Page Builder plugins are a great way to spruce up any WordPress theme and add extended functionality to the built-in WordPress WYSIWYG edition.
What is a Page Builder plugin & how does it work
Page Builder plugins allow you to visually layout and design your WordPress pages through a graphical interface. This makes it very convenient when trying to design a complex homepage layout for example. This page may contain columns, rows, images and possibly images.
Typically we design these type of complex layouts with shortcodes. This is OK if you are a seasoned WordPress user and understand all your theme shortcodes and their functionality. But, for your average WordPress user, this can be quite a challenge and confusing.
This is where the page builder plugins shine, they allow you to design the most complex of layouts in an interface that uses “drag & drop” technology. You simply place the elements, IE columns, rows and widgets exactly where you want them to display on the page.
In this article we will outline some of the top page builder plugins that you can use in your existing WordPress theme. Some of these plugins are free and some are premium which require you to purchase them for a small fee.
Free Page Builder Plugins
In this first section we will list some of the free page builder plugins that you can download and use.
Page Builder
Page Builder plugin
The Page Builder plugin is my favourite plugin and was developed by Greg Priday. It is very easy to install and use. The plugins allows you to build responsive page layouts using the widgets you know and love using this simple drag and drop page builder.
Features
Use Your Widgets
You know widgets. They’re the things you add to your sidebars. Page Builder makes all your widgets infinitely more useful by turning them into the building blocks of your pages.
We’ve included a few useful widgets, but it works with any that your themes or plugins add.
Works with Most Themes
Page Builder works with most well made themes. The only requirement is that your theme supports pages. And if your theme is responsive, change a few settings and boom, your layouts will work with your theme and collapse into a single column on mobile devices.
There are loads free and premium themes that work with the Page Builder.
Bundled Widgets
To get you started, we’ve include a few widgets:
Gallery widget for inserting image galleries.
Image widget for inserting standard images.
Self hosted video widget for embedding your own videos.
Post Loop to display a list of posts. This requires that your theme supports it.
As well as some essential page elements widgets:
Button
Call to Action
List
Price Box
Animated Image
Testimonial
Demonstration
Download the Page Buider plugin
Aqua Page Builder
Aqua Page Builder
Aqua Page Builder is a powerful WordPress plugin that allows you to create an unlimited number of template variations for use in your WordPress themes. It follows the same user interface used by the Menus & Widgets admin pages – making you feel right at home with the UI.
Similar to the Widgets & Menus, Aqua Page Builder features the drag and drop interaction to build its templates.
Features of the plugin include:
Highly intuitive, drag-and-drop user interface
Integrate seamlessly with WordPress admin interface
Compatible with WordPress Import/Exporter
Unlimited number of reusable templates
Highly extensible
Developer friendly with dozens of actions and filters
Demonstration
Download the Aqua Page Builder plugin
Page Layout Builder
Page Layout Builder
Drag and Drop Page Builder / Layout Builder / Content Builder for WordPress
Building custom WordPress page layout using Page Layout Builder is just as easy as drag-and-drop. You don’t need to run for learning HTML or finding a coder/designer to change a page layout.
Also you can directly use more than 3000+ widgets from wordpress.org to place anywhere inside your page content. No longer need to hang with build in sidebars with theme.
Included are all necessary modules like sliders, galleries, images, drop-down menu, progress bar, timeline, testimonials, message box, warning box, notification box, loop for custom post type, post loop with various templates, sub-pages, heading, regular html and many more to build a eye catching page layout or a complete theme just from a blank canvas within few minutes even without knowing or writing a single HTML code.
Do anything within your imagination. Yes, it is time to take control over your website and its content.
Demonstration
Download the Page Layout Builder plugin
Premium Page Builder Plugins
In this section you will find some of the premium paid page builder plugins that you can purchase and add to your existing WordPress theme.
Visual Composer for WordPress
Visual Composer for WordPress
Visual Composer for WordPress will save you tons of time working on the site content. Now you’ll be able to create complex layouts within minutes! It’s build on top of the modern technologies – get the best for your lovely website!
Have you ever noticed how much time you spend fighting with [shortcodes]? No more trial and errors with “shortcodes magic” – Visual Composer will take care of that.
Add columns/elements with single click, then use your mouse to drag elements around to re-arrange them.
Intuitive Drag and Drop Interface
Light, easy to use interface – you or your clients will love it. Creating pages/posts never been so easy. No programming knowledge required.
Easy Extendable
Third party developers please join the party! Create your own plugins for Visual Composer for your themes or for sale here on CodeCanyon.
Object Oriented Code
Visual Composer is using best programming patterns to get best results for your site.
Multilingual Ready
.po and .mo files included for easy translation (DE, ES, PL, BR, RU, FR contributed by users included).
Template System
Copy or reuse existing pages. Save templates for later use.
Responsive Grid
Your content will look good on both desktop and mobile sites.
