This scenario is common on sites using WordPress’s basic search, which lacks features for a more dynamic, accurate, and relevant search experience.

Adding a plugin such as ElasticPress is an easy way to resolve this issue. It delivers faster, smarter, and more secure search for WordPress sites, keeping site visitors engaged and helping businesses achieve their site goals.

This article takes a close look at ElasticPress, exploring its features, configuration process, pros, cons, and pricing to provide a clear perspective on the value it brings to WordPress search and whether it’s worth the investment.

What is ElasticPress?

ElasticPress is a free WordPress search plugin that operates differently from other popular search plugins. 

Rather than integrating directly with WordPress's native search database, it connects to an external Elasticsearch server to deliver a more advanced search experience for users.

Conceptually, ElasticPress works by intercepting WordPress’s default MySQL database queries and routes them to the highly optimized Elasticsearch engine for faster, more accurate results. This enables near-instant search results, ultimately providing a superior user experience. 

The Elasticsearch server a user connects to can be either the managed search hosting service provided by the plugin developers or a third-party/self-hosted service. 

ElasticPress is a robust plugin that offers a range of useful search features, making it a top choice for WordPress users looking to improve site search. 

It is an ideal search plugin option for high-traffic, media-heavy, or content-rich sites where fast, advanced search features are non-negotiables. The next section explores some of its features in detail.

ElasticPress Core Features

ElasticPress caters to the search needs of both site users and site admins. Some of the top features it offers include:

Instant Results & Search Performance

Compared with WordPress’s native search, ElasticPress returns results up to 6x faster. This is because it routes queries through its dedicated search API, which bypasses WordPress’s default database.

When a site visitor submits a search query, a modal opens and displays search results from the ElasticPress API.

Ultimately, this reduces database load and maintains consistent search performance on a website, even during peak usage.

This feature is especially valuable for enterprise-level WordPress websites with large media and content databases that would otherwise be difficult for site visitors to filter through.

Content Indexing, Customization & Control

ElasticPress lets users index all their content, including private and unpublished content, to speed up searches across the entire website, including the admin panel.

The plugin also supports document indexing, which enables it to display file types such as ppt, pptx, pdf, docx, xls, txt, and more in search results.

After the initial content sync, ElasticPress automatically updates the index whenever there is a new post or an edit to existing content or products, ensuring the latest content is always reflected in search results.

Advanced Search Capabilities

ElasticPress includes an extensive set of advanced search capabilities that significantly improve a site’s search experience. These include:

• Fuzzy Matching: This feature helps site visitors find relevant results even when they have typos. For example, a search for “shrt” on a clothing store website returns all available T-shirts. However, this feature can be enabled or disabled only via WordPress hooks and filters.
• Autosuggest: ElasticPress displays real-time search suggestions that try to predict a user’s search intent, helping them find relevant results even faster.

• Faceted Filtering: With this feature, users can enable faceted search on their site and allow site visitors to filter by taxonomies, post types, post dates, and metadata. ElasticPress provides filter widgets and Gutenberg blocks to support implementation.

• Keyword Weighting: Users can specify how heavily each search field should be weighted in the search algorithm by assigning a number to each field. The higher the number, the higher the field's relevance score.

• Synonyms: This feature adds flexibility to the search experience, helping site users find relevant results even when what they enter in the search bar is not an exact match. The feature offers three options - Synonyms, Hyponyms, and Replacements. 

WooCommerce Integration

Designed for efficiency, even on robust WooCommerce stores, ElasticPress’s WooCommerce integration is another valuable feature. 

This feature enables site visitors to filter WooCommerce products more quickly and easily, regardless of the complexity of their search query.

It is ideal for WooCommerce stores with large or complex product catalogs and high volumes of simultaneous customer searches.

Admin Enhancements

ElasticPress also offers a couple of admin-side features that fine-tune search relevance and enhance search within the admin dashboard. These include:

• Faster admin searches as protected and unpublished content can be indexed, speeding up backend content filtering.
• Orders autosuggest to make it possible to find any order within seconds.
• Search result customization to promote or de-emphasize certain content for specific search queries.

Setting Up and Configuring ElasticPress

Now that the key features of the ElasticPress plugin have been outlined, it’s time to discuss how it is configured for use.

Setup Prerequisites

As previously mentioned, ElasticPress uses a hosted search solution to power faster WordPress searches. Therefore, a working server is required before installing the plugin.

Option 1: ElasticPress Managed Search Hosting

ElasticPress offers a managed search hosting service, built specifically for WordPress and WooCommerce, that integrates seamlessly with the plugin. 

They offer tiered plans with resource allocations based on site content and search volume. It is an easy option for users who want the simplest server setup for the plugin.

Option 2: Third-Party/Self-Hosted Server

For users who already have a third-party hosting service or prefer to self-host, ElasticPress offers the option to install and configure Elasticsearch on their server.

Self-hosting requires server administration expertise, so it is ideal only for developers with the technical know-how.

Setting up on third-party hosting services, such as AWS, also requires technical skills to configure the hosted Elasticsearch instance. However, the technical customer support teams for many third-party hosting service providers can also assist with setup for non-technical users.

Once the server-side configuration is complete, the next step is to install the ElasticPress plugin.

Installing the ElasticPress Plugin

The ElasticPress plugin is available for installation in the WordPress.org plugin repository within the WordPress admin dashboard. 

To install it, users can navigate to Plugins › Add Plugin and enter “ElasticPress” in the search bar. 

Once the plugin pops up, click Install Now › Activate.

Setting Up ElasticPress

To set up ElasticPress, go to the Plugins page and click Dashboard under ElasticPress to view the setup steps. 

First, set up Elasticsearch hosting by clicking Got hosting? Get started. On the Settings page that appears, choose the correct hosting service option for your setup, enter the details, and then click Save Changes.

Next, select and activate the features you want enabled on the site. 

Once the ideal features have been selected, click Save Changes.

The last step is to index the site’s content. Click the Index Your Content button to start the process.

All content on the site will be synchronized with the Elasticsearch server.

As soon as the process is complete, ElasticPress activates behind the scenes on the website, automatically rerouting all search requests to the Elasticsearch server.

Other ElasticPress Settings

Users who want to further customize ElasticPress to meet their unique search needs can explore the other available settings. 

Click Search Fields & Weighting to specify which fields ElasticPress should sync, whether to include those fields in searches, and how heavily to weight them in the search algorithm.

ElasticPress lets users set this up for Posts, Taxonomies, Pages, Floating Elements, Products, and Product Taxonomies. 

Another setting users can tweak is Synonyms. It lets them map different terms to the same content. There are 3 rules that can be configured on the Synonyms page:

• Synonyms: This lets users add all the variations of terms with similar meanings, e.g., “tennis shoes”, “sneakers”, and “trainers”.

• Hyponyms: Users can use this option to add parent and child terms that return different result sets based on the search query.

• Replacements: Users can add terms to replace incorrect ones. For example, the search term “flustrated” can be set to return “flustered” or “frustrated” as the correct replacements.

Common Setup Challenges (and How to Fix Them)

Due to the slightly technical nature of the ElasticPress setup process, users may encounter setup challenges. Below are a few common issues and how to avoid them:

• Connection errors: These occur when incorrect hosting credentials are entered during plugin configuration. Always verify credentials before adding them.
• Indexing failures: If server resources are insufficient or timeouts are too short, indexing issues may occur. Increase PHP memory limits and execution time to resolve this.
• Missing search results: This happens when certain fields are not included during indexing. Double-check the search fields' settings and re-index as necessary.
• Outdated results: When major changes or updates are made to a site without re-indexing, search results may be out of date. Run a sync to re-index content and fix the issue.

ElasticPress Pros & Cons

Pros

• Extremely fast WordPress search
• Integrates seamlessly with WooCommerce
• Reduces load on WordPress database and servers
• Highly scalable search solution
• Developer-friendly customizations

Cons

• Not a standalone plugin
• Requires technical know-how for setup
• Not beginner-friendly out of the box
• Hosting requirement is an added cost

ElasticPress Pricing

The ElasticPress plugin is free to download from the WordPress.org plugin repository. It has no licensing fees or restrictions, which makes it appear appealing as the ideal search plugin on the surface.

However, its setup requires search hosting, which comes at a cost. 

ElasticPress.io offers a managed search hosting service with 4 tiers:

• Engage: The most basic plan for beginners, priced at $31/month or $348/year.
• Essential: Priced at $79/month or $72.90/month, this cost-effective plan is for growing publishers and WooCommerce stores.
• Extended: Ideal for networks, larger sites, and agencies managing multiple customers, with a $299 monthly fee or a $3,228 annual fee.
• Enterprise: A private cluster offering for clients with performance-hungry internet projects, priced at $699/month or $7,188/year.

Users who choose third-party hosting or self-hosting will also incur server-related costs, even if those costs are slightly lower than ElasticPress’s managed hosting.

Final Thoughts – Is ElasticPress Worth It?

Whether ElasticPress is worth it largely depends on a user’s search needs. The plugin delivers exceptional search speed through its unique approach and offers many valuable features, even as a free plugin. These include advanced faceted filtering, seamless WooCommerce integration, and content-weighting capabilities, all of which make it a powerful option for improving WordPress search. 

Websites with thousands of posts, large WooCommerce stores, enterprise installations, and similar setups will benefit most from a plugin like ElasticPress, which is built to handle content-heavy sites.

However, its technical complexity and infrastructure requirements are not worth the investment for smaller sites with limited budgets. They are better off using alternative search plugins, such as Relevanssi and SearchWP, which offer comparable search features but are easier to set up and more cost-effective. 

ElasticPress— Frequently Asked Questions

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It often returns irrelevant results and hides custom content because of its outdated algorithm. Site performance also suffers because it is database-driven and not optimized for speed.

Ivory Search is a popular WordPress search plugin that enhances WordPress’s native search with advanced options to improve content visibility.

This article takes a deep dive into the Ivory Search plugin to explore what it offers users and provide an honest assessment of its value in making WordPress site search more seamless.

What is Ivory Search?

Ivory Search, formerly known as Add Search to Menu, is a freemium plugin that improves content visibility by offering advanced search options that enhance the default WordPress search. 

The plugin provides a straightforward, functional interface that lets users create unlimited search forms for different types of searches across site content.

The free version is feature-rich on its own and can be a good starting point for users whose search requirements are not too advanced. 

The pro version, on the other hand, caters to users with more specific search use cases, such as enabling site visitors to search for product SKUs, sort search results by posts, and search for media files.

Ivory Search is trusted by thousands of WordPress site owners and is highly rated in the WordPress ecosystem.

Ivory Search Core Features

This section takes a look at the core features of the Ivory Search plugin and how they improve content visibility for users. 

Unlimited Custom Search Forms

One of Ivory Search’s standout features is the ability to create unlimited search forms for as many use cases as needed. 

This ensures that every section of a website that requires search has a uniquely customized search form that returns tailored results to site visitors. This is unlike the default WordPress search, which uses a single site-wide approach.

For example, a search form can be created for a website's blog page and configured to index only posts while excluding pages. A separate search form can also be created for its WooCommerce products page, which only searches WooCommerce products and their taxonomies.

Search forms can be added to various parts of a website using shortcodes or the Ivory Search widget.

Advanced Search Scope & Content Types

Ivory Search indexes and searches a wide range of content types beyond WordPress’s limited scope of pages and posts. Users can configure search forms to look through:

• Post types, including posts, pages, and custom post types
• Taxonomies, including categories, tags, and custom taxonomies
• Custom fields and metadata, which is valuable for sites using ACF or similar plugins
• Media and attachments, such as images and doc files (pro version)
• WooCommerce products (pro version)

With Ivory Search Pro, search forms can also be configured to search by post status, authors, and comments.

