Beaver Page Builder - The Definitive Review and Tutorial 2019 - {COUPONS} Pros, Cons, & Comparisons.
The battle of the WordPress Editors - Does Beaver Builder live up to the hype?
The EntrepreneursGateway.com team have put Beaver Builder through its paces. If you want to know if Beaver Builder is the best WordPress Editor for you and your business, then you’ll love this Review.
Find out how it performs, and whether it’s right for you. An EntrepreneursGateway.com review you can trust!
Effectiveness
Beaver Builder manages all of the basics very well. However, if you attempt anything too technical, you soon run into a brick wall.
Cost
It’s not the most expensive of page builders, and the lowest plan is reasonably priced when you take into account the unrestricted usage on infinite sites.
Usability
The builder appears user-friendly, but that is mainly due to its limitations and simplicity from the outset.
Support
There are several credible support options available, including a Facebook group with over 6,000 active users.
We Like
- There are a good number of page templates in the library
- You can save the content sections and templates for reuse later
- It has a useful, intuitive user interface
- All their plans can be limitlessly used on any site
- It is easy to save rows and modules to enable reuse globally
- There are some excellent support channels available
We Don't Like
- It has limited customization and module library
- The overall flexibility of design is inadequate
- Continuous loading with every action
The battle of the WordPress Editors – Does Beaver Builder live up to the hype?
Currently, Beaver Builder is highly popular in the WordPress Editor category, and it’s because of this it’s a favorite for both designers and developers.
In this review, I will go into comprehensive detail covering all aspects of this page builder to determine whether it really does warrant its superstar status. In separating the Truth from the Hype, Does Beaver Builder take the WordPress editor crown?
Check it out:
Introduction
Currently, Beaver Builder is widely-used as a front-end visual page builder specifically for WordPress. It also offers dedicated themes as well as a recently added theme builder, which works in tandem with it.
Beaver Builder is different from other competitors, in that it holds a solid place amongst the developer-specific community. It offers the site builders, together with their clients, a firm platform from which to design and create websites, while avoiding the usual niggles.
So for this review, we will be looking at just the page builder as a standalone plugin.
Good, Not so Good and the Altogether Bad
So, I’m now going to share with you my experience of using Beaver Builder together with my likes and dislikes and see how it compares with the other alternatives that are on the market.
User Interface and Experience
The number one thing to consider is obvious. Is the editor ease to use? If not, why buy it! Everyone uses their PC/laptops differently, everyone thinks differently, and everyone has their preferences.
Let’s face it, you don’t want to spend hours and hours learning yet another software application!
Lets take a look…
When you first open Beaver Builder the overall impression of functionality is pretty instant.
For a page builder, it was reasonably intuitive, BUT it wasn’t exactly what I would call efficient.
Across the top is a horizontal bar that displays the Beaver Builder page builder logo with several buttons displayed vertically down the right-hand side – which I found was a waste of screen space.
There were issues with the sidebar that I didn’t like.
To begin with, the logo sits on top of the page and tends to cover any detail displayed on the far-right hand side.
For those who have larger screens, this shouldn’t be too much of a problem. However, I just found it annoying.
In my opinion, Elementor took a far better approach to this as you can see in the image below.
Secondly, I found this sidebar panel extremely rigid.
You can’t compress, resize or even move it over to the opposite side of your screen.
For me, this lack of functionality will either make or break any modern page builder, especially in the current competitive market.
There were more issues when I tried adding elements to the page. For most modules or elements Beaver Builder insists that you input specific information first.
So, for example, when adding a button, you are required to input its link URL before you can do anything else.
While I do understand that this information will eventually be necessary to enable the element’s functionality, there are times when all you want is to see it on the page and assess how it looks before you commit to anything.
To my mind, Beaver Builder should definitely develop a placeholder approach for all of the elements as standard – as Elementor does.
By doing this, users can focus on the particular visual aspect and not worry about any of the finer details straight away.
Module Library
In this section, you’ll discover how comprehensive Beaver Builder’s module Library is.
After all, you want an editor that is advanced and gives you choice.
So, let’s take a look!
The module library has a comprehensive collection of elements which you can utilize when building your page.
Included are things such as images, buttons, and blocks of text. Together with some more advanced things like sliders, accordions and pricing tables.
Beaver Builder offers all this as well as conversion elements such as the subscribe form, a countdown timer, and testimonial slider.
Overall, the builder covers most of the basics. However, it doesn’t progress much beyond than that.
For example:
- There isn’t a portfolio module
- There isn’t a module for a price list
- There isn’t a forms module
- There isn’t a module for a flip box etc
However,
To utilize any of these things, you have to use a third-party plugin, that will often break the ‘visual building’ feature of the page builder.
Furthermore, the actual modules are severely limited in aspects of the styling and the variation.
Let me show you what I mean.
#1: You can not add a drop shadow on the button element unless you use custom CSS.
#2: You can’t make adjustments to the ‘roundness’ of any icon unless you use custom CSS.
#3: You can’t even apply a straightforward border to any image without having to use custom CSS.
