Moving off WPBakery, Divi or Elementor: changing your page builder without breaking your site

The real trap: content locked into the tool

A page builder is a plugin that lets you lay out a page with the mouse: you drag in a column, an image, a button, and adjust everything on screen. WPBakery, Divi and Elementor are the most widespread on WordPress. The problem is not the tool itself, it is the way it saves your pages:

• WPBakery writes every page with its own bracketed codes, called “shortcodes”, such as [vc_row] or [vc_column_text]. If the plugin is deactivated, these codes appear instead of the page. And when some elements come with the theme, their codes show up instead as soon as you change theme.
• Divi 4 works the same way, with its own codes. Divi 5, stable since 26 February 2026, saves pages in a new format, but the layout still depends on Divi.
• Elementor keeps the layout separately, in its own data, and leaves only a simplified copy of the page in the WordPress content. Without it, the headings, text, images and links remain, but the whole layout is gone.

In other words, your site depends on the tool to display. As long as its developer keeps it up to date and it suits you, that is fine. The day you need to leave it, though, every page has to be rebuilt.

The signs it is time to move on

A page builder that works well can stay. These signs, however, should make you think:

• The site stays slow no matter what: caching (keeping a ready-made copy of each page to serve visitors faster) is set up, images are optimised, the hosting is decent, and yet pages crawl on mobile. The code the builder loads on every page ends up weighing it down.
• Nobody dares to update any more: the builder, its add-ons and the theme have to move forward together, and every update is a worry. When the builder comes bundled with the theme, its updates also depend on the theme’s developer.
• Security flaws to watch: like any plugin, a page builder is not immune. A WPBakery flaw made public on 31 August 2026 allowed a mere “subscriber” (WordPress’s most limited role, a visitor with an account) to slip malicious code into the site. Version 9.0 fixes it, but only sites that have been updated are protected.
• Editing a page has become an ordeal: columns nested inside each other, different settings for desktop and mobile, and the fear of knocking everything out of place by changing one word.
• A new version is waiting: Divi 5 and Elementor 4 came out in 2026, and taking advantage of them means converting or rebuilding your pages. Since the work has to be done anyway, this is the right time to make an informed choice.
• Accessibility falls short: an accessible site can be used by everyone, including people with disabilities. In August 2025, Equalize Digital, a US firm specialising in accessibility, tested 19 WordPress page-building tools: Divi, tested before Divi 5 came out, was among the lowest ranked, and the most frequent problems affected keyboard navigation and forms.

What the figures say

On mobile, in August 2026, 37% of Elementor sites, 39% of WPBakery sites and 42% of Divi sites passed Google’s three speed checks, compared with 49% of all WordPress sites and 64% of block theme sites.

These figures come from HTTP Archive, a project that analyses millions of websites and publishes, every month, the share of sites passing these three checks: how quickly the main content appears, how quickly the page responds, and how stable it stays. They are measured on real visits by Chrome users. Here is the breakdown of these August 2026 figures, the latest available at the time of writing:

These figures cover a very large number of sites: nearly 2.8 million for WordPress, 912,000 for Elementor, 228,000 for WPBakery, 158,000 for Divi and 50,000 for sites built entirely in blocks (known as a “block theme”). They do not prove that the builder alone is to blame. HTTP Archive itself points out that speed depends on many factors, and that a tool may mostly be used on simpler, or more complex, sites. Cheap hosting or heavy images play a part too. But the gap is clear, and it shows up for each of the three tools. For the other causes of slowness, see my guide to slow websites.

The companies behind these tools have responded. WPBakery 9, released on 29 July 2026, loads its styles more selectively instead of one large file shared by every page; WPBakery promises faster loading, while noting that the gain varies from site to site. Elementor 4, released at the end of March 2026, brings new elements with much simpler code: a single box per element instead of several nested ones. With WPBakery, updating the plugin is enough. With Elementor, only the new elements benefit: existing pages stay as they are until you rebuild them.

Three options, depending on your site

You can slim down the current builder, move to its new version (Divi 5, Elementor 4), or rebuild the site with the WordPress block editor. The right choice depends on the age of the site, the builder, and what you expect from the next few years.

Moving to Divi 5 is the quickest route: the built-in migration tool converts Divi’s own modules in one click, and keeps a copy of your old pages so you can go back. But modules from other developers that have not been adapted are not converted. They still work, and a page containing one then also loads the old Divi 4, which can slow it down. Elegant Themes, the company behind Divi, has committed to supporting Divi 4 (security and compatibility with new WordPress versions) for at least twelve months after the release of Divi 5, that is, until at least the end of February 2027.

Moving to Elementor 4 changes nothing on existing pages: to benefit from the new, lighter elements, the pages have to be rebuilt with them. Elementor lets you adopt them gradually, mixing them with the old ones on the same page; on an existing site, they have to be switched on first.

Rebuilding with the block editor means going back to the tool built into WordPress, long seen as too limited, which has closed much of the gap. WordPress 7.0, released on 20 May 2026, lets you show or hide a block depending on the screen, add styling code (CSS) to a single block, and handle a ready-made set of blocks as one unit, which you can detach to adjust. WordPress 7.1, released on 19 August 2026, added settings per screen size without writing code, buttons that change when you hover over them, and tabs. Above all, the content is saved in WordPress’s own format: as long as you stick to WordPress’s own blocks, it does not depend on any plugin to display.

How to switch without breaking anything

Whatever the option, the method is the same: the live site is not touched until the new version is ready.

1. Take stock. Every page, the recurring templates, the special elements (forms, carousels, tabs, maps), the address of each page, and the pages that matter most in Google, according to Search Console, Google’s free tool showing how your site appears in its results.
2. Prepare a copy of the site. All the work happens on a copy, hidden from visitors and from Google. The live site keeps running normally.
3. Rebuild page by page. Same addresses, same text, same titles and same descriptions for Google. If an address has to change, a redirect sends the old one to the new one. It is also a chance to clear out unused plugins.
4. Switch over, then measure. Put the new version live, compare speed before and after, test every form, then keep an eye on Search Console over the following weeks.

What affects the amount of work

Two sites of the same size can require very different amounts of work. What really counts:

• The number of templates, more than the number of pages: twenty pages built on three templates are quicker to redo than five pages that are all different.
• The special elements: forms, filters, carousels, maps, and any features added by add-ons.
• The languages: each translated version is one more page to rebuild and check.
• The shop: on WooCommerce, product pages and the checkout need thorough testing.
• The content to clean up: text pasted with its old formatting, duplicate images, forgotten pages.

Is your site running on WPBakery, Divi or Elementor?

I look at your site as it is, and tell you honestly which option suits you, including leaving things as they are if your builder serves you well. If we do switch, I work on a copy, page by page, keeping your addresses, and I measure speed before and after. You talk directly to the person who writes the code.

Let’s talk about your site → See takeover and maintenance

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Frequently asked questions

Sources

• Sites passing the three speed checks, by technology (HTTP Archive, Chrome data for August 2026)
• WPBakery 9.0, released 29 July 2026 (WPBakery blog)
• Divi 5 stable release, 26 February 2026 (Elegant Themes)
• Elementor 4.0 and its new elements, 31 March 2026 (Elementor)
• Accessibility of 19 page builders, August 2025 (Equalize Digital)