Additionally, users can specify content to exclude from search results to better fine-tune search output. This is also great for conserving resources on content-heavy sites with lots of content to index. However, enabling too many content types simultaneously creates database bloat that slows down admin panel performance. You will need to carefully balance search comprehensiveness against server resource limits.

Inverted Index Search Engine + AJAX Live Search

Ivory Search uses an inverted-index search engine in addition to AJAX live search to deliver faster, more accurate results. 

The search engine represents a smarter way to index content in advance and organize and retrieve the data when it’s needed.

The difference between Ivory Search’s inverted-index search engine and WordPress’s native search engine is that, rather than querying the database every time a site visitor searches for something, it pre-processes and maps all indexable content and uses a structured reference system to retrieve the results.

This approach reduces the load on a site’s server during searches, so results are displayed much faster. However, building that initial index requires significant server resources. For sites with several thousand posts or products, the first-time indexing process can timeout on shared hosting plans.

For its AJAX integration, the plugin includes settings to configure how it works for each search form a user adds.

Intelligent Search Features

Ivory Search includes several smart search features that help make search results more accurate, so site visitors are not hit with the “no results found” error too often. 

These features include:

• Fuzzy matching: With this, users can specify whether search forms should return only results that include the entire search term or partial matches.
• Keyword stemming: When this feature is turned on, results will also include the base/stem words of a searched keyword.
• Synonym word search: This helps search forms find better results by adding common synonyms for popular search terms.
• Stopword configuration: Let users enter words that they do not want visitors to be able to search on their site.

Search Analytics Integration

To help users track site searches and better understand site visitor search behavior, Ivory Search includes a Google Analytics integration.

Once enabled, users must activate the Site Search feature in the Google Analytics dashboard so that search data appears in the “Site Search” report.

A few additional settings need to be configured to ensure proper setup. These are covered on the Analytics settings page. This setup requires leaving WordPress to view search data in Google Analytics. You cannot see what visitors are searching for directly from your dashboard, which makes routine monitoring less convenient.

Setting Up and Configuring Ivory Search

Now, it’s time to take a closer look at how the Ivory Search plugin works in practice.

Installing Ivory Search

The installation steps for the Ivory Search plugin follow the standard WordPress plugin installation process.

For the free version, go to Plugins › Add Plugin, enter “Ivory Search” in the search bar, and press Enter/Return. Once the plugin appears on the refreshed page, click Install Now › Activate.

Pro users can download the plugin ZIP file after purchasing a license, and then go to Plugins › Add Plugin › Upload Plugin › Install Now › Activate.

Creating A Search Form

After installing and activating the Ivory Search plugin, click Settings to open the Search Forms page. Here, users can create as many search forms as needed for various use cases across their website. 

Ivory Search provides 4 pre-designed search forms as templates for creating new ones without starting from scratch. However, users who want to create a search form without a template can simply click Add New Search Form.

The Search tab is open by default. In this tab, users can give their search form a title and choose which content to index and search using that form. Searchable content includes posts, pages, media, products, custom fields, etc. 

The Exclude tab lets users select which content to exclude from search results. Users can exclude specific content from any of the searchable content included in the Search tab.

The search form customizer is available in the Design tab. This enables users to customize a search form’s colors, text, and overall style.

AJAX Search can be enabled and configured from the AJAX tab. 

Finally, the Options tab is where advanced form options, such as the desired search engine, the order of search results, the number of posts per page, fuzzy matching, keyword stemming, and so on, are configured.

Once all tabs are configured, click Save Form to save the settings and make the search form ready for use.

Several search forms can be created for various use cases by following the steps outlined in this section.

Search Form Display Options

After a search form is created, configuring its display on the website is the natural next step. 

The plugin lets users display search forms in multiple ways. These include:

• Shortcodes: A search form’s shortcode is generated when the form is saved. It can be copied and pasted into any page, post, or custom post type on a website. 
• Menu display: To configure menu search, users can go to Ivory Search › Menu Search and select which menu locations or menus to display the search form.

• Widget placement: Users can add search forms to the sidebar or widget area by going to Appearance › Widgets from the admin menu, then adding the Ivory Search widget to the sidebar or widget area where they want it displayed.

Performance and Relevance Tuning

Keeping the search index lean and fast is one of the best ways to get the most out of Ivory Search. 

Navigating to Ivory Search › Settings › Index displays the settings for building and maintaining the default search index for a website. 

Users can enable automatic indexing so that newly added content is indexed. This ensures that site visitors are always presented with the latest and most relevant results for their searches.

It is important that users index only content that site visitors will find valuable to avoid a bloated index that unnecessarily slows down WordPress search. The smaller and more intentional the index is, the faster the plugin can return relevant results.

Ivory Search Pros & Cons 

Pros

• Functional user interface
• Unlimited custom search forms
• Support for most content types
• AJAX live search support
• Lightweight and performance-optimized
• Useful free version
• Integrates with popular plugins, themes, and page builders such as WooCommerce, Elementor, and Divi

Cons

• Lacks built-in analytics, requiring users to navigate Google Analytics separately to view search data.
• Relies on the WordPress Customizer for design changes, creating a fragmented workflow that requires switching between screens.
• Cannot index the actual content inside PDFs or documents, only filenames.
• Initial indexing can timeout on shared hosting when processing large content catalogs.
• Performance degrades noticeably once product catalogs exceed approximately certain items.

Ivory Search Pricing

As mentioned earlier, Ivory Search offers both a free and a premium version of the plugin. The free version includes all of Ivory Search's core search features and is available for download from the WordPress.org  plugin repository.

The premium version, on the other hand, includes advanced search features and is available in two plan tiers: Pro and Pro Plus. Both plans offer options to pay either once or annually.

Below is a breakdown of the available pricing plans:

Pro

Pro Plus

Ivory Search Pro features include ordering search results by posts, searching posts by a specific author, searching posts with a specific post status, and excluding posts with specific custom fields or metadata.

The Pro Plus plan includes features such as searching WooCommerce products by SKU, searching images, attachments, and media by specific file type, searching for the base word of searched keywords using Keyword Stemming, and excluding “Out of Stock” WooCommerce products from search.

Final Thoughts – Is Ivory Search Worth It?

Ivory Search offers a meaningful upgrade over WordPress’s native search by removing many of the limitations that cause irrelevant or “no result” messages. 

The plugin lets users index most content types and create unlimited search forms for unique purposes, which can be placed across various locations on a website. This eliminates reliance on the native WordPress search’s one-size-fits-all approach, which often yields irrelevant results.

The plugin is a good option for blogs, documentation hubs, and other content-heavy platforms where presenting visitors with accurate, relevant search results is key. However, for sites like WooCommerce stores, there are more specialized alternatives that better serve search needs.

Users should note that Ivory Search is not an enterprise-grade search engine. It lacks advanced features, such as built-in analytics tracking, PDF content indexing, and modern UI customization elements, that may be required by larger websites with more far-reaching search needs.

Overall, Ivory Search strikes a decent balance between power, performance, and ease of use. It is worth installing for faster, more reliable search results.

Frequently Asked Questions

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Most modern WordPress websites cannot rely on WordPress’s native search because it lacks the advanced search and filtering features needed to keep site visitors engaged.

FacetWP is a premium faceted search solution that makes content navigation easier and faster, especially on sites with large amounts of information, providing a more pleasurable search experience.

This article provides a thorough review of the FacetWP plugin, taking a close look at its features, setup, pricing, and pros/cons to explain how it improves search and filtering for WordPress users. 

What is FacetWP?

FacetWP is a premium WordPress plugin that lets users create faceted search filters and custom listing templates to enhance the website search experience. 

Facets are filtering UI components that make searching through pages like shop archives, listings, recipe pages, etc., much faster and easier. FacetWP includes a variety of filtering options (or facet types), including checkboxes, drop-downs, sliders, radio buttons, and more.

The FacetWP plugin offers a user-friendly interface for configuring filters. It uses AJAX-based filtering and an index table to eliminate page reloads and speed up search. 

With FacetWP, users with WooCommerce sites, listing sites, or even content-heavy WordPress blogs can better meet their site goals by making content navigation more seamless for site visitors.

FacetWP Core Features 

So, what makes FacetWP a top-tier search plugin option for users? This section explores the plugin’s core features to highlight why it is a strong option for advanced filtering and search in WordPress.

Multiple Facet Types

With FacetWP, users can choose from a variety of facet types to help visitors sort content on their WordPress website.

Most facet types are built-in, while a few are available only as add-ons. Below is a list of commonly used built-in facet types that FacetWP offers:

• Checkboxes: Lets users select multiple values from a list of options
• Dropdown: Lets users choose a single value from a list of options
• Radio: Generates a single-select list of choices
• fSelect: Generates a dropdown-style box that allows users to choose multiple options. It also includes a search box for faster searches.
• Hierarchy: Enables users to navigate through a hierarchical taxonomy
• Slider: Lets users narrow search results between two set number ranges visually
• Search: Enables users to search using keywords
• Autocomplete: Displays a search box that automatically shows search suggestions as a user types. Designed for searching short data items, such as names and SKUs. Not ideal for longer phrases.
• Date Range: Enables users to filter content by start or end date
• Number Range: Allows users to filter between a number range
• Rating: Lets users sort through products or posts by the selected average rating and up
• Proximity: Enables location-based search results

The add-on facet types include Hierarchy Select, Range List, Time Since, A-Z Listing, and Color.

FacetWP lets WordPress developers take things even further by enabling the creation of custom facet types. The steps for doing so are documented in the plugin’s Help Center.

Dynamic Facet Filtering

FacetWP uses AJAX to dynamically filter content, so results load instantly without requiring manual page refreshes. 

This feature not only speeds up the display of filtered results but also supports pagination. 

Instead of reloading the page to see the next set of results, site visitors simply click a “Load More” button or a page number (for standard pagination), and the next batch of results is immediately displayed. 

Listing Templates

To give users complete control over how filtered content is displayed, FacetWP offers a listing template feature. This feature is a visual builder that lets users create custom templates to control the HTML structure of results. 

With the visual builder, users can choose which fields to display for each item. For example, a user may decide to display the post title, featured image, and post content for a blog post listing. The layout can also be adjusted to include multiple columns and rows.

Additionally, a Query tab is provided that enables users to define query parameters to control which results are displayed in a listing and the order in which they appear.

Third-Party Plugin & Theme Compatibility

FacetWP integrates with most WordPress themes, page builders, and plugins to deliver an even more seamless search and filtering experience for users.

The plugin works with themes such as Flatsome, Listable, and Listify, as well as page builders such as Breakdance, Elementor, Beaver Builder, and Bricks.

For plugins, there’s a long list of supported options, including WooCommerce, Advanced Custom Fields, MetaBox, WP All Import, Yoast SEO, SearchWP, and Relevanssi.

The FacetWP developers are also transparent about incompatibilities and known plugin issues. This is a great resource for users who are unsure about the plugin’s integration with a third-party theme, plugin, or page builder on their websites.

Performance & Speed

Outside of AJAX, FacetWP also offers a caching add-on that stores its AJAX requests in the database. This feature can speed up high-traffic pages by preventing the plugin from recalculating each facet's choices on every page load.

Additionally, the plugin uses a clean, well-organized codebase, keeping it bloat-free and lightweight for optimal performance.

