Full Site Editing or Block Theme is one of the most discussed and debated topics in recent days within WordPress ecosystem. The popular drag-and-drop feature was first introduced to WordPress in its 5.9 major version release. The primary goal was to offer a page builder like Elementor, Divi, or WPBakery inside WordPress.
On January 25, 2022, WordPress took a big leap by introducing Full Site Editing (FSE) or the Block Theme for the first time. With the release of version 5.9, WordPress came up with its first drag-and-drop editor embedded in the core installer. In the course of 4 years, the the community is mostly calling it as “Site Editor” instead of Full Site Editing.
Although WordPress Site Editor apparently looks similar to other page builders like Elementor or Divi, they are quite different in thier fundamental architectural designs. To understand this better, let’s make comparison between WordPress Site Editor, Elementor, Divi, and WPBakery.
Dependency and Architectural Comparison
| Feature | Site Editor (FSE) | Elementor | Divi | WPBakery |
| Integration | Built into WordPress Core | 3rd-party Plugin | 3rd-party theme+Plugin | 3rd-party Plugin |
| Data Storage | HTML & JSON | Database meta Blobs | Shortcodes | Shortcodes |
| Logic | Block-based (React/REST API) | Widget-based (PHP/JS) | Module-based (PHP/JS) | Element-based (PHP/JS) |
| Template Type | HTML (Block-based) | PHP/Elementor | PHP/Divi | PHP/WPBakery |
| Performance | Highest (Native) | Good (if optimized) | Average | Slow |
| Primary Dependency | Block Theme (theme.json) | Plugin | Theme/Plugin | Plugin |
| Lock-in-Risk | Zero | High | Extreme | High |
Impact on functions.php | Minimum | Moderate | High | Moderate |
As we are already talking comparison, we cannot put the essential features aside.
The “Pro Feature” Chart: Where the Site Editor Shines!
| Essential Feature | Site Editor | Elementor | Divi | WPBakery |
| Header/Footer | ✅ Included | 💰 Paid | 💰 Paid | ❌ Limited |
| Dynamic Content | ✅ Included | 💰 Paid | 💰 Paid | 💰 Paid |
| Archive Editor | ✅ Included | 💰 Paid | 💰 Paid | 💰 Paid |
| Design System | ✅ Included | 💰 Paid | 💰 Paid | ❌ Manual |
| WooCommerce | ✅ Included | 💰 Paid | 💰 Paid | 💰 Paid |
| CSS per Block | ✅ Included | 💰 Paid | ✅ Free | 💰 Paid |
| Responsive Control | ✅ Included | ✅ Free | ✅ Free | ✅ Free |
Conclusion
WordPress Site Editor is still under active development, and there is ample scope for this to improve with time. On the other hand, Elementor and Divi are still among the popular WordPress page builders within the developer-community. It is true that the Site Editor is slowly picking up the pace, but it needs more refinements and still has a long way to go.
In my 10-years long WordPress journey, I have seen the path that Site Editor has come across. I must admit, it is a great progress so far and the WordPress community is putting a lot of effort to make it even more meaningful and useful.