WordPress User Access Support
Administrators can control what elements are available for certain user groups.
Custom Post Types Support
Works with any post type… Yes, custom post types works too.
Demonstration
Purchase the Visual Composer for WordPress plugin
Fast Page Layout
Fast Page Layout
Fast Page Layout – WordPress Page Builder
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This is a WordPress plugin for page builder. It is simple and quickly to build your page with the Drag & Drop Interface.
Features:
Cross browser, supports Chrome, FireFox, Safari, Opera and IE8 +.
Based on Bootstrap 2.3.2
Create your without knowing JavaScript, html5 or css3.
Drag & Drop Interface
Shortcode support.
12 Columns Responsive Grid
Insert your designed to a WordPress page or show your whole page on browser’s full screen
Set the background color or image
Enable customize your own CSS
Enable customize your own CSS
Compatible With WordPress 3.6
Help HTML File included.
Component List:
Headings
Paragraph
Form
Label
Input Text
Password
Text Area
Check Box
Radios
Selects
Multiple Selects
Horizontal Form
Address
Blockquote
Unordered Lists
Ordered Lists
Description
Horizontal Description
Table
Button
Image
Icon
Button Dropdowns
Button Group
Pills
List
Breadcrumbs
Pagination
Labels
Badges
Hero Unit
Page Header
Thumbnail
Alerts
Progress Bar
Media object
Tabs
Nav Bar
Modal
Accordion
Button Accordion
Carousel
Demonstration
Purchase the Fast Page Layout plugin
Content Builder
Content Builder
Content Builder is a great WordPress tool that allows you to freely create different types of layout greatly improving the functionality of the CMS and then giving you the chance to save great deal of time in managing and publishing content.
Features
Heading – five heading sizes allows you to define various content parts.
Rich Text Editor – gives you the possibility to make text much more attractive. You can add shortcodes like in basic editor also.
Divider – helps to separate different content parts.
Image images can be uploaded or selected with native WordPress media window. If sizes are changed, material will be re-sized automatically.
Video – no more difficulties with embed codes. All you need to know is YOUTUBE or VIMEO address.
Google Map – it will take a few minutes to apply Google Map on your site. All you need to know is address or coordinates.
Layout five different layout combinations let you fully combine your content. With only one click you are able to choose layout which is best for you.
Tab – if long content is planned, there is a possibility to use TAB widget, which helps you to save space on the page.
Gallery – can be created easily by adding just the pictures you want. Widget will re-size and create thumbnails automatically.
Demonstration
Purchase the Ether Content Builder plugin
ByTomi Layout Builder & Shortcode Generator
ByTomi Layout Builder & Shortcode Generator
It works on pages and posts with any theme.
Features
Tabs
Content Slider
Social Share Bar
Pricing Table
Box
Widget Area
Image (With 4 Image Styles)
Gallery
Author Bio
Skills Bar
Label
Blog Post Grid-Line
Dropcaps
Social Icons ( On Text tab in classic content editor )
Columns (Only for content type fields) ( On Text tab in classic content editor )
Tooltip ( On Text tab in classic content editor )
Raw ( On Text tab in classic content editor )
Text Block
Paid Downloads (PayPal)
Google Fonts
Contact Form
Post Box
Grid Blog Posts Module
Google Embeded Docs Frame Module
Separator (Divider)
Logo
Paper
Video
Testimonial
Slogan
Image Slider (Nivo Slider & BxSlider)
Buttons
List
Toggle
Demonstration
Purchase the Layout Builder plugin
UberGrid – Responsive grid builder for WordPress
UberGrid – Responsive grid builder for WordPress
UberGrid is a powerful responsive grid / gallery builder for WordPress that will impress your visitors with stylish grids built in minutes. You can use UberGrid to present your portfolio, team, products, photos, blog posts, or anything else that can be presented with square cells. Its unique customisability will adopt to almost any needs.
Features
Super-responsive with cell sizes adjustable to different screen sizes.
Killer feature – you can build a grid automatically using existing posts (including custom types) or products on your site. Choose post type, apply filters, and build the grid on every page load (or one time and modify it manually). WooCommerce-compatible
Cell filtering to represent departments, work types, etc.
Highly customizable cells – 12 cell layouts with 2x width and/or height support, different title layouts, labels below cells, etc – please see the demo.
Powerful responsive built-in lightbox with image, Google maps, YouTube, Vimeo and text support.
Third party lightboxes are supported too
Customizable … everything – spacing, border, block size, font name and size, images, colors. You name it – I will add missing ones.
Customizable on-hover descriptions with animation support.
Fast CSS3 animations and effects (when supported by the browser).
600+ fonts using Google fonts
No coding required
New in 1.4 Widget available
New in 1.6 Pagination support
New in 1.6 Whole grid cloning
New in 1.6 Compatible with themes those use on-demand ajax content loading
Great support
Demonstration
Purchase the UberGrid plugin
nForms – WordPress Form Builder
nForms – WordPress Form Builder
Features
Drag and drop builder. No coding knowledge required
Multi-column form layout (new feature)
Ajax-based form submission and validation. No page reloads.