Developer Friendly

For greater plugin customization, FacetWP provides numerous hooks and filters, along with tutorials for developers. The plugin also supports shortcodes to place features anywhere on a WordPress website.

Setting Up and Configuring FacetWP 

Although FacetWP offers many features and settings that might be overwhelming for WordPress beginners and require reading the documentation to set up properly, the initial configuration process is quite straightforward.

Installing FacetWP

To install FacetWP, users must purchase a plugin license to access the plugin ZIP file. For those unsure whether they need the plugin, a free trial ZIP file is available for download and testing in local environments or on staging sites. 

Once the plugin ZIP file is downloaded, go to Plugins › Add Plugin › Upload Plugin, then click Install Now and Activate.

With the plugin activated, click Settings to open the plugin dashboard. On the dashboard, go to Settings › General, enter the license key provided at purchase, then click Activate. The plugin is now ready for use.

Creating A Facet

To create a new facet, users can navigate to Settings › FacetWP › Facets › Add New in the WordPress admin menu.

First, give the facet a descriptive Label that makes it easy to identify in the Facets dashboard. Next, choose the most appropriate Facet type from the dropdown menu. 

The Data source field tells FacetWP which information source to pull the data to be filtered from. Examples of data sources include posts (title, author), taxonomies (categories, tags), and WooCommerce (product type, price).

For example, an e-commerce store owner might create separate facets using price, product type, and product category as data sources to enable site visitors to quickly filter products.

Additional settings, including Value modifiers, Show Ghosts, Facet Logic, Sort By, Count, and Soft Limit, are available to further refine the Facet settings. These can typically be left at their defaults.

Click Save Changes once the key settings are configured, then Re-index to create the index table.

Creating A Listing Template

The next step is for users to create a corresponding listing template for the facet they created by navigating to FacetWP › Listings › Add New. The listing template controls how facet results are displayed on a website's frontend.

Give the template a descriptive name that will be used to generate a shortcode. 

The Display tab is where the template is designed. Here, users can add rows and columns that contain various display elements, such as a featured image, post name, product type, product brand, and more. 

Each element has styling options for colors, margins, borders, etc., on the right side of the screen. 

The Query tab is where the content that should appear in search results and its sorting order are specified.

A Dev mode option is also available to allow developers add custom PHP code that fully controls the listing template's output.

Implementing Facets on the Frontend

Once a user has created a facet and its corresponding listing template, the frontend implementation is straightforward.

Users can place them on the page they created to display filterable content using shortcodes, blocks, or page-building widgets. 

Once set up, site visitors can dynamically filter content without reloading the page with each filter selection.

Developers can also implement facets with code by using the PHP code snippet provided on the plugin’s documentation page.

Common Setup Issues + Fixes

Without the right setup, FacetWP may not work as intended, leaving users frustrated. Below are some of the most common issues users might face, along with ways to quickly resolve them.

• Filters don’t update the page: If filtering does nothing, the most common reason is that the listing template is not connected to that page. Facets and listing templates work together to display results, so users need to ensure they are connected to the same query for the filters to work as they should.
• Filters show no results: This often indicates that the filter is connected to the wrong data source. To resolve it, users need to double-check that the facet is linked to the correct data source that is also used in the listing template.
• Conflicts with third-party page builders or themes: Some themes and page builders override the main query, preventing FacetWP from detecting listings. The fix is to always use the FacetWP listing template or disable custom queries.

Generally speaking, users may find that simply re-indexing the data will quickly resolve most problems they might run into.

FacetWP Pros & Cons 

Pros

• Powerful faceted filtering with extensive facet type options
• AJAX integration for lightning-fast display of results
• User-friendly interface
• Integrates with many third-party plugins, themes, and page builders
• Developer-friendly with many hooks
• Excellent documentation and support

Cons

• Premium plugin (no free full version)
• Slight learning curve for beginners
• Only one listing template can be added per page
• Complex implementations require coding knowledge
• Limited default styling 

FacetWP Pricing 

FacetWP offers two pricing plans: Basic and Professional. 

The Basic plan costs $99/year and includes a license for 1-3 sites. The license allows users to filter post types, access 1 year of support and updates, access all official add-ons, and unlock a 20% discount on renewals.

The Professional plan costs $249/year for a 20-site license and includes all the features of the Basic plan, plus the ability to filter users.

Final Thoughts - Is FacetWP Worth It? 

After taking an in-depth look at the FacetWP plugin, including how it works, the features that make it so beneficial for WordPress search, its pros and cons, and its pricing, the question remains whether it is worth the investment.

FacetWP is undoubtedly a powerful filtering and search enhancement tool, making it a great option for content-heavy WordPress websites where site visitors need to quickly find the content they need. It provides a search experience that outshines native WordPress search and basic filters on many levels.

However, the FacetWP plugin is not a casual plugin. Its premium pricing and learning curve make it worth the investment only for website owners who really need advanced filtering to meet their business goals. 

The full feature set might be overkill for smaller WordPress websites or blogs with less content. Those types of sites could improve visitors’ search experience by using simpler, more affordable search plugins.

So, at the end of the day, FacetWP is worth it only for users who absolutely need its features. Users with smaller WordPress websites or who are on a tight budget are better off exploring simpler solutions before committing to FacetWP’s premium pricing.

Frequently Asked Questions

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For websites with content beyond posts and pages, this can be a real hassle as site visitors will not be able to find much content, resulting in a poor user experience.

A search plugin like Relevanssi remedies the shortcomings of WordPress’s native search functionality by adding features that take WordPress search from basic to powerful.

This hands-on review article takes a close look at the Relevanssi search plugin, exploring its key features and use cases to help users understand the plugin and decide whether it’s the right fit for their needs.

What is Relevanssi?

Relevanssi is a WordPress search plugin that replaces the default WordPress search with a more feature-rich search engine. Its core purpose is to deliver search results that are sorted by relevance rather than by chronological order.

The Relevanssi plugin gives users full control over how search works on their WordPress websites. It indexes content into a custom database table and uses a content-matching mechanism to return relevant results for each search query.

Relevanssi is available in both free and premium versions. The free version includes all basic features, while the premium version offers more advanced features.

Content-heavy websites, such as e-commerce stores, membership sites, and multi-language sites, would find the best use for a plugin like Relevanssi.

Relevanssi Core Features

Relevanssi offers several great features that supercharge the search experience for users. Those features are examined in detail in this section.

Advanced Indexing Beyond Default WordPress Search

One of the biggest downsides of WordPress’s native search is that it indexes only the titles and content of post types and pages. As a result, every other piece of content on a website becomes much harder to find.

Like most highly-rated WordPress search plugins, the Relevanssi plugin addresses this issue by indexing a broader range of content types, including:

• Custom fields - metadata such as pricing, SKU, and ACF fields
• Taxonomy terms - post categories, tags, and custom taxonomies
• Shortcode output - content generated by shortcodes
• PDFs - text extracted from uploaded PDFs
• User profiles - names and profiles of users on a WordPress website account

This means that site visitors will always be able to search a wider range of content and find the most relevant results quickly.

Relevance-Based Ranking Engine

The Relevanssi search engine prioritizes the weight (or relevance score) of various content elements to rank content most relevant to a user's search. 

The weighing system lets users assign numerical multipliers to different content areas. For any content element to weigh more in search results, it must be assigned a higher number. To decrease the significance of an element, a number lower than 1 must be assigned.

For example, an e-commerce store might assign 10 to “product titles” and 8 to “product SKUs” to ensure that exact product matches are displayed when a site visitor searches for either.

With Relevanssi Premium, users can take search settings a step further with AND/OR logic, letting them decide whether results should be displayed when all terms match or when any terms match.

Additionally, the plugin supports fuzzy matching and partial matching to make the search experience more accommodating for site visitors and reduce the “no results” frustration. 

Fuzzy matching ensures that results can be found for a search query even if it contains typos, while partial matching searches word “stems” and returns any matching results.

Search Behavior Features

Relevanssi offers several features that further refine search results so that site visitors always find what they need. These include:

• Phrase Matching: This lets users enclose phrases in quotes for exact matches. For example, a search for “Legal Services” on a law firm site returns content with that exact phrase.
• Synonyms: Users can link related or commonly misspelled terms to improve search results. For example, “sofa=couch”, “lorry=truck”, “SEO=Search Engine Optimization”, etc.

• Stopwords: Allows users to exclude irrelevant words from being indexed, reducing the size of a site’s database and making searches run faster. Some stopwords are already excluded by default with the plugin. Examples include “a”, “all”, “with”, “the”, etc. 

• Highlighting Search Terms: Relevanssi highlights any keyword matches that appear in the search results or on content pages. Users can customize the highlight color using CSS to match their branding.

Search Logging and Analytics

Relevanssi offers a search logging feature that records key details for every search query, helping users analyze searches on their websites.

The log captures the search query, timestamp, number of results displayed, and the user (if logged in). 

With the logging feature, users can easily identify searches that returned no matches and adjust their synonyms to ensure those terms match the appropriate content, if it already exists on their site.

Another useful application is identifying content gaps on a user’s website. For example, if many visitors to a WordPress tutorial site are searching for “make WordPress load faster,” but there’s no matching content for that phrase, users can create it.

Multilingual & Multisite Support

Relevanssi supports the WPML multi-language plugin as well as Polylang, and can search and display only content relevant to the currently active language. This way, a French visitor to a website, for example, sees only French content, while an English visitor sees only English.

Multisite indexing is also supported in the plugin's premium version. This lets users with multiple WordPress sites in a network search across all sites. 

A good example of this feature's use case is a university with multiple departmental sites. When a site visitor runs a search, the most relevant result from the appropriate departmental site will be displayed.

Performance & Index Management

To keep a user’s site performance at its peak, the Relevanssi plugin developer has provided transparent information on the database space required to use the plugin without performance issues. 

Users are advised to multiply the size of their wp_posts database table by 3 to estimate the space needed to prevent performance-related issues.

Another valuable feature for performance management is an exclusion setting that lets users exclude specific content, such as posts, categories, or post types, from being indexed and appearing in search results. 

For developers, Relevanssi supports command-line index management. This makes it easy to rebuild the index via the terminal, set up cron jobs to automate maintenance, and manage multiple sites more efficiently. 

Setting Up and Configuring Relevanssi

It’s now time to explore the Relevanssi plugin and how to set it up to deliver the most relevant search results to site visitors. 

Installing Relevanssi and Running the First Index

Since Relevanssi is a freemium plugin, it can be installed in two ways. 

For the free version, users can navigate to their WordPress admin dashboard and then click Plugins › Add Plugin. Search “Relevanssi” and click Install Now › Activate.

To install the premium version, download the .zip file after purchasing the license. Then go to Plugins › Add Plugin › Upload Plugin › Install Now › Activate.

Key Settings To Configure First

After activating the plugin, users can view all Relevanssi’s configuration options by clicking Settings on the Plugins dashboard page.

The page that appears is the Overview page, where users can enter their API key and follow the instructions in the Getting Started section to set things up.

The first thing to configure is the Indexing Tab. This is where users build their search index by clicking Build the Index.

Before the search index is built, the indexing options below should be configured. Relevanssi lets users choose which post types, taxonomies, comments, custom fields, excerpts, and more to include or exclude from search.

There’s also an Advanced Indexing Settings section that lets users set the minimum word length to index, control how punctuation is indexed, and choose whether post type archives should be indexed.

Once all preferred settings have been configured, users can click the Save the Options button at the bottom of the screen, then click Build the Index. The index building process will complete quickly as long as it does not get stuck along the way.

