Most people looking for this comparison did not choose WPBakery. It came bundled with a theme they bought on a marketplace six or eight years ago — back then it was still called Visual Composer and was simply included in the purchase.
Now the site has aged, editing feels sluggish, and somewhere the question is hanging in the air of whether you should switch.
I answer that question regularly. The honest answer is more nuanced than "yes, immediately".
First, clearing up the naming confusion
This still causes chaos today, so briefly sorted out:
- WPBakery Page Builder is the builder formerly called Visual Composer, which is built into countless ThemeForest themes. It works with shortcodes and is usually operated in the back end.
- Visual Composer Website Builder is a different, newer product from the same developers — a standalone front-end builder that has nothing to do with the old shortcodes.
If your theme dates from before 2018, you almost certainly have WPBakery. This article is about that one.
The short answer
Switch, if you are going to redesign the site anyway, or if you regularly build content yourself and keep running into resistance.
Stay, if the site works, is maintained, and you rarely change layouts. A builder switch is a rebuild, and rebuilds need a reason.
Elementor and WPBakery at a glance
| Elementor | WPBakery | |
|---|---|---|
| Editing | front end, what you see is the result | mostly back end, tile view |
| Content stored as | JSON, separate from the text field | shortcodes in the post content |
| Distribution | standalone, freely selectable | usually bundled with the theme |
| Updates | directly from the vendor | often only via the theme update |
| Theme Builder | in Pro | no |
| Free version | yes | no (included in the theme) |
| Active development | strong | subdued |
| German-language material | a great deal | little, mostly out of date |
Where Elementor is clearly ahead
You see what you are building. WPBakery shows you labelled tiles in the back end; what the page actually looks like you only find out in the preview. Elementor edits directly in the front end. Anyone who has worked that way once does not want to go back — it is the point clients mention to me most often.
Updates arrive directly. With WPBakery you often depend on the theme vendor: they have to bundle the new builder version and ship it. With themes that are no longer maintained — and there are a great many of those — you simply stop getting updates. In the medium term that is a security issue, not a comfort issue.
It is alive. Elementor gets new features regularly. WPBakery is maintained, but development has visibly lost pace.
Theme Builder. Headers, footers, post templates, archive pages — all of that can be designed with Elementor Pro. WPBakery is a pure content builder and stops at the edge of the content area.
Elementor Pro: Exactly those building blocks — Theme Builder, forms, popups — are the real difference from WPBakery, and they sit in the Pro licence. View Elementor Pro
Where WPBakery keeps its justification
So the comparison stays fair:
It is already paid for. WPBakery came with your theme; Elementor Pro costs money every year. If your site works, that is a legitimate argument.
It is deeply interwoven with the theme. Many ThemeForest themes bring their own WPBakery elements that match the design exactly — team tiles, pricing tables, portfolios. After a switch to Elementor those elements are gone and have to be rebuilt.
The back-end view has its fans. Anyone maintaining very long pages with many sections sometimes gets on faster with the compact tile view than with the front-end editor.
The shortcode trap: the most important point
This is the part I explain at length in every consultation on this topic, because it determines the cost of a switch.
WPBakery puts your layouts into the post content as shortcodes. In the database, a page looks roughly like this:
[vc_row][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_column_text]Your text[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]As long as WPBakery is active, WordPress turns that into HTML. Switch it off and exactly this text remains — visible, in square brackets, on every page. Your website then looks as though it were broken.
Switching to Elementor is therefore not a toggle but a three-stage process:
- Rebuild the pages in Elementor.
- Remove the remaining shortcodes from the old content.
- Only then deactivate WPBakery and, where applicable, the old theme.
There are plugins that remove shortcode remnants automatically. They work better or worse depending on the case, and they operate on your content. Make a complete backup first — see UpdraftPlus vs. BackWPup vs. Duplicator.
What the switch realistically costs
Count in pages, not in hours.
A standard subpage with text, a few images and a form is rebuilt in Elementor in roughly half an hour to an hour once the design is settled. A designed home page needs considerably more. On top of that come the follow-up tasks: shortcode remnants, form integrations, redirects if URLs change, and a pass over the mobile view.
For a typical company website with ten to fifteen pages, that is a manageable project. For a site that has grown to eighty pages, it is a budget decision.
My advice: if you are thinking about a new design anyway, combine the two. The switch on its own rarely justifies the effort — the switch together with an overdue relaunch almost always does.
A middle road many people overlook
You do not have to do everything at once.
Elementor can run alongside WPBakery. You build new pages in Elementor and leave the old ones untouched until you revise them anyway. After a year the important pages are converted, and the rest follows when its turn comes.
The downside: two builders are running and the site loads both. As a permanent solution that is no good; as a transition over six to twelve months it works well.
My recommendation by situation
Switch to Elementor, if your theme no longer receives updates, if you regularly build layouts yourself, if you are planning a new design anyway, or if you want to design headers and footers.
Stay with WPBakery for now, if the site runs stably, the theme still gets updates, you maintain content almost exclusively through text, and no relaunch is on the horizon.
Think in a third direction, if your website consists mainly of text. Then the WordPress block editor is the leaner answer and you save yourself any builder licence. See: Block editor versus page builder.
Frequently asked questions
Can I convert WPBakery content to Elementor automatically?
No, not reliably. There are tools that try; the results need so much rework that a clean rebuild is usually faster.
What happens to my SEO when I switch?
Nothing, as long as the URLs, text and heading structure are preserved. Rankings hang on content, not on the builder. Make sure to carry over meta titles and descriptions — those live in Yoast or Rank Math anyway, not in the builder.
Do I have to change my theme as well?
Not necessarily, but usually it makes sense. Many WPBakery themes bring extensive design layers of their own that get in Elementor's way. A lean theme such as Hello is the clean basis.
Is Elementor faster than WPBakery?
Tendentially yes, but the difference disappears next to images, hosting and caching. Do not expect a new loading time from a switch — there are more effective levers for that, see WordPress Page Speed 2026.
The point it comes down to
WPBakery is not bad. It is old, and for most site owners it hangs on a theme that is likewise old. The real risk is not the builder but a software chain that nobody maintains any more.
Check that first: does your theme still receive updates? If not, the question of switching is already answered — then it is only about the timing.
Further comparisons: overview of page builder comparisons and WordPress themes 2026 in practice, in case your old theme comes from the same marketplace generation. If you would like to talk the switch through against your own site: Elementor training.
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