All your data is stored safely in the database.
Responsive forms
Use forms in a Popup Box
Multiple File Uploader with progress bar. No flash needed.
Forms can be used through a shortcode, or added as a widget. You can also call the forms through a simple PHP function
Well documented
Excellent support
Demonstration
Purchase the nForms plugin
FormCraft – Premium WordPress Form Builder
FormCraft – Premium WordPress Form Builder
Illustrative List of Features
Amazing new fields (smiley rating, star rating, thumb rating, sliders, range, date …)
Over 23 fields, in all
Retina-optimized images for fields
Responsive forms
AJAX-powered form interface. Send forms without re-loading the page
Form validation
Auto-save form data for the end-user
Conditional laws to show or hide fields
File uploader with support for multiple files
Embed maps, videos and other widgets
Form analytics in WordPress
Different ways to show forms (popup, slide up, fly in, widget)
Drag and drop, GUI form builder
Get all submissions in your inbox
Access all submissions and uploaded files from the WordPress admin
Create multi-column layouts with the click of a button
Get all submissions in your inbox
Send auto-responders
Comprehensive documentation
Compressed form data
Dedicated form page
Integrations
MailChimp
MyMail – Email Newsletter Plugin
AWeber (coming up)
Campaign Monitor (coming up)
Demonstration
Purchase the FormCraft plugin
ProDesign | Responsive Interface Shortcodes
ProDesign | Responsive Interface Shortcodes
ProDesign is a responsive manageable organization of predesigned interface elements presented as shortcodes that can be used in any page/post or custom post types of any kind of WordPress theme.
Every single shortcode has many options to be highly customizable and meet the spectatives adjusting to any site. Also, the plugin has a shortcode manager to set options and forget the hard work of remember pieces of text that are used as shortcode attributes. Prodesign Uses FontAwesome Icons.
Most common options
Column Sizes:
Title Field:
Title Color:
Title Size:
Content Field:
Content Color:
Content Size:
Text Alignment:
List of icons:
Source of links:
List Of Available Shortcodes
Columns
Titles
Promobox
Featured Box
Promo Box
Icon box One & Two
Alert Box
News
HighlightDrk or Light
Divider
Demonstration
Purchase the ProDesign plugin
Elegant Themes – Drag and Drop Builder Plugin
Elegant Themes – Drag and Drop Builder Plugin
The Elegant Themes Builder is a plugin that provides some incredible tools for structuring the content on your page. The plugin creates a visual drag-and-drop canvas where you can add, arrange and re-size advanced elements on your page. This builder appears below the normal text editor when you create a post or page, creating a unique canvas for each. The builder allows to you quickly create columns, sliders, tabs, buttons, toggles, boxes and so much more.
ElegantBuilder comes powered by our intuitive drag and drop page builder. This module-based system allows to you build your page visually without ever having to touch a line of code or deal with a sea of messy shortcodes. Drag your modules onto the canvas and re-size and rearrange them quickly and easily with your mouse. You can create advanced layouts using columns and nested elements, as well as integrate widget ready sidebars and plugins. ElegantBuilder gives you a completely new set of tools for creating and managing your content.
Demonstration
Purchase the Elegant Themes plugin
Minimax – Page Layout Builder
Minimax – Page Layout Builder
Building custom WordPress page layout by using Mini-Max – Layout Builder is just as easy as dragging-and-dropping.
What you can do with MiniMax – Layout Builder Plugin:
Prepare a complex layout from your imagination simply by using the method of dragging-and-dropping
Use any theme without changing even a single line of code.
You can use all or any of 3000+ widgets from wordpress.org with minimax page layout builder plugin
Support custom modules like progress bar, timelines, sliders, galleries, drop-down menus and many more
Build sales page or squeeze page just within a few minutes
Custom widgets:
jCarousal
Heading
Accordion
Tabs
Sub-Pages
Styled List
Twitter Content locker
FB Like Content Locker
Google +1 Content Locker
Facebook Like Box
Social Activity Feed
Latest Tweets
Facebook Comments
Pricing Table
Call-to-action
Feature Box
Image Module ( Mosaic Effect – 10 different styles )
Image Module ( Hover Effect – 10 different styles )
Regular Image Module ( 4 different styles )
Google Map
Notice
Short-code
Loop / Post Carousel
Progress Bar
Nivo slider
Slit Slider
Parallax Slider
Demonstration
Purchase the Minimax plugin
Conclusion
As you can see from the above list, there a quite a few WordPress page builder plugins out there that allow us to extend the functionality of building our blog pages. Each plugin offers a different set of features and design structure.
I highly recommend you to check out the plugin demo’s to get a full grasp of what each of these plugins has to offer.
To view other great plugins available for your WordPress installation be sure to view our Plugins category.