Are you looking to compare Elementor vs Divi vs Breakdance to see which page builder requires fewer add-ons?
Elementor, Divi, and Breakdance are prominent names in the WordPress page builder space, each offering unique features and capabilities.
Elementor and Divi are both mainstays in the WordPress page builder space, part of the older generation of software that originally introduced the idea of “drag and drop” to the WordPress web design sector.
Breakdance, a modern and highly optimized drag and drop builder, has taken the lessons of its predecessors and improved everything about the experience. From code architecture to performance and design options, Breakdance removes limitations while remaining easy to use for beginners and professionals alike.
Native functionality in website builders is critical as it determines the extent to which users need to rely on third-party add-ons. Native elements and features not only streamline the building process but also ensure better performance, security, and compatibility. In addition, needing to buy fewer third-party add-ons means lower cost, making a high-quality website building experience more accessible for all.
The purpose of this article is to evaluate which of these builders—Elementor, Divi, or Breakdance—requires more third-party add-ons to achieve a fully functional, high-performing website. By comparing their native offerings, we aim to identify the builder that provides the most comprehensive out-of-the-box experience.
Elementor Vs Divi Vs Breakdance: Built-in Elements
When selecting a website builder between Elementor vs Divi vs Breakdance, the range and versatility of built-in elements can significantly impact your design capabilities and workflow efficiency.
Let’s do an in-depth comparison of the built-in elements offered by Elementor, Divi, and Breakdance.
Elementor Built-In Elements
At last count, Elementor has approximately 106 built-in elements, which they call widgets (except in the case of theme elements.)
The elements are divided into three categories: Basic Widgets, Pro Widgets, Theme Elements, and WooCommerce widgets.
Basic Widgets
Elementor's Basic Widgets category offers essential tools for website building. Notable widgets include the Heading widget for creating text headings, the Image widget for adding and managing images, and the Button widget for creating customizable call-to-action buttons. Other important widgets include Text Editor, Video, and Google Maps, enabling users to embed rich content. These widgets form the foundation for building basic web pages.
Pro Widgets
Elementor's Pro Widgets category includes advanced tools designed to enhance functionality and design capabilities. Key widgets include Forms for creating custom forms, Slides for building image and content sliders, and Portfolios for showcasing projects in an organized layout. Other important widgets are Animated Headline, which adds dynamic text effects, and Price Table, useful for displaying pricing plans. These widgets enable users to create more interactive and professional websites with enhanced customization options.
Theme Elements
Elementor's Theme Elements category includes tools for displaying dynamic content and theme components. Key elements are Post Title for showing titles of posts or pages, Post Content for displaying main content, and Featured Image to show post thumbnails. Other elements include Post Excerpt for summaries and Post Navigation for adding links to previous and next posts. These elements facilitate the integration of dynamic content from WordPress themes into page designs.
WooCommerce Widgets
Elementor's WooCommerce widgets provide tools for integrating e-commerce functionality. Key widgets include Product Title for displaying product names, Product Images for showing product photos, and Product Price to display pricing. Other widgets are Add to Cart for adding purchase buttons, Product Stock to show availability, and Product Meta for additional product information. These widgets facilitate the creation and customization of online stores using WooCommerce within the Elementor page builder.
What’s Missing In Elementor’s Widget Selection?
According to our research, Elementor’s widget selection is missing several items that may be helpful when building a website.
For example, Elementor lacks multiple elements that would provide the ability to easily achieve advanced design effects, such as a “masker” element to shape its contents using an SVG, a scroll progress bar, image hover cards, and more. These can likely be built with custom code or attained via third-party add-ons. It should also be noted that Elementor doesn’t support the building of complex menus or mega menus without enabling experimental beta features. Elementor also doesn’t include an element for writing PHP in the builder.
When it comes to WooCommerce, Elementor is missing the ability to build custom product loops, which severely limits the ability to build bespoke WooCommerce stores. It also lacks a convenient way to insert WooCommerce shop filters.
Divi Built-In Elements
At last count, Divi has approximately 68 elements, which they call modules.
These elements are divided into three categories: Content Elements, WooCommerce Elements, and Structural Elements.
Content Elements
Divi’s content elements offer a variety of tools for creating rich web pages. Notable modules include the Text module for adding and formatting text, the Image module for inserting images, and the Button module for creating call-to-action buttons. Other important modules are the Blurb module for combining text and icons, the Video module for embedding videos, and the Gallery module for displaying image galleries.