Customizing Relevance and Weighting

The Searching Tab is where users customize the relevance and weighting of search results. 

The first option is to choose the search logic operator, either AND or OR. AND requires all terms to match and is a stricter form of matching, while OR requires any term to match and gives broader results. 

Keyword matching is also configured in this tab. Users can choose whole-word matches, partial-word matches, or partial words if there are no hits for whole words.

Next is the Weights section, one of Relevanssi's most powerful search customization features. Here, various elements can be assigned numerical values that determine their importance in search results. The higher the number, the stronger the ranking signal for the search algorithm.

Other settings on this tab provide deeper customization. Users can keep the default settings as is or change them if needed for their specific use case.

Once all settings are configured, click Save the Options, and Relevanssi will begin fine-tuning your search results. Users can explore the other features discussed in earlier sections of this article for even deeper customization of search results.

Common Configuration Mistakes to Avoid

When using the Relevanssi plugin, users should be aware of common mistakes that degrade the quality of search results shown to site visitors. These include:

• Forgetting to rebuild the index after installing the plugin or changing indexing options.
• Indexing too many post types by default.
• Rebuilding the index too often.
• Not assigning appropriate relevance weights to content elements.
• Leaving logging enabled on content-heavy sites.
• Ignoring zero-result searches in logs.

Generally, users get much better results with Relevanssi by properly scoping which content elements to index and assigning each element an appropriate weight.

Relevanssi Pros & Cons

Pros

• Improved search relevance compared to native WordPress search
• More comprehensive indexing
• Customizable search engine algorithm
• Feature-rich free version
• Built-in search logging and analytics
• Compatible with WooCommerce and custom fields
• Support for multisite search

Cons

• Outdated and utilitarian user interface
• Requires lots of database space
• Can degrade performance on large sites
• Settings can feel overwhelming for non-technical users
• Index maintenance must be done manually
• Does not support complex Boolean logic
• Documentation can feel too technical for beginners

Relevanssi Pricing

Relevanssi offers a free version of its plugin available in the WordPress.org plugin repository. The free version includes core search features such as custom field indexing, weight adjustment, synonym customization, and comment search.

 It’s a solid option for small- to medium-sized e-commerce sites, blogs, portfolios, and more.

The premium version of the plugin is available in two plans: Annual and Permanent. Both plans include the full set of premium features Relevanssi offers, including PDF indexing, multisite search, spelling suggestions, export and import settings, and priority support, among others.

The main difference between the two plans is that the Annual plan must be renewed each year to continue receiving plugin updates and support, while the Permanent plan eliminates recurring payments and provides lifetime updates and support.

The Annual plan costs $128.78, while the Permanent plan costs $431.44.

Final Thoughts - Is Relevanssi Worth It?

Relevanssi addresses many of the limitations of WordPress’s native search feature. It offers better control over search results and better results for site visitors. This provides a more pleasant overall experience for both parties.

The free version of the Relevanssi plugin does a lot on its own. It offers all the core features needed to significantly improve search output from the jump. It's also straightforward to set up at a basic level, and the results on the frontend are immediate.

The premium version takes things a step further with more advanced features ideal for specific use cases, such as sites that require indexing PDF documents, WooCommerce stores that need SKU search, and multisite networks. 

While Relevanssi has some clear drawbacks, such as limitations when indexing large sites with over 30,000 posts and the need for significant database space, it’s still a great search plugin option for most content-rich WordPress sites where users depend on search.

The key to getting the most out of Relevanssi is having some technical know-how and understanding how to configure it optimally to return the most relevant results.

Frequently Asked Questions

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That's why adding a plugin like SearchWP can be a great way to enhance the search experience on your WordPress website.

SearchWP is a popular WordPress search plugin that offers many useful features to make searching easier and more efficient for visitors.

This article offers a candid look at the SearchWP plugin, covering its core features, functionality, pros and cons, and pricing, so users can make an informed decision about whether switching from the basic WordPress search to something more powerful is the right choice for their site.

Why WordPress Needs Better Search

Search is an essential feature for most WordPress websites, providing a smooth experience for site visitors and keeping them engaged. 

When the search functionality is present but doesn’t work as expected, e.g., returning inaccurate or irrelevant results, it creates a terrible user experience and can lead to unnecessarily high bounce rates when users can’t find what they are searching for.

WordPress’s default search feature is rather limited. It pulls search results only from pages and posts while ignoring other relevant sources of information, such as custom fields, taxonomies, categories, tags, documents, product attributes, product descriptions, and more.

Additionally, it lacks modern search features such as filtering, typo autocorrection, synonym support, and live/AJAX search, resulting in a poor overall search experience for site visitors.

This is why using a top-rated search plugin to extend WordPress’s default search feature is of the essence. And that’s where SearchWP comes in. 

What is SearchWP?

SearchWP is a user-friendly, premium search plugin that delivers a faster, smarter, and more precise search experience than WordPress’s default search.

The SearchWP plugin offers a clean, straightforward interface that makes it easy to use all its features, whether a user is a beginner or an advanced WordPress user. 

SearchWP doesn’t necessarily replace the default WordPress search feature; rather, it integrates with it. It enriches the user interface and search results with its own, more modern features. 

The next section explores the plugin’s core features in greater detail.

SearchWP Core Features

SearchWP offers a range of versatile features that make search more enjoyable for site visitors and admins alike. Here, we will review these features and how they work.

Custom Search Engines & Algorithms

The SearchWP plugin lets users create custom search engines that deliver tailored search experiences across their website. The search engine works by letting site admins choose which sources to include when a site visitor performs a search.

This ensures that search results are always highly tailored, rather than filled with irrelevant results that confuse site visitors.

For each custom search engine, the SearchWP plugin lets users customize the ranking algorithm. Users can add a relevance weight to each source’s attribute by simply adjusting the provided slider.

Users can also define rules to specify what should and shouldn’t be included in search results. For example, if a user is creating a search engine for the blog section of their site, they can create a rule to exclude any posts in the “uncategorized” category from search results.

Advanced Indexing

With the SearchWP plugin, nearly all content on a WordPress website can be indexed and searched. This enables site visitors and even admins to find what they need with ease. 

This includes custom fields, custom database table content, post types, media, PDF files, WooCommerce products, and even comments, which are typically ignored by WordPress’s native search engine.

This feature is a game-changer for content-heavy websites, where so much content gets buried and finding it quickly can otherwise be a hassle.

Custom Search Forms

While the built-in search form that comes with most WordPress themes or theme builders works fine for basic searches, SearchWP lets users create customized search forms with modern layouts to improve a site’s user experience.

Website admins can select templates for their search forms and the search results page, choose a search engine to run the form, and pick from various form and button styles, among other settings.

Once created, search forms can be embedded on any page of your website using a shortcode, the Gutenberg block editor, or PHP code, depending on a user’s preference. 

Synonym Recognition and Keyword Stemming

To handle cases where a site visitor intends to search for something but abbreviates it, uses a slightly different term, or misspells it, the SearchWP plugin offers its synonym recognition feature.

A user simply enters a search term that is commonly misspelled or has spelling variations, e.g., “contact”, and adds the synonyms, such as “conact”, “contat”, and “contect”.

The keyword stemming feature, on the other hand, returns a similar set of results for keyword stems when it is enabled.

For example, if a user’s WordPress content contains words like “installation”, “installed”, or “installing”, a search for “install” will return results for those keywords only when keyword stemming is enabled from the search engine’s Sources & Settings screen.

Search Analytics and Insights

With its Metrics extension, the SearchWP plugin records data on all searches performed by a site’s visitors across any of its search forms.

It then presents this data in an analytics dashboard, so site admins can see exactly what visitors are searching for and refine search settings accordingly.

The data captured by the Metrics extension includes the search term, the time of the search, the engine used, and the number of results found.

Extensions & Integrations

SearchWP offers several extensions that enhance its capabilities. Some popular ones include:

• Live Search: Lets site visitors see results instantly as they type, without requiring a page reload.
• Modal Search Form: Adds a smart pop-up search form that adapts to visitor behavior on your site.
• Redirects: Automatically redirects a search to a specific page when certain queries are entered.
• Custom Results Order: Lets users customize the order of search results for specific terms so the most important or relevant results appear at the top.

The plugin also integrates with many popular WordPress plugins, including WooCommerce, BigCommerce, WPForms, Gravity Forms, Easy Digital Downloads, WPML, Meta Box, and GiveWP.

Setting Up and Configuring SearchWP

Getting the SearchWP plugin up and running on a WordPress website is straightforward. This section explains how the plugin works.

Installation and Initial Setup

To access the core SearchWP plugin features, users must purchase a premium license. After purchase, the plugin ZIP file is made available for download, installation, and activation in WordPress. Follow the usual steps for plugin installation: Plugins › Add Plugin › Install Now › Activate.

The SearchWP plugin landing page appears after activation. Users can choose to take the step-by-step onboarding wizard or jump straight into customizing their first search engine.

The onboarding wizard makes it easy to complete essential configurations in minutes. 

Once the configuration is complete, SearchWP automatically begins indexing the site's content. This takes only a few minutes for small websites, but may take slightly longer on larger websites.

To see when indexing is complete, go to SearchWP › Algorithms › Engines and check the Index Status section.

Configuration Basics

Selecting Searchable Sources

To specify which content is searchable on a website, users can navigate to SearchWP › Algorithms › Engines, then click Sources & Settings. 

In the pop-up form that appears, they can select which content sources to index, including posts, pages, media, products, categories, tags, comments, and users.

Users can also enable Keyword Stems here to further improve search results quality.

Adjusting Attribute Relevance

Once the ideal content sources have been selected, their attributes can be configured. Depending on the source, a few attributes, such as title, description, slug, content, and caption, are added by default.

Users can adjust the relevance of each attribute using the corresponding sliders. Moving a slider to the right increases an attribute's importance, which means it will rank higher in search results.

For example, a blog might prioritize titles and content in its search results, while an e-commerce store might weigh product name and description more heavily.

Creating Rules and Conditions

For each selected source, users can set rules and conditions to control which content is displayed in search results. 

Clicking Edit Rules opens the conditional logic pop-up, from where users can add rules to exclude specific content, show only recent content, or filter by custom field values. 

Testing Search Results

Once a user customizes their search engine and sets up other elements, such as the search results page template and the search form, the next step is to test with queries that site visitors would use on the website’s frontend. The goal is to ensure that the results displayed are relevant and properly ranked.

Users can also use SearchWP’s statistics dashboard (SearchWP › Statistics) to gain detailed insights into what site visitors are searching for and which queries return no results.

For common searches that return inaccurate results, users can adjust the attribute relevance or add new synonyms for the search phrases by navigating to Algorithm › Global Rules.

After saving all configurations, SearchWP automatically updates its index, so users can immediately retest to ensure search results are accurate and relevant.

SearchWP Pros & Cons

Pros

• Indexes nearly every piece of content on a WordPress site.
• Works super fast and at scale.
• Provides powerful customization options for full control over search result rankings.
• Compatible with most themes.
• Integrates with many popular WordPress plugins.
• Enables UX customization for a better user experience.
• Includes detailed documentation to make the plugin easier to understand and use.
• Does not require coding skills to use.

Cons

• No free core version of the plugin.
• Many of its features are available only through extensions.
• Has a slight learning curve, as setup can feel overwhelming for less technical users.
• Limited multisite indexing capabilities.

SearchWP Pricing 

While SearchWP offers two free plugin extensions that integrate with the native WordPress search, they don’t include the core SearchWP functionality.

