Tag: block editor

Is WordPress having a midlife crisis? While Elementor continues its upward climb, the block editor struggles for relevance, and the site editor barely registers on the radar. Behind these numbers lies a more nuanced story about WordPress’s evolution—one that might just surprise you.

Last week, Joost de Valk (the mind behind Yoast SEO before moving to Emilia Capital) published another in a long line of “WordPress needs to get its act together” pieces. His post “WordPress, and what should be on its roadmap” hits familiar notes: WordPress has serious UX issues, carries mountains of technical debt, and desperately needs modernization. But what’s interesting isn’t that he’s saying it—it’s that so many voices keep having to repeat these same concerns year after year.

Despite the chorus of criticism, there’s reason for cautious optimism. The latest developments show WordPress addressing some long-standing pain points: version control improvements, responsive design finally getting attention, more sophisticated APIs, clearer separation between content and design modes, and the tantalizing promise of component-like experiences through partially-synced patterns.

But here’s the rub—many of these features remain half-baked while competitors like Elementor, Kadence, GenerateBlocks, and Bricks are shipping solutions that work today.

The Open Source Advantage (Even When It’s Messy)

As Drupal founder Dries Buytaert pointed out in a conversation with WordPress creators Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little, open source thrives precisely because it enables multiple approaches to the same problem:

“The beauty about Open Source is you have all of these people that can contribute their own version and even fork existing versions to make it better. And eventually just like evolution in their, you know, in their Darwinian evolutions, sort of the best solutions bubble to the top and bad solutions tend to disappear.”

This explains why we have two dozen form plugins instead of just one “perfect” solution. Software evolves, contexts change, and what works brilliantly today might feel clunky tomorrow. With proprietary platforms like Wix, you’re locked into their vision. With WordPress, you always have options—though this article omits how critical good marketing is to determining which solutions actually “bubble to the top.”

What Makes WordPress…WordPress?

For all the talk of more sophisticated competitors like Sanity and Contentful, WordPress remains unmatched in its ability to let non-technical users regularly publish content as straightforward HTML pages. Matt Medeiros whipped up MasterWP’s new landing page in just hours using the WordPress site editor. Soon he’ll update the color palette without needing a developer or navigating a complex deployment process. That’s democratization in action.

The Great Divide: Interpreting the Market Data

But context matters. The block editor has already outpaced every page builder except Elementor. And while YouTube might suggest tools like Bricks are taking over, they haven’t even cracked the top ten yet (though they’re likely running profitable businesses in their niche).

What this data doesn’t reveal is perhaps more interesting than what it shows. It doesn’t capture:

• Market share among new websites (rather than all existing ones)
• Economic value of these sites (hosting costs, software licenses, development budgets)
• The significant portion of WordPress sites built without any page builder at all

That last point deserves attention. Many agency developers never touched page builders, instead relying on frameworks like Understrap, Underscores, Roots/Sage, and TailPress combined with custom PHP and Advanced Custom Fields. This cohort of more technical developers has different needs and serves different clients than those using drag-and-drop builders.

Different Tools for Different Goals

This reveals a fundamental truth often overlooked in these discussions: page builders and the block editor serve fundamentally different markets.

Page builders excel at providing easy site-building experiences for quick, lower-cost website creation. The block editor aims to deliver a robust content-editing experience that can scale to enterprise needs. They’re not competing as much as serving different segments of the market.

WordPress appears to be shifting upmarket, focusing increasingly on higher-value websites—those requiring version control, consistent deployment processes, and resilience against the kind of bugs that can tank a business when an auto-update goes wrong.

The Core Paradox

Here’s where things get interesting. Many in the page builder community criticize Gutenberg while simultaneously demanding WordPress core improve its fundamental CMS features. But why aren’t they pushing these same demands onto the builders they actually pay for? If these gaps are so critical, where’s the rush to build and monetize solutions?

Felix Arntz offered a compelling explanation in a recent interview:

“Realistically, I’ve noticed that it’s hard to get adoption for this kind of plugin because it’s still not part of Core… Developers have to be confident that this is a thing that is going to be around. […] I think only once it hit Core, it really reaches a critical mass.”

This creates a counterintuitive reality: features in the free, open-source core often enjoy more adoption and longevity than those in paid products. That’s why keeping Gutenberg in core matters, despite its growing pains.

Looking Beyond Market Share

While Joost’s analysis isn’t wrong, the internet chorus often falls into WordPress’s own trap: using market share as the primary measure of success. For developers, simply chasing the next popular tool to speed up workflows is shortsighted. The real opportunity lies in leveling up your skills to offer more valuable services, as selling cheaper, faster websites becomes an increasingly brutal race to the bottom.

If there’s one wish for WordPress in 2025, it’s remarkably simple: say what you’re trying to accomplish, then do it well. The ecosystem will adapt accordingly.

The page builder wars will continue, but WordPress core seems committed to a longer game—building a platform that serves not just the DIY market but also enterprise-level needs. Whether that strategy succeeds depends on execution, but at least there’s a vision emerging from the chaos.

Tags: WordPress, page builders, Gutenberg, Elementor, block editor, site editor, open source, web development, WordPress core, content management systems, WordPress market share, WordPress future