WooCommerce Elements
Divi’s WooCommerce elements facilitate the creation of online stores by integrating WooCommerce functionalities. Key modules include WooCommerce Product Title for displaying product names, WooCommerce Product Price for showing prices, and WooCommerce Add to Cart for adding purchase buttons. Additional modules include WooCommerce Product Rating, WooCommerce Product Stock, and WooCommerce Product Meta, which help display product-related information effectively.
Structural Elements
Divi’s Structural Elements are used to organize content on a webpage. These elements include Sections, Rows, and Columns, which allow users to create complex layouts. Sections are the largest building blocks, Rows divide sections horizontally, and Columns divide rows vertically, providing a flexible grid system for designing web pages.
What’s Missing In Divi’s Module Selection?
Divi Builder lacks a few key elements that can make building modern websites easier.
For instance, Divi Builder has no built-in element for animated headings or headlines. This is a common effect on websites that can be difficult to implement without native support. Additionally, it’s missing some convenience items like a business hours element and a stats grid element, both of which can be built manually from fundamental elements, but having a pre-built option can speed up site builds considerably. Notably, Divi Builder does not include an element for building mega menus, which can be an extreme limitation for some projects. Divi Builder also doesn’t include an element for writing PHP in the builder.
While its stable of WooCommerce elements is robust, it does lack native support for custom product loops (e.g. Product Loop Builder) and does not have a native element for displaying WooCommerce shop filters, though this may be achievable via sidebars or shortcodes.
Breakdance Built-In Elements
Currently, Breakdance includes 145+ native elements.
These elements are divided into multiple categories: Basic, Blocks, Site, Advanced, Dynamic, Forms, and WooCommerce.
Basic Elements
The Basic category includes all of the fundamental building blocks you need for building a modern website. These include structural elements like Sections, Columns, and Divs. It also includes the basic elements you’d expect, like Images, Headings, Text, Rich Text, Links, Videos, and Buttons. It also includes a Grid element, allowing you to easily build CSS grid layouts.
Block Elements
The Block category is where things really get interesting in Breakdance. Blocks are elements that are composed of multiple parts. Rather than representing one individual element, Blocks represent a combination of elements. Blocks include things like Icon Boxes for displaying icons and text together, Image Boxes for displaying images and text together, Basic and Checkmark Lists for inserting beautifully styled lists into your design, and much more.
You’ll also find time-saver elements like a Stats Grid for displaying numerical stats, a Business Hours element, the Gallery element, a Social Icons element, animated counters, a Lottie animation element, and several social media-focused elements such as Facebook & Twitter embed elements and social share links.
Interactive elements also live here, giving you access to things like a Scroll Progress indicator, a Back To Top button, an Image Comparison element for before & afters, a scrolling Logo List, and much more.
Site Elements
The Site category is straightforward, giving you a few important elements for displaying critical portions of your site. These include the powerful Header Builder for building sticky, overlay, and normal headers, the WP Menu and Menu Builder, and a Search Form for enabling search on your Breakdance site.
Advanced Elements
The Advanced category features integrations and elements for users who want to get a bit more technical.
Here you’ll find the Content Toggle element, useful for things like yearly/monthly pricing table swapping, the Wrapper Link for turning any element into a clickable link, Advanced Tabs, Advanced Slider, Advanced Accordion, and more.
A notable inclusion in the Advanced category is the Code Block, which allows you to write PHP, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript directly in the builder. This blows the hinges off of any limitations, allowing advanced users to code anything they need that Breakdance doesn’t provide.
Dynamic Elements
The Dynamic category includes elements for displaying site data easily. These elements include the Comment Form and Comment List elements, facet plugin integrations (GridbuilderWP and FacetWP if you have them installed), Post Title, Post Content, Post Meta, Adjacent Posts, and more.
Notably, the Dynamic category includes the innovative Post Loop Builder. This element allows you to create completely bespoke loops of posts using Breakdance Global Blocks for the post template design. With this element, it’s possible to build beautiful dynamic lists of posts without any limitations.
Also included here is the Repeater Field element, a dedicated element for displaying repeatable fields from both Advanced Custom Fields and Metabox, two important tools in any advanced developer’s kit.
Form Elements
In the Form category, you’ll find the Forgot Password Form, Login Form, and Register Form elements. These elements allow you to insert user-facing WordPress forms anywhere in your design.
Also of note in this category is the powerful Form Builder element. This allows you to build contact forms and other types of forms without the need for a third-party form plugin. Breakdance’s Form Builder supports many types of forms, including conditional field display and multi-step form capability out of the box.
WooCommerce Elements
The list of WooCommerce elements included in Breakdance is exhaustive. Here you’ll find elements such as the Product Builder for bespoke product page layouts, the Products List element which doubles as a custom product loop builder, and many elements for the granular customization of most WooCommerce pages (cart, checkout, etc.)