There is more, but the point is- it relies far too much on CSS.
To be honest, when it came to the styling options, I was hoping for a bit extra from Beaver Builder, given the run of the mill modules that they offer.
It’s not all bad though…
If you’re willing to spend a bit of money upgrading the module library, you’ll find a third-party add-on tool that you can use – The “Ultimate Addons for Beaver Builder.”
This little beauty inserts new modules (more than 40 of them and as many as 200 templates) right into your standard Beaver Builder Plugin with each having a multitude of design options.
There is an additional cost, but I think it is a worthwhile investment if you are already committed to Beaver Builder and find that you need that little bit extra.
Flexibility
Let’s be realistic…
Even with an amazing user interface together with an array of modules and widgets to choose from, at the end of the day none of it matters if you are unable to build what you want to build.
What I’m saying is that the page builder has to have flexibility.
With that in mind, I wasn’t overly optimistic about how Beaver Builder fares.
When searching different kinds of layouts, I found Beaver Builder’s row set up was, in fact, relatively stable and straightforward to use.
By using the global page settings and element settings to control the margins and the paddings, I could eliminate spacing with hardly any fuss.
Apart from that though, I kept finding myself up against a stumbling block several times.
Let me show you what I mean…
#1: You literally cannot manually change image size unless you use custom CSS.
#2: You cannot apply custom fonts unless you use CSS.
#3: You cannot define specific widths for the individual rows or sections without having to use custom CSS.
Seem familiar? Once more we appear to be dependent on CSS. Only now its limitations extend way beyond the modules.
It is unsatisfactory.
These page builders are not meant to depend on the users having to implement CSS to make them work, particularly with this amount of slack. Some would say it defeats the point in having a page builder at all!
Now unless you’re a CSS guru and don’t object to occasionally diving in deep, you will struggle to reproduce ideas and some design originality by using Beaver Builder.
So that you know… I performed the test below to see how efficiently Beaver Builder behaved when it recreated Trello’s homepage. This should give you some idea of the flexibility of the page builder during this real-life situation.
Page Templates and Content
In this section you’ll discover what templates are available in the Beaver Builder WordPress Editor.
Does Beaver Builders’ templates display your website’s dynamic content in certain ways so that your customers will keep coming back to your site again and again?
Let’s delve in…
If you depend a lot on templates, then Beaver Builder offers you a reasonable amount of selection in content structures and landing pages, to hopefully meet your needs.
Although the designs won’t win any prizes for aesthetics, they are sufficient enough in that they give a good foundation on which to base your page.
To be able to use any of the templates Beaver Builder has to have access to the whole page.
It will then finish up looking a lot like this, as standard:
The design is only extendable to any boundary that is implemented within your theme.
Sadly the builder does not offer any alternative to this problem. You will be required to install the plugin to be able to enable new options into the settings on your page template.
However, once it is up and running, it will certainly elevate the themes inbuilt boundaries, and that will allow Beaver Builder to fill the whole page with the desired content.
Finally, you can save your very own unique templates and reuse them later. This can be a critical element to think about if you produce an abundance of very similar content – it can be such a timesaver.
Additionally, you can save the sections individually from the design to reuse elsewhere on a different post/page or rows.
What’s more, you can save both modules and rows as specific global elements, allowing you the option of reusing them wherever you chose within your site, as well as editing them from a single central location.
This understated feature can be extremely potent, as long as you know how to use it properly.
Speed
This is one of the single most significant drawbacks when using Beaver Builder.
Nearly every process is slow and drawn out. Honestly, this severely tried my patience until I felt like I was wading through quicksand !!
Not good!!
When you drag any module over onto your page, it will present the loading screen, which may take anywhere between 2 to 5 seconds altogether to get there.
As if that isn’t irritating enough, the changes that you make to any of your existing modules will require loading as well.
Talking of making changes, this page lags even when previewing modifications within your editor window.
You might think a few seconds isn’t a massive inconvenience until you consider exactly how many individual actions it takes to build your page.
It isn’t only a couple it isn’t just a few dozen it’s in the hundreds!
Beaver Builder’s efficiency as a page builder is gradually diminishing and if they can just fix one thing – this needs to be it!!.
Support
For many of us, support can be a massive factor to take into consideration when choosing any software.
Things do sometimes go wrong, and you want complete satisfaction that your query is going to be dealt with both professionally and promptly.
You want to know what support channels Beaver Builder has so that they can help when it’s needed….right?
So how do Beaver Builder support its customers?
Beaver Builder rates their support highly, and from my personal experience, I don’t dispute that. Their email response relating to my query was swift and helpful.
They have a universal contact form for you to complete, where you find you will get a comprehensive response merely by posting through their forum for dedicated support.
Additionally, Beaver Builder’s community Facebook group has over 6000 members and is a further excellent support avenue.
You will get responses to questions within minutes, but you need to remember that any answers or advice on alternatives and workarounds will be from Beaver Builder consumers NOT the Beaver Builder support team.