To access the core features, users must purchase a premium license. The three available plans are the Standard Plan, Pro Plan, and All Access Bundle Plan.

The Standard Plan, priced at $99 annually, is for one site and includes all basic features to extend the native WordPress search.

The Pro Plan costs $199 annually and supports up to 3 sites. It includes all Standard Plan features, plus advanced search engine and search result features, as well as eCommerce integrations.

The All Access Bundle Plan is $399 annually and supports up to 100 sites, making it an ideal option for WordPress development agencies. It includes everything the Pro Plan offers, plus WPFilters features and integrations.

Final Thoughts - Is SearchWP Worth It?

SearchWP is, without a doubt, a powerful WordPress search plugin that delivers on its promise. The plugin makes WordPress search much easier and faster. 

Its ability to index nearly all WordPress content while enabling users to create multiple search engines and customized search algorithms makes it a great choice for large, content-heavy websites. This includes membership sites or online stores, where search can significantly make or break the user experience.

However, because of the many features it offers, the learning curve required to use it to its full potential makes it a less ideal option for smaller websites with simpler search needs. 

Additionally, it will be difficult to justify the high cost when alternatives that cost significantly less still meet basic needs.

Overall, SearchWP is a great option for large websites where search plays a critical role in meeting business objectives. The monetary investment is negligible compared to the value delivered. 

For much smaller-scale websites, simpler search plugins are a better option for getting the job done.

Frequently Asked Questions

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But does this focused approach deliver on the core task of bringing your Instagram presence to your site? Let's take a detailed look

Supported Feed Types and Integration

When it comes to what Elevated Instagram Feed can display, the plugin takes a focused approach. It supports user timeline feeds, meaning you can showcase posts directly from your Instagram account on your WordPress site.

For integrating your feed into WordPress, Elevated Instagram Feed keeps it simple and provides a shortcode that you can copy and paste into any page or post. This method works with the Classic Editor and Block Editor, and you can also use it with popular page builders that support shortcode insertion.

The setup wizard guides you through connecting your account, selecting a template, configuring filters, and customizing your layout and styles. Once complete, you simply use the generated shortcode to display your feed anywhere on your site.

Ease of Use

When you install Elevated Instagram Feed and open it from the WordPress navigation menu, you'll notice that a clear wizard guides you through setup. Unlike other WordPress Instagram gallery plugins that make you switch between pages to create your perfect feed, Elevated Instagram Feed keeps everything in one place.

The process walks you through seven simple steps: selecting a template, connecting your Instagram account, setting up filters, configuring post elements, choosing a layout, customizing styles, and completing your feed.

Connecting your Instagram account is straightforward. You click to authorize, log in to your Instagram Business account, and the plugin handles the rest. From there, the wizard presents each customization option in a logical flow, making it easy to follow along even if you're new to WordPress plugins. Each step builds on the previous one, so by the time you're done, your feed is ready to deploy.

The interface itself feels intuitive. Options are clearly labeled, and you can see a live preview of your feed as you make changes, which helps you understand how your decisions affect the final result.

Customization Options

Elevated Instagram Feed provides solid customization options centered around templates, filters, layouts, and styling. 

The plugin starts by offering you template choices that serve as your visual foundation:

• Grid Header
• Grid Clean
• Grid Slider Header
• Grid Slider Clean
• Mosaic Header
• Mosaic Clean

From there, you can apply feed filters to control which posts appear. You have options to show posts containing specific words or hashtags, and hide posts containing certain terms.

You can also set a maximum number of posts to display. 

For post elements, you can use toggles to choose what to display, such as likes count, comments count, text, and autoplay video. 

The plugin also lets you choose whether to open a modal, redirect to Instagram, or do nothing when someone clicks on a photo from your feed.

Layout customization includes options like adjusting the number of columns and gutter spacing for masonry layouts. You can also customize the header, choosing to show or hide it and controlling which elements appear, such as profile picture, full name, username, verified badge, post count, followers count, and follow button.

Styling allows you to customize colors across different elements: feed background, header, posts, and modals. This gives you flexibility in matching your website's aesthetic.

Performance

Elevated Instagram Feed adds your Instagram feed efficiently to your WordPress site. The plugin loads your feed by embedding images directly from Instagram's servers, which keeps your site's database lightweight and prevents unnecessary file storage bloat.

The straightforward approach to embedding means the plugin doesn't add heavy processing layers or require local caching systems. Your site maintains its speed and responsiveness by focusing on delivering content reliably without unnecessary complexity.

SEO

Elevated Instagram Feed brings your Instagram presence directly onto your WordPress pages, creating a visually engaging experience for your visitors.

This integration helps reduce bounce rates by giving users more reasons to explore your site. The plugin also automatically refreshes your feed to ensure that your latest posts are always displayed. This fresh and dynamic content leads to longer visit durations and can positively influence how search engines evaluate your content quality.

Price

Elevated Instagram Feed offers straightforward pricing with no free version, but several options depending on the number of sites you manage. You do get a live backend demo if you prefer to test the plugin before committing to a paid plan. 

Here's a clear look at their pricing structure:

The lifetime deal and all access pass options provide long-term value if you prefer a one-time payment rather than annual renewal. 

Summary: Is Elevated Instagram Feed The Best New Instagram Feed Plugin?

Elevated Instagram Feed delivers a clean, focused solution for displaying your Instagram content on WordPress. The template-driven approach means you get a polished feed without spending time on setup, and the guided wizard makes the entire process straightforward, even if you're new to WordPress plugins.

What really sets it apart is how well it handles customization. You have granular control over filters, post elements, layouts, and styling, allowing you to tailor your feed to match your site's aesthetic. The options are intuitive enough that you don't need to be technical, yet powerful enough to give you the flexibility you need.

Frequently Asked Questions - Elevated Instagram Feed

1. Can you add an Instagram feed to WordPress?

You can easily add an Instagram feed to WordPress using a dedicated plugin. Elevated Instagram Feed is an excellent choice, as it offers a simple setup process and beautiful templates that get your feed live quickly without technical complexity. The feed is automatically updated as you add new posts to your Instagram account.

2. How to add an Instagram feed to WordPress Elementor?

To add an Instagram feed to Elementor, use a plugin like Elevated Instagram Feed that generates a shortcode. Open a page with Elementor where you'd like to embed your Instagram feed and add Elementor's "Text" or "Shortcode" widget. Then paste the shortcode generated by Elevated Instagram Feed, and your feed should display seamlessly within your Elementor design.

3. What is the best Instagram plugin for WordPress?

Elevated Instagram Feed is the best Instagram gallery plugin for WordPress. It combines ease of use, beautiful templates, and solid customization options in a straightforward package. The setup wizard gets your feed live in minutes, and the customization options let you match the feed to your website’s look and feel.

4. Can I customize the look of my Instagram feed?

Elevated Instagram Feed offers extensive customization through templates, filters, post elements, layout adjustments, and color styling. You can control which posts appear, how they're arranged, and how your feed looks without needing to write code.

5. Is there a free version of Elevated Instagram Feed?

Elevated Instagram Feed does not offer a free version. However, pricing starts at $49 per year for a single site, with options for multiple sites and one-time lifetime purchases available.

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ThriveDesk is a customer support tool that simplifies the management of customer assistance to be simple. It basically consolidates live chat, email tickets, and support conversations into one place, making you save the time that you would have normally spent switching from one app to another.

Still, the question remains, are they as good as they say? We reviewed everything from the initiation process to routine activities, and this is what we got.

Getting Started with WooCommerce Helpdesk Plugin

Firstly, it is very easy to get started with ThriveDesk. The process includes creating an account, installing their WordPress plugin on your site, and then connecting it to your ThriveDesk dashboard. 

About 10 minutes is enough for the entire process. You paste an API key from your ThriveDesk account into the WordPress plugin settings, and boom — you're connected. No complicated configurations or technical stuff that makes your head spin.

The WooCommerce integration happens automatically once everything is connected. This WooCommerce helpdesk plugin starts pulling in your customer data, order history, and purchase details right away. 

This means when someone emails about their order, you can see exactly what they bought and when they bought it without opening another tab.

Setting up the live chat widget is just as easy. You pick where you want it to appear on your site, choose your colors to match your brand, and you're done. The chat bubble shows up on your website within minutes.

What It's Like Using ThriveDesk Every Day

The main dashboard feels clean and uncluttered. Everything flows into your shared inbox — emails, live chats, and support tickets all show up in one stream.

When a customer emails you, their conversation appears with their WooCommerce info right there on the side. You can see their order history, how much they've spent, and what they last bought. No more digging around trying to figure out who this person is or what they ordered.

One thing users really like is how team members can work together on tickets. You can leave private notes that only your team sees, tag other people, and hand off conversations without confusion. 

The mobile situation is decent but not perfect. You can handle basic stuff on your phone, but some features work better on your computer. For quick replies and checking urgent messages, it gets the job done.

Key Features That Actually Matter

Live Chat That Makes Sense

The live chat isn't just another pop-up that annoys people. You can see what page visitors are on and jump in to help when they look stuck. For online stores, this is gold — you can guide people through checkout or answer product questions before they leave.

The chat connects to your knowledge base, too. So if someone asks a common question, the system can suggest helpful articles automatically. Less work for you, faster answers for customers.

Everything in One Inbox

This is where ThriveDesk really shines. Instead of checking email, then live chat, then some other support tool, everything lands in one place. A customer can start with live chat, then switch to email, and you see the whole conversation thread together.

Team members can jump in and out of conversations without customers having to repeat themselves. Internal notes keep everyone on the same page. One user said it felt like having a really organized email inbox, but for all customer support.

WooCommerce Integration Depth

The WooCommerce connection is the main reason that ThriveDesk excels as a WooCommerce helpdesk plugin. Through the helpdesk interface, the support team can access full order histories, initiate refunds, cancel orders, and handle subscriptions without having to switch interfaces. 

This exchange of communication is thus minimized, which is very helpful since customers often have various questions that are related to their orders.

Customer information is shared between the two systems in real-time, so any modifications made in WooCommerce will be visible in ThriveDesk chats without delay. 

Moreover, the platform is designed to accommodate more than one WooCommerce store, thus, it can assist businesses that have multiple online stores.

Knowledge Base and Self-Service

ThriveDesk includes a robust knowledge base system that can be embedded directly into your WordPress site or hosted separately. The AI-powered search helps customers find relevant articles quickly, potentially reducing the volume of support tickets.

The knowledge base supports multimedia content, categorization, and can be customized to match your brand design. Articles can be linked directly in conversations, and the system tracks which articles are most helpful for continuous improvement.

AI-Powered Automation

The AI help center learns from your knowledge base and can point customers to the right articles automatically. Fewer tickets about things people can find answers to themselves.

ThriveDesk uses ChatGPT to help write better responses and suggest replies to common questions. It's not trying to replace your team - just make them faster and more consistent.

Team Management and Working Together

Managing a support team gets easier when everyone can see what's happening. ThriveDesk lets you assign conversations to specific people, set up automatic routing rules, and track who's handling what.

The collision detection thing is pretty smart. It stops two people from responding to the same ticket at the same time. It's a little thing that goes a long way in preventing those awkward situations where customers receive contradictory answers.

Managers have access to data such as response times, customer satisfaction scores, and the workload distribution of the team members. The reporting is not overdone with numerous charts and graphs, but it is just enough for the managers to get an overview of how things are progressing.