Breakdance also includes a powerful and beautiful Mini Cart element, enabling you to display customers’ carts conveniently and provide a much better shopping experience.
What’s Missing In Breakdance’s Element Selection?
Breakdance’s element selection is robust and covers most bases. The only items you’ll find missing are often obscure ones to satisfy unique edge cases. Luckily, with Breakdance’s Element Studio (a visual IDE for developing Breakdance elements), it’s incredibly easy to modify an existing element to meet your needs or create a brand new element to do exactly what you want.
Elementor Vs Divi Vs Breakdance: Core Features
When evaluating website builders, the range of included features is a crucial aspect, as it directly impacts the need for third-party add-ons. Here’s a look at how Elementor, Divi, and Breakdance compare in terms of their built-in features.
Elementor Core Features
Elementor, like all of the other builders we’re looking at today, provides an ample baseline of features for building basic and advanced sites. There are a few areas, however, where some builders don’t provide enough (or any) functionality. Those gaps end up needing to be filled by third-party add-ons.
Let’s take a look at those areas for Elementor.
Conditional Element Display
Conditional element display allows designers to use advanced logic and dynamic data to determine when an element is shown. This can be used for basic things like displaying log-in/log-out buttons based on whether a user is signed in, or more advanced setups.
By default, Elementor does include conditional element display. Unfortunately, its integration with dynamic data is relatively limited, making it less useful in some applications. It also doesn’t include a PHP condition option, leaving you backed into a corner in cases where you need a custom condition or the built-in options aren’t sufficient.
Dynamic Data (AFC Repeaters & Metabox Cloneable Fields)
Repeaters, or cloneable fields, are a feature of third-party dynamic data plugins such as Advanced Custom Fields and Metabox. This feature allows you to create a static set of fields that can be cloned, or repeated, as many times as needed. This can be useful for allowing end-users to create lists that are then displayed on the front-end.
Elementor does not include support for repeaters or cloneable fields, which is a huge shortcoming if you’re building sites with dynamic data. By not supporting this, users who need to display repeater field data are left to rely on third-party add-ons.
Header Builder
Already briefly covered in the elements section, the Header Builder element is more of a feature than an individual element. A dedicated Header Builder gives you the ability to easily create advanced headers with functionalities such as sticky and overlay behavior built-in.
Elementor does not include a dedicated Header Builder. This means you must build your headers out of fundamental building blocks and use custom JavaScript or other complicated approaches to achieve sticky and overlay behaviors.
Mega Menu Builder
Mega menus are the most efficient way to provide site visitors with a wide away of navigation options, all while keeping the site clean and organized. A quality meta menu builder should be easy to use and flexible enough to cover any use case.
Elementor has an experimental menu builder feature, which can build mega menus, but it is currently an experimental beta feature which lends some doubt to its stability for use on production sites.
WooCommerce (Granular Cart & Checkout, Product Loop Builder, Global Woo Styles)
A high-quality WooCommerce integration included with your builder will save you hours and make you thousands over the long haul. This should include granular cart and checkout layouts, the ability to build 100% custom product loops, and an easy way to style your store without spending hours tweaking individual settings.
Unfortunately, Elementor’s core WooCommerce integration is lacking in these areas. It does not feature the ability to granularly layout your cart and checkout pages, it does not include a custom product loop builder and has no global styling options for WooCommerce elements and pages.
Divi Core Features
Divi also provides a sufficient set of features for building basic and advanced sites. There are a few areas, however, where some builders don’t provide enough (or any) functionality. Those gaps end up needing to be filled by third-party add-ons.
Let’s take a look at those areas for Divi Builder.
Conditional Element Display
Divi also offers a basic conditional element display feature, allowing you to display elements based on conditional logic. This logic can be used to show an element based on data from your site or the currently viewed user or page. It also includes some WooCommerce-specific conditional options, which is a big bonus.
Notably, Divi Builder’s conditional feature does not allow you to pull in arbitrary dynamic data to compare to, limiting its usability. It also doesn’t allow you to write your own PHP conditions directly in the conditional interface, which means you may get stuck in certain scenarios where the default conditional options aren’t sufficient.
Dynamic Data (AFC Repeaters & Metabox Cloneable Fields)
Divi lacks support for repeaters or cloneable fields from plugins like Advanced Custom Fields and Metabox. Users who need to display dynamic lists of repeated data must use additional plugins to fill this gap.
Depending on the types of sites you build, this can be a severe limitation. In some builders, you can overcome limitations like this by writing some code in a Code Block, but Divi Builder also doesn’t include a PHP code block element, leaving you stranded without options aside from writing your own integration or buying a third-party add-on.
