There may be countless arguments about Elementor vs premium theme. Which one is better, which one you should use, and so on. Some people may prefer Elementor and others like premium themes.
I personally don’t like premium themes and I always say that Elementor is better. If you are interested in when a premium theme is a good solution, check out this post.
But some people may prefer a premium theme, especially if they don’t know how WordPress works and how to build pages with page builders. In this post, I offer you reasons why Elementor with the free theme is better than any premium theme.
Also Read: Awesome Elementor Widgets
When I say premium theme, I mean themes like you find on ThemeForest and not the themes like Astra, Kadence, Genesis, etc. They are great and I think these themes in pair with Elementor is a better solution.
If Elementor vs premium WordPress theme is something that you are interested in, then read this post and you will understand why I think Elementor is a better solution.
Table of Contents
1. Premium Themes Are Slow
The first reason why Elementor is better than a premium theme is that most of the premium themes are slow. And speed is one of the most important and crucial in websites. With a slow website, you will lose traffic and money.
Premium themes have features that you may never use. Low speed can be a result of the badly written theme. If a theme has badly written code, it not only be slow but may not work properly and cause many problems. Especially with plugins.
Most of the premium themes are done by individuals and they may not be great developers. So, their theme can have many problems. The theme will break, third-party plugins won’t work, etc.
Also, these premium WordPress themes have features or some JavaScript code that you don’t need but it loads anyway and causes the speed drop of a website.
Also Read: How To Install Astra Templates
I have tried many premium themes and all of them had some major issues. It doesn’t matter if it is a popular or new theme, all of them have problems.
And another major factor in speed is the age of the theme. Let’s say, a theme was created 4 years ago. WordPress regularly updates its core and are you sure your theme was updated accordingly? I don’t know.
Yeah, you can see on ThemeForest that they update themes but are those updates main or some minor updates that we don’t know. And the theme must be updated regularly to work and also to be secure.
On the other hand, if you use Elementor (free version even) with a free theme or Hello theme, you always get updates. Elementor and all the best free themes get updates regularly and always work with the latest versions of WordPress.
2. Elementor Is Cleaner
The second reason why I prefer Elementor in Elementor vs premium theme debate is that it is much more cleaner. Elementor has a great development team and company behind and they really make a great product.
The code of Elementor is much better. It doesn’t have unnecessary code and also code is well-written. And it works with every modern free theme because it is the most popular page builder.
Apart from that, if you use a good theme, it will work without problems. Because like Elementor, these themes have great developers and are built & written well. So, they work well together.
And these themes are much lighter and fast than premium themes. They don’t include some unnecessary features and the code is clean. It updates regularly like Elementor.
Also, these themes and Elementor have features you need and it is unlikely you will need additional plugins. Even with the free version of Elementor, you can get all the features you need.
And the clean website is not important only for WordPress but in general. Even HTML websites must be clean and well-written to work properly. But it may be more important in regards to WordPress because a badly written theme can cause problems with plugins.
But this Elementor vs premium theme won’t be fair if I say that every premium theme is bad. No, there are some good themes but it is hard to find.
3. Premium Themes Use Too Many Plugins
Elementor vs premium theme reason #3, and one of the important ones, is that premium themes use too many plugins in order to work. You may think, that you just install the theme and it works, right?
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. All the themes need plugins to work, and many times they require too many plugins. Some plugins may be for features that you can ignore but some are core plugins and you have to install them.
It causes more requests, bloat, and themes to become heavy which means a slow website. But you buy the theme because of the design and features, right? So you have no other choice to install these third-party plugins.
Also Read: Must-Have WordPress Plugins
And not every plugin is well-designed and written. And that can be a bad experience. you spend money but it doesn’t work as you imagined and it may need more time to build a website.
And this is not a problem with Elementor and a free theme. Because themes don’t need additional plugins to work, Elementor has its own block for different features, and if you can’t find the feature you want, there are many Elementor add-ons you can install.
But you don’t have to install many add-ons. Those plugins have feature collections and you can find one plugin which has everything you need.
If you are interested, you can find great Elementor addons here.
4. Elementor Is Free
And the Elementor vs premium theme debate can be ended here because this is one of the best reasons why I think you should not buy a premium WordPress theme.
And the reason is that you can build any kind of website with Elementor free and free WordPress theme. These are themes that work great with Elementor:
You can use these free WordPress themes with Elementor and build websites without problems and additional plugins. If you want more, use Elementor Pro.
And you know why Elementor vs premium theme can be pointless? Because many premium themes on ThemeForest use Elementor to build pages. They just create a simple theme, build pages with free Elementor and add-ons, and sell them.
What is the point? It means that you can do the same. The only difference is that you will use a free theme and they use their own theme. But the theme itself doesn’t offer many customizations where free themes have almost unlimited customization options.
So, it means they build premium themes with Elementor free and free plugins. And the theme they build actually is just the skin. That is the main reason why I don’t recommend premium themes. But not all the themes are like this.
But as I noticed, newer themes are built like this which is a bad option. Instead, you can buy Elementor templates which are better than premium themes.
5. Elementor vs Premium Theme: Updates
Do you still want to argue about Elementor vs premium theme? Well, here is the last reason why a premium theme is not a better solution. And it is another important reason why I don’t like ThemeForest themes.
And the reason is simple – updates. I already mentioned that updates are crucial for WordPress websites. If a theme doesn’t get updates, it will have many problems and won’t work properly.
When you use a free theme and build pages with Elementor (free or pro), you always get updates. Teams behind themes and Elementor always try to improve their products, they add features, trying to make them faster, lighter, and they follow WordPress core updates.
I don’t know if you are aware of this or what other Elementor vs premium theme type posts tell you, but that is not the case with premium themes. You don’t get the latest updates. At least it is not free.
If you go to ThemeForest and check any WordPress theme, it will have two dates – when it was created and when it was updated. Most of the themes will be updated this month. And, some themes show you update logs.
But you really don’t know what the update did. Was it important? or did it make an actual difference? They may update some designs, or just added a new demo. But we don’t know if the core was updated for the new WordPress version.
And that’s not the only problem. When you buy a theme on ThemeForest, you get 6 months of free updates and if you want updates after that, you have to pay. The fee may not be big but that is not a great option.
Why do I have to pay for updates when I already paid for the theme. I don’t get it. And also, they don’t have the best support. At least, I didn’t have a great support experience.
Conclusion
This is my argument about Elementor vs premium theme and why I think premium themes are not great and there are very few reasons to use them. It is better to learn the basics of WordPress and Elementor and build websites yourself.
Of course, you may not agree with Elementor vs premium theme debate, but test it yourself. Buy one premium theme and try it yourself. You will see why I don’t like them.