Pricing That Makes Sense

ThriveDesk's pricing is refreshingly simple compared to enterprise tools that nickel and dime you for everything:

The pricing becomes even more attractive when compared to competitors. For example, Zendesk Professional costs $1,150/month for 10 users, while ThriveDesk's Unlimited plan provides unlimited users for $129/month - representing savings of over $12,000 annually.

Support and Getting Help

The ThriveDesk team practices what they preach — they use their own software for customer support. Response times are quick, and they actually seem to know their product inside and out.

The help documentation covers most setup questions with step-by-step instructions. Some users wished for more video tutorials, but the written guides are clear enough.

One thing that stands out is how they listen to user feedback. Multiple reviews mention feature requests getting implemented in later updates. That's not something you see with big, established companies very often.

Pros and Cons

Advantages:

• Clean, intuitive interface that's easy to learn and use
• Competitive pricing with unlimited users on higher plans
• Deep WooCommerce integration with order management capabilities
• Manage customer orders, refunds, and subscriptions directly within this WooCommerce helpdesk plugin
• AI-powered features that enhance agent productivity
• Responsive customer support and active development
• All-in-one solution reducing the need for multiple tools

Limitations:

• Some features have reduced functionality on mobile devices
• No direct social media channel integration yet

Who Should Use ThriveDesk

WooCommerce store owners are the people who can benefit most from ThriveDesk. They can get a professional customer service experience without having to go through the whole enterprise complexity or costs. 

If managing various tools or paying per-user fees that are increasing rapidly are getting on your nerves, then you should have a look at it.

It's especially good if your team needs to access customer order information regularly. The WooCommerce integration alone can save hours each week compared to switching between systems.

The organizations that have a small number of employees and are in charge of customer support will definitely find the features of teamwork and the reasonable prices for unlimited users very useful. 

Huge companies with intricate work processes might require a more flexible tool, but nearly every e-commerce business can find the necessary functionalities with this WooCommerce helpdesk plugin.

Simplify your support, delight your customers, and save time with ThriveDesk.

Common Questions

Does ThriveDesk handle WooCommerce subscriptions?

Yes, he can manage subscription orders directly from the helpdesk using ThriveDesk, the WooCommerce helpdesk plugin. Cancel, modify, or update subscription details without opening WooCommerce.

Can I connect multiple WooCommerce stores?

ThriveDesk supports multiple store connections depending on your plan. You can manage customer support for several stores from one dashboard.

Is there a mobile app?

Yes, there's a mobile app for basic ticket management and responses. It works fine for quick tasks, but some features are better on a  desktop.

How does it compare to Help Scout or Zendesk?

ThriveDesk offers similar core features at much lower costs, especially for teams. The WooCommerce integration is deeper than what general helpdesk tools provide. You might miss some advanced enterprise features, but most stores won't need them.

Is there a free trial?

Yes, ThriveDesk offers a free trial period so you can test everything before paying. Try free for 7 days. No credit card required.

• Popularity / Adoption Rate
• Pricing
• Performance
• User Interface
• Styling Options
• Theme Building
• AI Capabilities
• Pre-designed Templates
• Modules & Widgets
• Unique Features
• Extensibility and Compatibility
• Support
• Final Thoughts

1. Divi vs Elementor: Adoption Rate

Before diving into specific features, let's look at the usage of these two page builders among the top 1 million websites over time—a good indicator of overall popularity:

Looking at this chart, you'll immediately notice Elementor's incredibly rapid growth. Soon after its launch in 2017, its adoption rate soared, quickly overtaking Divi.

Why did Elementor experience such fast growth? A major factor was undoubtedly its generous free version. This allowed a huge number of users to try it without any initial investment. Its clean, fixed-sidebar interface also seemed to click with many users right away (more details in the next section). 

Looking at the more recent data, you'll see a slight change in the trend. Elementor's steep growth has plateaued and shows a small decline from its peak around 2023. Divi's numbers have also shown a slight dip in recent years.

What might be the cause of this shift? Several factors could be at play. The WordPress market is maturing, and competition from newer page builders like Breakdance is increasing. There's also more focus now on website performance, and some users are leaning toward lighter alternatives like Oxygen.

Still, both Divi and Elementor continue to evolve with each new update, so it will be interesting to see how they perform in the years ahead.

2. Divi vs Elementor: Pricing

We seldom place pricing near the top of our articles on page builders because there's so much else to consider, but these key differences are important to some readers:

• Elementor is the only one of these two builders to offer a free version, which you can genuinely use for simple sites. However, if you want things like built-in forms, popups, custom headers/footers, etc., you'll have to go Pro.
• Divi is the only one to offer a lifetime license, which can save you a lot of money in the long term.

The rest of the pricing details are summarized in this table:

3. Divi vs Elementor: Performance & Speed

Website speed is incredibly important for keeping visitors happy and helping your site rank well in search engines.

To compare the performance of Divi vs Elementor, we conducted extensive tests. Here are the main conclusions from these tests on frontend performance (i.e., what end users experience):

• Both Divi and Elementor perform well on pages of simple and moderate complexity.
• The current version of Divi shows poor performance on complex pages.
• Elementor performs much better than Divi on complex pages, though not as well as modern page builders like Breakdance or Oxygen.

What do we mean when we say Divi shows "poor performance on complex pages"? Here's the Page Speed report:

The First Contentful Paint (FCP) is taking 50% longer than it should, and the Largest Contentful Paint is 30% longer. That's not acceptable.

Here are our conclusions on backend performance (i.e., what designers experience):

• Divi handles only simple pages well, with its problems growing worse as you move from moderate to complex pages.
• Elementor only struggles with complex pages, and much less so than Divi.

In summary, Elementor wins the performance battle when compared to Divi, though they both leave a lot to be desired when handling complex pages.

4. Divi vs Elementor: User Interface

The interface is where you'll spend most of your time when building pages, so how easy and comfortable it is affects your workflow.

Both Divi and Elementor offer visual drag-and-drop editing, but they take different approaches to how you interact with widgets and settings. To quickly show you what we mean, let's look at how you might perform a common task in each builder.

For example, here is how you add a heading module in Divi:

You click on the “+” icon that appears on the canvas and then select the module from the list. The settings appear in a movable popup window that floats over your design. Divi's interface gives you a complete view of your design and offers flexibility in arranging your workspace with these floating panels.

By comparison, here is how Elementor handles a similar task:

In Elementor, you drag the widget from the sidebar on the left and then adjust its settings within that same sidebar area. The canvas on the right provides a live preview of your design. Elementor's interface keeps your widgets and settings predictably in one place, offering a very structured workflow.

Which interface is better? That depends on how you like to work. Divi's floating UI provides a dynamic, full-canvas view, while Elementor's fixed sidebar offers a consistent, anchored experience. However, neither matches the advanced features found in Breakdance.

To get a much more in-depth look at all the specific interface features, editing options, and structural views each builder offers, please see our detailed Divi vs Elementor interface comparison article.

5. Divi vs Elementor: Styling Options

Styling is key to making your website unique, and both Divi and Elementor offer deep control over visual properties like colors, typography, spacing, and effects. While each offers comprehensive options, they approach global design settings with different workflows.

Divi, for example, offers Divi Presets. They allow you to save a custom look you've created for a module and quickly apply it to other modules of the same type throughout your site. This speeds up your workflow and ensures visual consistency for recurring elements. 

When you want to make any change, you can do it in one place, and all instances where the preset is applied are automatically updated.

Elementor, on the other hand, excels with its powerful Global Styling features. Features like Theme Style, Global Colors, and Global Fonts allow you to define and consistently manage design elements across your entire site from a central location. This makes it easy to maintain brand consistency and make site-wide design updates quickly.

Beyond these core styling differences, both builders organize their styling options within editing panels using clear tabs. Divi organizes its settings into tabs like Content, Design, and Advanced within its movable popup windows.

In Elementor, you'll typically find options across Content, Style, and Advanced tabs in the fixed sidebar. 

These tabs are where you'll access the bulk of the controls to fine-tune the look of your elements. Both builders also let you easily adjust styles for different screen sizes to ensure you have a responsive design.

To get a much more in-depth look at all the specific styling options, including how these tabs and editing panels are structured and used in each builder, please see our detailed Divi vs Elementor interface comparison article.

6. Divi vs Elementor: Theme Building

With today's page builders, you're no longer limited by your theme's design for areas like headers, footers, and blog post layouts. Theme builder features allow you to visually design every part of your WordPress site using the familiar drag-and-drop interface.

Both Divi and Elementor come with theme building features, but they have some differences in their approach.

Divi introduced its Theme Builder with version 4.0 in October 2019. It uses a backend view initially to select the template type and set the display conditions. You can then create custom templates for various parts of your site, including:

• Headers
• Footers
• Pages
• Posts
• Archive Pages (like blog or custom post types)
• WooCommerce Pages
• Products
• Projects
• Search Results
• 404 Page

The actual design and editing of these pages happens inside the same Divi Builder interface, but with access to special Theme Builder modules such as Post Title, Person, Site Logo, Comments, and more.

Elementor, on the other hand, was the first to bring full theme building to the visual editor space, offering this feature in its Pro version since April 2018. It uses a slightly different workflow but includes support for template types that closely match those offered in Divi. 

Just like Divi, you design the template using the familiar visual Elementor editor.

After your template is ready, you can set Display Conditions to decide exactly where the template should show up across your site.

A key difference shows up when you want granular control over dynamic content lists, like blog posts on an archive page. 

Divi has a Blog module that allows you to display posts, but your design options are mostly limited to what's built in.

In Elementor, you get a dedicated Loop Builder. This allows you to design the layout for just one card in your list using any Elementor widgets, and then Elementor repeats that design for all items in the query. This gives you a lot of visual freedom to create unique archive layouts or custom grids exactly how you want them.

7. Divi vs Elementor: AI Capabilities

AI is quickly changing how we build websites, helping us speed up tasks and boost creativity. Both Divi and Elementor are embracing this shift and integrating AI features directly into their page builders.

They let you use AI assistants for various tasks within the builder, including layout design, text generation, image creation and editing, code generation, and more.

For example, in Divi, AI is integrated when you add a new section:

You can click the "Generate Section With AI" button and describe what you need using a text prompt. Divi AI will put together a new section, complete with rows, modules, and even some initial content.

Divi AI also lets you generate an entire page layout from just a text description.

Now, let's look at how Elementor handles generating layouts:

Elementor also adds a dedicated AI button right where you add a new section. You just describe the type of layout you're looking for using text, and the AI will build out the container framework for you. It offers a few different layout options to choose from, giving you a quick starting point for your design.

Beyond these features, both builders use AI to generate layouts in other powerful ways. Divi includes a unique Quick Sites feature that allows you to generate an entire website based on a single text prompt. Elementor offers AI Copilot to suggest layout structures and a separate AI Site Planner for generating website wireframes.

What we've shared here is just a glimpse of how Divi and Elementor use AI for layout designs. For a complete comparison of all their AI features, be sure to check out our detailed Divi vs Elementor AI Features article.

8. Divi vs Elementor: Pre-designed Templates

While both builders offer integrated AI to help you with layout designs, some users might still prefer pre-designed layouts for their attention to detail.

Divi Builder and Elementor both offer rich libraries of templates that you can easily import and customize to speed up your workflow. The big difference lies in how they organize and present these ready-made designs.

Divi organizes its massive collection of pre-designed templates into Layout Packs, containing individual full-page templates. A layout pack is a collection of multiple themed templates specifically put together for a particular type of website.

Divi offers hundreds of these Layout Packs, containing 2500+ individual page layouts in total. This makes it super easy to import a full set of pages for an entire website in one go. You can also save your own custom designs to build your personal template library.

