BricksBuilder (Bricks) for both personal use and client projects. Both have their own pros and cons, which I will mention later in another post, as BricksBuilder is releasing its 2.0 version and Elementor is rolling out a new page builder version with classes and IDs similar to Bricks.

The reasons I chose Bricks for my business website (binhnguyen.me) and this blog are as follows:

• I have a Lifetime License for Bricks, so that’s one less payment to worry about when running my websites.
• I’m currently learning to build sites with Bricks and design my own systems with classes and variables that can be reused in future projects. Working with Bricks and Advanced Themer helps me manage them more easily and export/import between projects.
• Bricks is currently the best solution as a website page builder that runs with WordPress, offering clean, optimized code output, which leads to faster page speeds. It has a huge community with forums and support (though not as responsive as Elementor’s support, in my experience; fortunately, most problems I’ve encountered can be resolved or figured out by browsing their forums and Facebook Group). Their page builder integrates seamlessly with WordPress.
• Bricks also integrates with JetEngine (for which I already have a license) and ACF (which comes with Advanced Themer). Combined with Bricks’ Dynamic Data, this allows me to build custom post types and create fairly complex websites. For example, the archives for my movies and books (reading and watching pages) on my blog use custom fields for each post type.
• Another small reason I chose Bricks (and one of the initial reasons that made me switch from Elementor to Bricks) is that it helps me become a better designer and developer. It encourages me to think in systems—how to style and structure the site with classes and variables—which, in turn, aids long-term maintenance from the design stage to the development stage. I’ve started to think more like a web developer rather than just a web designer. This seems to be the direction popular website builders like Webflow and Framer have been heading in recent years.

When I was working with Elementor, I would set my global styles for color and typography, but the rest of the site was mostly built using the page builder. This meant no global styles for sections; each section was built separately and had to be manually adjusted for each screen size to display responsively. Needless to say, making changes across the entire website was a pain and took a long time to accomplish. Even my earlier Bricks sites were poorly built, with inconsistent class styles and naming conventions. After lots of trial and error and research, the sites I now build with Bricks are more consistent, and the classes and variables can be transferred between websites with customization and tweaks to typography and color to fit the design. These improvements can be seen in my business site and the blog you’re currently reading, and I will continue to apply them to my future projects.

There are still many features and capabilities I have yet to explore with Bricks, as well as its integrations with other tools, especially GSAP and Bricksforge, which I’m looking forward to learning to level up my website animation game. I’ll update my learning journey on this blog, so be sure to follow if you’re interested. If you’re familiar with Bricks and have a tip or resource I can check out to learn and improve, or if you’re a fellow designer, feel free to send me any questions, or just say hi—I’d love to connect.

Talk to you soon. Thanks for reading!