Breakdance comes from the makers of Oxygen, and it entered the field with a clear claim: Elementor's usability, but without its ballast, and with everything built in that you need additional plugins for with Elementor.
That is a strong promise. It has also largely been kept. Even so, Breakdance is not the right choice for most of my clients — and the reason has little to do with technology.
In the three-way comparison with Bricks I placed all three side by side. Here it is about this one pairing in detail.
The short answer
Breakdance, if you build websites regularly, have had enough of Elementor's additional-plugin sprawl, and are willing to work your way into a smaller ecosystem.
Elementor, if you run your own website, need German-language help, and want someone to be able to take the site over later.
What Breakdance does differently
The thinking behind Breakdance is consistent: everything you usually need on a website belongs in the one product — rather than in a base product plus five extensions.
So Breakdance ships with a form builder including conditional logic, popups, a Theme Builder for headers, footers and archives, an extensive WooCommerce set, dynamic content and connections to field systems.
With Elementor some of that is included in Pro, and another part is a matter for third parties. That third part is precisely the most common cause of Elementor sites breaking on updates — not Elementor itself.
Elementor and Breakdance at a glance
| Elementor | Breakdance | |
|---|---|---|
| Free version | yes, extensive | yes, with limits |
| Licence | annual subscription, tiered | annual and lifetime licence |
| Forms with logic | Pro plus often an extension | built in |
| Popups | Pro | built in |
| Theme Builder | Pro | built in |
| WooCommerce building blocks | Pro plus extensions | built in |
| Code output | more nesting | lean |
| Learning curve | gentle | gentle to moderate |
| German-language material | a great deal | hardly any |
| Available specialists | very many | very few |
| Maturity of the product | over ten years | young |
Where Breakdance scores
Everything from one source. One vendor, one update source, one support channel. Anyone who has ever spent an afternoon working out which of four Elementor add-ons wrecked the layout knows the value of this point.
The leaner code. Less nesting, less bundled CSS. On extensive pages the difference in the delivered document is measurable.
The handling is genuinely accessible. Unlike Bricks, Breakdance does not assume CSS knowledge. That was explicitly the goal: the accessibility of Elementor with the technical substructure of Oxygen. It has been achieved.
The lifetime licence. There is a one-off licence for an unlimited number of websites. Over five years that is a considerable sum compared with an Elementor Pro subscription — especially if you maintain several sites.
The forms. The built-in form builder is seriously good: conditional logic, multi-step forms, integrations. With Elementor you quickly end up with a separate forms plugin for the same thing.
Where Elementor scores
You will find help, and in German. For Elementor there are countless German-language tutorials, videos and people nearby who work with it. For Breakdance there is almost nothing in German. If in two years you need someone to take over your site, that is the difference between an enquiry and a search.
Maturity. Elementor has been around for over ten years, has millions of installations and correspondingly many well-tested routes. Breakdance is young. It is well made, but it naturally has fewer miles on the clock.
The ecosystem. Templates, extensions, integrations with newsletter services, CRM systems, booking tools — for Elementor something ready-made exists for practically everything. For Breakdance often not.
The resale value of your skills. Anyone who masters Elementor can offer that. Anyone who masters Breakdance has a smaller market.
Elementor Pro: Theme Builder, forms and popups sit in Elementor's Pro licence — that is the level at which the comparison with Breakdance's all-in package becomes fair in the first place. View Elementor Pro
The risk worth spelling out
Breakdance is a young product from a small vendor. That is not an accusation — it is a fact that belongs in a decision you are making for the next five years.
With Oxygen, the predecessor product from the same team, users experienced how focus shifts and development slows while attention moves to the new product. That is entirely legitimate business behaviour, but those who backed Oxygen at the time felt it.
Elementor has a company of considerable size behind it. That is no guarantee either — but it is a different risk profile.
Weigh that against the lifetime licence: a one-off payment is only cheap if the product lives a long time.
On performance
Breakdance outputs leaner code than Elementor. That is so, and it can be measured.
Whether your visitors notice is another question. In the sites that come to me for optimisation, images, hosting, caching and third-party scripts decide the loading time — the builder comes a long way down that list. A switch gains you tenths of a second; proper caching gains you whole seconds.
If you want to do something for the loading time of your Elementor site, start here: Optimising Elementor performance and WordPress Page Speed 2026.
Switching
There is no automatic transfer from Elementor to Breakdance. The layouts sit in different formats; switching means rebuilding the pages. Text, images and posts are preserved, the layout is not.
For a small website that is a weekend. For one that has grown, it is a project.
My advice is the same as for all builder switches: do not do it for the technology alone. Do it when a relaunch is due anyway — then the builder switch is almost free on top.
My recommendation by situation
Breakdance, if you build several websites, if you have recognised the collecting of additional plugins in Elementor as the actual problem, if you do not want a subscription, and if you get on well with English-language documentation.
Elementor, if you run your own website, if you need German-language tutorials and help, if you depend on a large ecosystem, and if it is foreseeable that somebody else will maintain the site later.
Stay where you are, if your Elementor site works and you have mastered it. The gain from a switch is technically real and commercially usually small.
Frequently asked questions
Is Breakdance the successor to Oxygen?
Not officially, but in practice. It comes from the same team and addresses a broader target group than Oxygen, which demanded more technical background.
Is Breakdance easier than Bricks?
Yes, considerably. Bricks assumes an understanding of CSS, Breakdance does not. If you are wavering between the two and do not come from a technical background, Breakdance is the more accessible route.
Is Breakdance available in German?
The interface partly, the documentation practically not. Expect to work in English.
Is the lifetime licence worth it?
Arithmetically from about three years — provided the product is developed for that long. That is the real question, not the price.
In closing
Breakdance is the more convincing product technically for someone who builds websites. Elementor is the more practical one for someone who has a website.
Most people reading this comparison belong to the second group — and for them a switch would be a decision they would have to explain later, without their visitors getting anything out of it.
Further comparisons: Bricks vs. Elementor vs. Breakdance, Elementor vs. Bricks and the overview of page builder comparisons. If you would like to talk the decision through against your own specific project: Elementor training.
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