Pricing
So, how do I rate Beaver Builder’s pricing plans?
Are you getting value for money? Is it fairly priced compared to its competitors?
Do they have a free version that you can check out first….try before you buy?
Let’s check it out…
Beaver Builder is not the most economical page builder but is not the most expensive either.
There is a free version, but it is (unsurprisingly), noticeably more limited, compared to the paid version. Therefore, I don’t recommend it.
If you are looking to go along the free route, then I would go for Elementor.
Initially, Beaver Builder may seem to be among the pricier options out there, but that’s not entirely true.
Keep in mind that even with Beaver Builder’s lowest level plan $99, you can install your plugin on limitless sites and with complete and absolute access across all of the plugins’ modules and set templates.
Note: If you don’t renew after 12 months, you can continue using the themes and the plugins, but you will not receive any of the updates or any support until you renew again
So, although some of the alternatives mentioned may look cheaper, you will find that not every one of them will offer the same flexibility. For instance, if you use the Elementor PRO on limitless sites, it will cost you $199.
Testing and Deliverability
Rebuilding Our Homepage
So, for every page builder that we review we thought it would be a good idea to recreate the already existing page using each of the tools.
This demonstrates a much more precise comparison showing the benefits of each tool and what it is. In practical terms- what is it actually capable of?
For this review page, we decided on our homepage, since it is a perfect example of the modern layout making excellent use of the different elements.
- Columns and Rows – I mentioned this earlier in the review that I like how strong the rows are throughout the build and how the widths of the columns are also simple to adjust.
- Spacing – To my surprise, I had no problem with the spacing, and I could eliminate all the margins away from global settings with no problem whatsoever. This made the actual build a whole bunch smoother overall.
- Resizing of Images – Here resizing options that are for the images are a pain. If I didn’t use CSS, there wasn’t any way that I could change the size of specific images, and this caused some major problems with certain aspects of the design.
- Content Containers – Beaver Builder completely lacks in containers that have adjustable width values. This forced me to have to apply right and left margins to just about every element – which was
- Custom Fonts – I have also pointed out in the evaluation that Beaver Builder does not offer you a solution to be able to format any custom fonts of your own on any given page. Taking into consideration how critical fonts are for your creative design, I feel this is a significant error.
- Font Sizes – Annoyingly you can’t dictate the font size that you want to use in the page builder. You need to select this from the drop-down menu instead, and that does not include exact values.
- Button Styling –I found this highly annoying. These buttons are entirely lacking in styling options, PLUS there wasn’t any way to get rid of the default border around each design.
- Link Colours –The link colors here were inherited down from my previous theme, which meant I was unable to match it to the style I was trying to recreate, without having to use custom CSS – yep, back to that again!!
#6 Is Beaver Builder - The Right Editor for You?
I have outlined all of the features as well as all of the functions of Beaver Builder. I’ve listed the good with the not so good and shared my experience.
So what do you think?
As always with any given tool, this Beaver Builder isn’t for all of you out there, so I’d like to determine precisely who this page builder would suit.
Budget Marketers
With its one-off cost including 1 year of updates and the support, Beaver Builder is not the most significant expense that you are going to come across when you are building your site.
However, that said, should you plan to upgrade in the not too distant future and want the facility to use the page builder across more than one site then it will probably be more economical to stay with the Beaver Builder tool.
Beginners
Without any question, Beaver Builder is simple to pick up and begin using.
So, is this the best page builder for beginners?
No, I wouldn’t say it is. Although it is undoubtedly a good choice, it doesn’t stack up against its latest competitor, Elementor which I find is much easier to use.
High-Level Marketers
If you’re looking for the most proficient page builder – this isn’t it. I definitely would not recommend using Beaver Builder as a standalone editor.
However, should you combine it with Ultimate Addons and plugins, together with some developer experience- it becomes a different story altogether.
All in all, from the perspective of this evaluation, Beaver Builder can’t be described as a top-level solution.
Compared to the other alternatives, I feel you would benefit more from using either Elementor PRO or Divi Builder.
Conclusion
Sad to say but in all honesty Beaver Builder does struggle to surpass its rivals against what has, in fact, become a highly competitive market over the past few years.
With the arrival of the newer page builders, for example, Divi 3.0 as well as Elementor PRO, which offers a much faster and feature-rich product straight from the box, it is infeasible to make a substantial case in favor of Beaver Builder.
As long as you have a reasonable knowledge and understanding for CSS and don’t mind investing in additional add-ons (along with plugins that will release the proper power for this plugin), then you will undoubtedly have an entirely different opinion.
For me though, as it is right now, it simply does not tick enough of the boxes, and fundamentally it isn’t the most comprehensive of page builders available on the market today.
Disclaimer
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Now, over to you...
Now I’d love to hear from you:
Are you going to purchase Builder Beaver or are you already using it?
Perhaps you started reading review this with the intention to buy, and maybe now you’re not so sure!
Feel free to leave a comment below and we can see if I can help…. or check out the other reviews like Thrive Architect or Elementor!
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