Elementor takes a different approach and provides a library with different types of pre-made designs. You'll find full Page templates, which give you a complete layout for an entire page, and Block templates, which are designs for individual sections that you can mix and match.

Elementor also groups some templates into Template Kits. These work like Layout Packs and help you build a whole, cohesive website around a single theme. 

The free version gives you access to a good number of templates, while Elementor Pro unlocks a much larger collection, including 300+ full-page templates and 100+ Template Kits. Of course, like Divi, you can also easily save any of your own designs to reuse later.

9. Divi vs Elementor: Modules & Widgets

The core of any page builder lies in the elements it includes. Think of these as the building blocks that let you add all sorts of different design features and content to your pages.

A great collection of these elements means you can create almost any kind of section or layout without needing custom code or hunting for extra plugins. Divi calls these elements Modules, while Elementor calls them Widgets.

At its core, Divi uses Sections and Rows to structure a page, and within these, you add your Modules. 

It comes loaded with over 68 built-in modules right out of the box with any premium license. These include around 40 content modules for standard stuff like text and images, along with 25 modules specifically for WooCommerce and 3 structural modules.

Divi also has a third-party add-ons marketplace that gives you access to additional modules if you ever need something specific.

Elementor takes a different approach and uses Flexbox Containers and Grids to organize the page structure, and within these, you place Widgets.

The free version of Elementor gives you over 30 basic widgets covering all the essentials like headings, text, images, buttons, and icons. If you use Elementor Pro, you unlock a much larger library of 70+ additional widgets for things like forms, portfolios, price tables, and more. 

Like Divi, it also offers dedicated widgets for theme building and WooCommerce in its higher-tier plans, plus there's a huge marketplace of third-party add-ons if you ever need something specific.

If you want to go beyond these capabilities, you'll need something like Breakdance's Element Studio, which supports the visual creation and modification of custom elements within the builder itself. Learn more about it here:

10. Divi vs Elementor: Unique Features Comparison

While Divi and Elementor share a lot of core features, they also each come with their own set of unique features or things they do particularly well. Sometimes, these specific differences can really help you decide which builder is the best fit for what you need.

For a complete breakdown of all the unique features both builders offer, including what each feature does and why it might be helpful for your projects, please see our detailed article.

Here, we'll share one standout feature from each that showcases their distinct strengths.

Divi packs some unique features into its visual builder, often focusing on making your workflow more efficient or adding helpful marketing tools. One of its most distinctive features is the integrated Split Testing.

This feature makes it easy to test different versions of things like headlines or buttons against each other to see which one gets better results, based on goals you set.

Beyond Split Testing, it also offers features like:

• Wireframe View
• User Role Editor
• Contact Form Conditional Logic
• Multi-Select and Bulk Editing
• Find & Replace Styles
• Extend Styles
• Searchable Settings

Elementor also includes some really powerful features, especially if you're using the Pro version. A great example is its built-in Popup Builder.

This feature lets you design all sorts of popups, like modals or slide-ins, right there using the familiar Elementor interface and all your widgets. You can even set up advanced rules for when and where they show up, which is a really valuable tool without needing a separate plugin.

It also includes other unique features such as:

• Loop Builder & Query Builder
• Notes for collaboration
• Maintenance Mode / Coming Soon page
• Link in Bio Widget collection
• Copy & Paste between sites

As you can see, both builders bring their own unique set of features to the table. To explore all of these in more detail, we recommend taking a look at our detailed article.

11. Divi vs Elementor: Extensibility and Compatibility

Building a fully functional website usually means using other plugins for things like SEO, security, or special features. Your choice of page builder is the main tool for design, so it's really important that it plays nicely with all those other plugins you need.

Divi is offered both as a theme with a built-in builder and as a standalone Divi Builder plugin. While the Divi Theme is designed to be a complete, all-in-one package, you can use the Divi Builder plugin with other WordPress themes if you prefer.

Elegant Themes also has its own marketplace where you can find third-party extensions made specifically for Divi. These include new modules, child themes, and layout packs. In terms of compatibility, Divi works well with most standard WordPress plugins you'd need, like those for SEO, caching, or security.

Since Elementor is primarily a plugin, it generally works well with most WordPress themes. You can use it with popular ones like Astra or GeneratePress, or even its own lightweight "Hello" theme.

One of Elementor’s major strengths is its vast and active add-on ecosystem. These add-ons bring in tons of new widgets, template libraries, and advanced features, expanding Elementor's capabilities way beyond its standard offerings. Plus, Elementor works well with most standard WordPress plugins you'd need, like those for SEO, caching, or security.

12. Divi vs Elementor: Support

Like with any plugin you use on your website, there might be times when you have questions or need a little help. Having reliable support available can save you a ton of time and cut down on frustration. Both Divi and Elementor understand this and offer support channels for their users, though they approach it slightly differently.

Divi, being a premium-only product, provides support to everyone with an active Elegant Themes license. You get 24/7 live chat support, so you can get real-time help whenever you run into an issue. On top of the live chat, Divi also offers documentation and a knowledge base to help you find solutions.

Elementor, on the other hand, offers different levels of support depending on whether you're using the free version or Elementor Pro. If you're using the free plugin, you can find answers in their online documentation and get help from the active Elementor community.

If you're an Elementor Pro customer with an active license, you get access to premium support. This typically includes 24/7 support via a ticket system. You can submit your queries and get help directly from the Elementor support team. While the ticketing system is there, it's worth noting that some users have reported finding the support less helpful than they hoped.

Div vs Elementor: Final Thoughts

We've explored Divi and Elementor across many key areas, from how they look and feel to their features, performance, and pricing. Both are incredibly powerful and popular page builders, but neither builder is definitively better than the other in every single way.

Choosing between them really comes down to what matters most for your specific needs and how you prefer to work.

If you build or manage multiple websites, Divi's unlimited website usage with its Yearly or Lifetime license can offer significant value. Its pre-designed Layout Packs make it incredibly fast to create on-brand websites, and its full-screen visual editor and unique workflow features might just click with how you like to build.

On the other hand, if you're just starting out or working on a single site with a budget in mind, Elementor's free version is a fantastic way to get started. Its predictable, fixed sidebar interface is easy to learn for beginners, and its wide range of widgets makes it a good fit for most websites.

If you want to go beyond these capabilities, you'll have to turn to a page builder like Breakdance.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Information

1. Elementor Website Builder: A Complete Review
2. Divi Builder: A Complete Review
3. 5 Best WordPress Page Builders
4. 7 Best WordPress Landing Page Builders
5. 7 Best WordPress Theme Builders

While both let you design visually, how you interact with them is different. One uses a fixed sidebar, and the other has popup windows. This interface difference affects your building speed, learning curve, and overall experience.

In this article, we'll take a detailed look at the interfaces of both Divi and Elementor and cover the following:

• Basic Interface Overview
• Editing Panels
• Upcoming Interface Changes

......and more.

Let’s start by looking at a basic overview of both page builder interfaces.

Divi vs Elementor: Basic Interface Overview

When you're just starting out with a new page builder, the very first steps and the layout you see can make a big difference in how quickly you feel comfortable. Let's explore what it's like to begin building with Divi and Elementor and get familiar with their main working areas.

Divi Basic Interface

After you've installed the Divi Builder plugin, you can launch the visual builder on a new page by clicking the Use Divi Builder button.

Once inside, Divi will present you with three options: you can Build From Scratch on a blank canvas, Choose A Premade Layout from Divi's extensive library, or Build With AI by describing your page.

Instead of a fixed sidebar, Divi Builder works in full screen with icons and popups appearing on top of your page.

When you select any module, its settings appear in three tabs: Content, Design, and Advanced.

You also get inline editing for text content.

Another key part of the Divi visual builder interface is the Bottom Toolbar, which opens when you click the purple three-dot icon. This toolbar provides access to various page-level features like the Wireframe view, responsive preview, loading layouts from the library, page settings, revision history, the crucial Save button, and more.

Divi also lets you use the drag-and-drop feature to resize columns directly on the canvas.

It also has a right-click window which offers quick actions, such as Undo, Redo, Split Test, Lock, and more.

Elementor Basic User Interface

After installing the Elementor plugin, you can launch the editor on any page by clicking the Edit with Elementor button.

Once inside, you'll see a large Canvas area on the right side and a Sidebar on the left. You'll also find a toolbar at the top.

The Canvas gives you a live preview of your page, showing exactly how your design will look to visitors. When you first start, it'll be blank, and you start by adding a container, importing a pre-made template, or using AI to design your section based on a text prompt.

The Sidebar, on the other hand, is where you find all the widgets you can drag onto your page. Once added, you can select any widget, and its settings will appear in the sidebar, organized into tabs like Content, Style, and Advanced. 

At the top of this panel, there's a search bar to quickly locate specific widgets.

As you start making changes to the widgets in the sidebar, you'll notice changes being automatically reflected in the Canvas area. It also supports inline editing for text content.

The toolbar at the top includes options for adding new widgets, site settings, the Structure panel, page settings, responsive preview, Finder, and the Preview and Publish button.

Like Divi, Elementor also has a right-click window, which gives quick access to common actions. These include Edit, Duplicate, Copy, Paste, Reset, Delete, Save as Global, and more.

Divi vs Elementor: Editing Panels

After you've added widgets and modules to your page, you'll want to change its content and appearance. Both builders provide a similar three tabs interface for this, but use different interfaces.

Let’s look at the editing options available.

Divi's Settings Window

In Divi's Visual Builder, clicking on a module’s gear icon brings up a settings window with three tabs. This is a movable window that appears directly on the canvas, allowing you to position it where it's most convenient.

The Content tab lets you manage the actual content of the module. For a text module, this is where you type your text; for an image module, you upload or select the image source.

Next, the Design tab contains all the styling options. You'll find controls for typography, colors, sizing, spacing, borders, shadows, filters, and many other options.

Finally, the Advanced tab includes more technical and structural options, such as custom CSS, visibility controls, scroll effects, position, and attributes.

Within the Divi settings window, you can also create and apply Global Presets. They allow you to save a specific set of design settings for an element type and apply it globally across your site.

Elementor's Settings Panel

In Elementor, when you select any widget on your canvas, its specific settings automatically appear in the three tabs sidebar panel. Unlike Divi, Elementor’s sidebar is fixed to the left.

The Content tab is usually where you add and edit the actual content of the widget, like the text for a heading or paragraph, the source for an image, or the options for a form.

Next is the Style tab, where you control the visual appearance. You'll find options for typography, colors, borders, and more, specific to the element you've selected.

Lastly, the Advanced tab contains settings for more technical configurations, such as spacing, custom CSS classes or IDs, motion effects, attributes, and layout options like z-index.

While you're editing widgets here, you can also easily apply Global Colors and Fonts if you've set them up in your Site Settings. Elementor also gives you responsive controls for most settings, letting you control how widgets appear based on screen sizes.

Divi vs Elementor: Upcoming Interface Changes

Both Divi and Elementor are working on a major update that promises to change how you interact with their builders. 

In this section, we'll look at some of the specific interface changes announced for Divi 5 and Elementor 4, giving you a glimpse into how designing might feel in the future.

Divi 5 Upcoming Interface Changes

Divi is working on version 5, which is a complete rewrite of the Visual Builder, aiming to improve speed and ease of use. This rewrite brings several major interface changes.

One of the most significant changes with Divi 5 is going to be the introduction of an Elementor-style fixed sidebar. It'll have a fixed left sidebar that'll present you with different module settings, neatly organized into tabs.