Header Builder
Divi does not have a dedicated Header Builder. Users must create headers using standard sections and rows, and advanced behaviors like sticky or overlay headers require custom code, and third-party solutions, or may be implemented piecemeal using builder functionalities such as the default sticky behavior option.
Mega Menu Builder
In Divi Builder, there is no dedicated Mega Menu builder.
Divi has published instructions for creating a “mega menu”, but this involves creating your menu structure in WordPress using its default menu functionality and then applying special classes for styling. This process is less than ideal and far more limited than if Divi offered a Mega Menu builder element.
WooCommerce (Granular Cart & Checkout, Product Loop Builder, Global Woo Styles)
Divi’s WooCommerce integration offers more granular customization options for cart & checkout pages than Elementor, giving you a slight leg up on bespoke WooCommerce layouts.
It does not, however, include a Product Loop Builder, meaning bespoke shop pages and product lists are out of reach without additional third-party add-ons.
It also doesn’t provide an easy way to entire your WooCommerce pages and elements site-wide (Global Styles), making the customization process of your store more laborious than it would be otherwise.
Breakdance Core Features
Breakdance is designed with advanced functionalities that significantly reduce the need for add-ons. It includes extensive global styling options, dynamic data conditions, a robust form builder, and a comprehensive set of WooCommerce customization tools.
Let’s take a look at a few of these key areas for Breakdance.
Conditional Element Display
Breakdance features one of the most robust conditional element display features of any builder. It provides a vast number of conditional options, including WooCommerce-specific conditions for enhancing your WooCommerce store.
Of particular note is the easy integration of dynamic data into conditional logic rules, as well as the PHP Condition option, allowing you to write any PHP and return a true/false value based on the code to determine an element’s visibility. With these options, the feature is versatile enough to cover virtually any need.
Dynamic Data (AFC Repeaters & Metabox Cloneable Fields)
Breakdance is the only builder in this comparison that features first-party support for Advanced Custom Fields Repeaters and Metabox Cloneable fields, by way of its dedicated Repeater Field element.
The Repeater Field element is custom-built to facilitate the use of repeatable/cloneable data from these popular plugins, making it easy to render lists of data input by end-users in the WordPress back-end. This simplifies the building of directories, menus, and more to a large extent.
Header Builder
Breakdance’s Header Builder is a dedicated element for building modern, interactive headers and is something both Elementor and Divi lack.
While you can build headers out of fundamental elements when using Breakdance, the Header Builder offers some compelling features, such as automatic layout of elements, easy responsive behavior, overlay mode, and sticky mode.
Mega Menu Builder
Breakdance’s Menu Builder is the most versatile menu element out of all three builders, allowing you to easily build beautiful, responsive mega menus without any third-party add-ons.
As an added bonus, Breakdance’s menus are accessible as well, meaning less work when building WCAG-compliant sites.
WooCommerce (Granular Cart & Checkout, Product Loop Builder, Global Woo Styles)
Finally, Breakdance was built from the ground up to work beautifully with WooCommerce.
This is evident from Breakdance’s extremely flexible cart & checkout design options, allowing you to achieve completely custom layouts by rearranging individual elements on the cart and checkout pages.
Breakdance also features the Product Loop Builder feature, allowing you to build 100% custom product loops. Rather than being limited by whatever options are offered in the product list element, Breakdance allows you to turn off all of the default options and display a completely custom block instead.
Finally, Breakdance stands well ahead of the crowd when it comes to global styling. By taking a global-first approach to styling, Breakdance saves you hours. This is possible because of a single, centralized interface that allows you to style common elements across your entire site. No more opening and closing hundreds of designs and editing thousands of individual elements, just tweak one setting in one panel and all appropriate element styles will be updated. Breakdance includes these global styling controls for every aspect of WooCommerce and beyond.
Elementor vs Divi vs Breakdance: Which Builder Requires More Third-Party Add-Ons?
In comparing Elementor, Divi, and Breakdance, it is clear that Breakdance requires the fewest third-party add-ons due to its extensive range of built-in features. This makes it a cost-effective and efficient choice, especially for users seeking comprehensive functionality without additional plugins.
For developers, Breakdance offers advanced customization and dynamic data handling. Marketers will benefit from its superior WooCommerce tools and global styling options. Beginners will appreciate the intuitive interface and reduced need for add-ons, simplifying the website-building process.
Overall, Breakdance provides a superior value proposition, combining modern technology with an extensive set of native features, making it the optimal choice for a seamless and powerful website-building experience.