Additionally, the bottom bar is moving to the right side as a fixed bar with similar options to the current one. There's also a dedicated top bar added with responsive preview options and the Page Preview and Publish button.

Elementor 4 Upcoming Interface Changes

Elementor recently announced its upcoming version 4, which is planned to introduce a major shift, moving towards a more CSS-first, class-based styling approach.

This version will introduce "Atomic Elements," which aim to shift from styling individual elements to defining styles on reusable classes and applying those classes.

While the early alpha previews show updated control layouts and a new two-tab sidebar interface, the biggest change affecting the interface is the underlying workflow itself. You'll be working directly with a CSS class interface to create reusable blocks, fundamentally changing how you approach styling.

Summary: Choose Your Interface

We've taken a detailed look at the user interfaces of Divi and Elementor. The core difference often boils down to how you access controls and settings.

Elementor uses a predictable workflow where widgets and settings are arranged in a fixed area. This consistent layout makes it easier for beginners to quickly grasp where everything is and get used to the workflow.

Divi, on the other hand, uses movable popup windows for adding modules and editing settings. This gives you flexibility in how you interact with the builder.

Here's a quick summary of the key interface differences:

Not Completely Happy with Either Interface?

When they first launched, Elementor and Divi offered groundbreaking user interfaces, but that was over a decade ago. Today, modern page builders like Breakdance provide interface features that go well beyond what either Elementor or Divi offer.

Here are some of the features we like to highlight:

• Themeless Mode: Breakdance doesn't require a WordPress theme. This allows it to provide a consistent editing experience throughout.
• Streamlined Design: A modern, intuitive interface with less clutter than either Elementor or Divi.
• Element Studio: The world's first element development IDE, letting you visually create and modify custom elements within the builder itself.
• Searchable UI Panels: Search property panels to quickly locate specific settings or options by typing keywords. This improves efficiency—especially for complex projects—and sets a modern standard absent in legacy builders like Elementor or Divi.
• Global Styling Efficiency: Breakdance’s global styling controls let you make site-wide updates (e.g., typography, WooCommerce, forms) with just a few clicks—a huge time-saver.
• Inline Global Blocks and Scroll Animations: Breakdance 2.5 introduces inline editing of global blocks and scroll-based color animations, further enhancing dynamic design.
• Speed: Breakdance avoids the laggy UI reported with Divi and the slowdowns that can result from Elementor’s extensive widget use, allowing it to load and respond much faster.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Information

• Elementor Website Builder: A Complete Review
• Breakdance Vs Elementor
• Best Elementor Alternatives for Pro Designers
• Divi Builder: A Complete Review
• Divi vs Breakdance: Which Builder Wins
• Best Divi Alternatives for Easier Website Building

• Backend Performance: This is about how fast and responsive the page builder interface is for you. Think about how quickly the editor loads, how smooth dragging and dropping elements feel, and how fast changes are saved. A builder with good backend performance makes your workflow much smoother and less frustrating.
• Frontend Performance: This is the speed your visitors experience. It's how quickly your actual web page loads in their browser. Metrics like how fast the main content appears, how soon it becomes interactive, and the total loading time fall into this category. This directly impacts user experience and SEO.

Both aspects matter for a successful website. You don't want to use a builder that's super-fast to work with but produces slow-loading pages, or vice versa.

With this out of our way, let's now look at how Divi and Elementor perform in both frontend and backend speed.

Divi vs Elementor: Performance Test Environment

To truly compare the speed impact of Divi and Elementor, we created two clean WordPress sites. This allowed us to ignore the effects that other plugins might have on performance metrics.

We set up our testing environment carefully using the following:

• Server: A DigitalOcean server with 1 vCPU and 1GB of RAM, located in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
• WordPress Installation: A fresh, clean WordPress 6.8 installation for both sites.
• Theme: The lightweight Twenty Twenty-Five default WordPress theme.

To check the performance across various metrics, we used Google PageSpeed Insights and GTmetrix tools.

For consistency, we ran the GTmetrix tests from London, UK, using a Chrome browser on a Broadband connection (20/5 Mbps).

Before installing any page builders, we tested both sites with just WordPress and the theme. This gave us a performance baseline. Crucially, this baseline test confirmed that both sites produced near-perfect performance scores.

Now that we have a baseline to compare, we'll install Divi on one site and Elementor on the other. On both sites, we'll create three types of test pages to cover different scenarios.

Divi vs Elementor Performance Test #1: Simple Page

First, we’ll look at the performance impact on a simple page. This page is built using only basic elements like text and buttons. This helps us see how the builders affect straightforward layouts.

Backend Performance

For simple websites with just a few pages, both Divi and Elementor editors generally feel responsive. While there’s often a slight, negligible delay when you first open the page in the editor, adding basic elements and adjusting settings feels quick in both interfaces. We didn’t notice any significant lag during the editing process for this basic page.

If we consider specific tasks, adjusting padding and margins can feel different. 

Divi offers both manual input for precise values and a drag-and-drop method for visual adjustments.

While this visual method is intuitive, setting precise values can sometimes require a bit of back-and-forth. Elementor, on the other hand, only provides direct manual input for precise values, which can feel more direct for setting exact spacing values.

Frontend Performance

Now, let's see how fast this simple page loads for your visitors. We'll conduct tests using Google PageSpeed Insights and GTmetrix and focus on key metrics that impact user experience.

For the simple page built with Divi, here are the Google PageSpeed Insights results:

And here are the GTmetrix test results:

For the simple page built with Elementor, here are the test results from Google PageSpeed Insights:

And here are the GTmetrix test results:

Let's put the key metrics from both builders' side-by-side in a table to see the direct comparison for the simple page:

On this simple page test, both builders performed really well, achieving good scores across the board for frontend speed. 

Divi held a slight edge in most speed metrics like FCP, LCP, Speed Index, and Fully Loaded Time. Divi also produced a perfect CLS score and made significantly fewer HTTP requests. Elementor, however, resulted in a slightly smaller total page size for this simple layout.

Divi vs Elementor Performance Test #2: Moderate Page

Next, we’ll look at the performance impact of a more moderate page, similar to what you might find on a typical brochure site. This page contains images and icons along with widgets and modules from each page builder. We've made both pages identical in design to ensure a fair comparison.

Here’s how both pages look on the frontend:

Backend Performance

Moving to a moderate complexity page means the editor has more elements and settings to handle. At this level, both Divi Builder and Elementor editor generally remained quite responsive.

However, with more content on the page, you might notice subtle differences in Divi, especially on less powerful hosting environments. Tasks such as opening the module settings, switching between different tabs, or duplicating and moving elements can sometimes feel less immediate.

The same is not the case with Elementor. The module settings are always displayed in the sidebar, and you can instantly switch between different tabs without any noticeable delay.

Frontend Performance

To see how these moderate pages perform, we'll use the same tools.

Here are the Google PageSpeed Insights results for the page built with Divi:

And here are the GTmetrix test results for the same:

For the moderate page built with Elementor, here are the test results from Google PageSpeed Insights:

And here are the GTmetrix test results:

To make it easier to compare the results, here's a side-by-side look at the key metrics:

Looking at these metrics, Divi shows slightly better performance in the PageSpeed Insights tests, with higher mobile and desktop scores and faster FCP and Speed Index compared to Elementor. Divi also achieved a better Fully Loaded Time and made significantly fewer HTTP requests. 

However, Elementor resulted in a lower page size and a slightly faster LCP, despite having more requests.

Divi vs Elementor Performance Test #3: Complex Page

Finally, we'll test the performance impact on a more complex page. For this test, we've created a page featuring a query loop, which dynamically pulls and displays blog posts. This type of dynamic content adds complexity and is more demanding on page builders.

Here’s how it looks on the frontend of both websites:

Backend Performance

Working with complex pages, especially those with dynamic elements like query loops, can significantly impact the backend editing experience. In our testing, we did experience some lag, particularly with the Divi Builder, but it wasn’t anything major.

However, other users have reported different experiences. According to discussions on Reddit, both Divi and Elementor can face significant challenges with backend speed on complex layouts. For example, a Divi user described the backend as slow and laggy on complex pages, with the editor sometimes taking 30-40 seconds to open, occasionally showing "out of memory" messages or requiring reloads. Saving changes or switching between frontend and backend editing modes is also sometimes reported as very slow for Divi.

Similarly, an Elementor user mentioned the editor being very slow, taking up to 10 seconds to load or simple clicks taking 3 seconds on pages with deeply nested structures.

If you’re going to work on complex pages like this, we’d strongly recommend that you do so on a powerful machine as well as a server with lots of RAM.

Frontend Performance

Now, let's see how these complex pages, particularly with the dynamic query loop, perform. Like previous tests, we'll look at results from both the Google PageSpeed Insights and GTmetrix.

For the complex page built with Divi, here are the Google PageSpeed Insights results:

And here are the GTmetrix test results:

For the same complex page built with Elementor, here are the test results from Google PageSpeed Insights:

And here are the GTmetrix test results:

To easily compare the performance differences, here's a side-by-side comparison of the key metrics:

For the complex page test with a query loop, Elementor showed significantly better frontend performance. It scored better than Divi in all of the PageSpeed Insights metrics despite having a larger page size and more HTTP requests.

This notable difference, especially when compared to simpler pages, shows Elementor can handle dynamic data and complex structures more efficiently.

Divi vs Elementor: Code Output Quality and Bloat

Page builders make creating layouts easy, but they do this by generating the underlying code for you. The quality and amount of code they generate can significantly impact how fast your pages load.

If the code is presented in a complex structure, it means the browser has more work to do to display your page. This is often referred to as "code bloat."

Both Divi and Elementor have faced criticism for this in the past. They add their own wrappers, classes, and scripts to create excessive and deeply nested div elements. They also tie styling to specific elements rather than reusable classes, which adds to the CSS size.

To get a clearer picture of this code bloat, let's create three different pages and look at the HTML output. 

For the first example, we’ll add a basic heading element using each builder on a blank page.

Next, we’ll create a page with a simple form element.

Finally, we’ll create a basic query loop, similar to the complex page test we performed earlier.

After looking at the HTML output, here's what we found:

These simple tests show you how much extra code each builder adds, even for basic elements like headings and forms. This extra wrapping creates a more complex DOM structure that browsers need to process. 

Interestingly, the pattern we see here is quite similar to the frontend performance results from earlier. Remember how Divi often had a slight edge in speed metrics on our simpler and moderate pages? That aligns with Divi adding fewer divs for basic elements like headings and forms.

However, for the complex page, Elementor's frontend performance was significantly better. This also aligns with the Query Loop HTML output, where Elementor added fewer divs (11 vs Divi's 14). 

The similarity suggests that the way each builder structures its code plays a real role in the page performance.

Divi vs Elementor - Who Wins in Speed?

Choosing between Divi and Elementor can be tough, especially if you’re looking to create a fast-loading website. Both are powerful page builders, but their performance impacts differ depending on the type of page you build.

As you've seen from our tests, the results aren't always identical across every scenario and page type.

For simpler and moderate layouts, Divi often held a slight advantage in frontend speed metrics. This aligned with our code bloat tests, where Divi added fewer divs for basic elements.

The picture changed significantly on our complex page test, particularly with the demanding query loop. Here, Elementor clearly outperformed Divi with better code output and performance scores. This suggests that Elementor appears to perform better for complex pages, while Divi might be a better option for simple and moderate pages.

However, you should be aware that both these builders are considerably slower than a builder like Breakdance, which was optimized for speed from the outset. Here's a relevant video:

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