The End of Wordpress page builders for me

Ahmirof · Jun 3, 2026

For many years, I used Elementor for most of my websites. It worked well, and I have nothing against it. But recently, I reached a point where I realized I no longer really need it.

I wanted to redesign three of my websites, but I wasn’t interested in manually designing everything myself again. So I tried hiring website designers and freelancers. I spoke with many people, but most of them made big claims without a clear process. Some didn’t really understand what needed to be done, and a few even stopped in the middle of the project.

After that experience, I decided to try a different approach.

I spent a few hours creating a full brand CSS palette and design system for my website using Claude AI. Then I used ChatGPT, that CSS file, and my own requirements to create visual concepts for the web pages. Once the design direction was clear, the only thing left was implementation.

That was when I realized something important: with AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude, I could create a full custom WordPress theme instead of depending on Elementor, extra addons, and freelancers who may or may not finish the job properly.

I gave the AI my page designs, CSS file, website structure, and list of required pages. After several rounds of revision — probably around 7 or 8 — I ended up with a complete custom WordPress theme in a ZIP file.

Of course, it was not perfect from the first attempt. It still needed testing, fixing, and refinement. But the result was much cleaner than what I expected.

Now I no longer have to constantly update Elementor, Elementor Pro, and multiple addon plugins. I removed many unnecessary plugins and replaced some of them with small custom AI-assisted plugins made only for what my websites actually need.

The biggest surprise was performance. On Google PageSpeed Insights, I’m now getting 100 scores across all major areas on both desktop and mobile.

For me, this was a turning point.

Now, with AI, a clear design system, and some patience through revisions, a custom WordPress theme feels more lightweight, more flexible, and more future-proof for my own websites.

YANW3B · Jun 3, 2026

Hello! As a web developer, I'm glad you found a way to build a fast website without Elementor — I hate it too! By the way, if you want to make your site safer, install the Wordfence plugin and ask ChatGPT how to change your login page. Good luck!

overlordcc · Jun 3, 2026

Be careful with these AI as they leave a lot of vulnerabilities.

ReactiveOffers · Jun 3, 2026

overlordcc said:
Be careful with these AI as they leave a lot of vulnerabilities.

agree on it, when you know your code or have responsible person to write and inspect it - you definitely more protected in this case, but as you know any system has vulnerabilities - the only thing matters - how hard hackers want to hack you

Ahmirof · Jun 3, 2026

overlordcc said:
Be careful with these AI as they leave a lot of vulnerabilities.

ReactiveOffers said:
agree on it, when you know your code or have responsible person to write and inspect it - you definitely more protected in this case, but as you know any system has vulnerabilities - the only thing matters - how hard hackers want to hack you

Firstly i think the most important thing while using AI platforms is to act as a project manager, you have to check all aspects of your projects, and they are not in the level of set and forget yet.
I did it this way, as i have around 20 years experience in web and just become too lazy for doing things myself.
Secondly about the hackers, i think they need a good purpose to spend their time and find a problem on your system and hack you,but most of websites are not too serious to be a target for hackers,and actually most of the problem is coming when you are using a wellknown commercial plugin/script/theme and then when a hacker find a vulnerability all user websites will get affected, that's why custom system is better.

swtraffic · Aug 1, 2026

This is a very useful experience. If it's not too much trouble, please share your ideas with me. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to create anything truly impressive. I may have overlooked something.

viceroyviki · Aug 26, 2026

Ahmirof said:
Firstly i think the most important thing while using AI platforms is to act as a project manager, you have to check all aspects of your projects, and they are not in the level of set and forget yet.
I did it this way, as i have around 20 years experience in web and just become too lazy for doing things myself.
Secondly about the hackers, i think they need a good purpose to spend their time and find a problem on your system and hack you,but most of websites are not too serious to be a target for hackers,and actually most of the problem is coming when you are using a wellknown commercial plugin/script/theme and then when a hacker find a vulnerability all user websites will get affected, that's why custom system is better.

Do you set any checks or loops on your AI buddy such that it keeps tightening any loose code or gaps that come up - especially the plugin side? I am assuming you would instruct your AI to use a caching plugin or is everything you need baked into the theme by your AI?

jannie_dev · Oct 7, 2026

Nice result, getting 100 on PageSpeed with a custom theme is great. I like that you made a clear design system first and then did many revisions, because that seems to be the part that made the AI output good.

Ahmirof · Oct 7, 2026

Update on this path:
If you're interested in this thread, it went beyond page speed.
For example for my e-commerce website (its not woocommerce), i created multiple custom post types (products, proof, ...) and instead of editing each post in worpdtess editor my custom theme has custom fields, that showing content in each page template.
And it automatically doing internal linking, and also perfect topical authority foundation.

NulledCode · Oct 8, 2026

AI is a game changer for this. I would take this one step further and use AI to build your WordPress site locally and use a plugin like Simply Static to convert your website to static HTML (or have AI do this). Heck, I would probably eliminate the need for any WP plugins if I went 100% AI. Going with AI for everything has it's benefits in that you get exactly the features you need built exactly for your website the way you want it. The con being your code can get difficult to manage without using AI, thus you end up being completely reliant on AI to do everything. Another option is to use WordPress as a headless CMS.

Ahmirof · Oct 8, 2026

NulledCode said:
AI is a game changer for this. I would take this one step further and use AI to build your WordPress site locally and use a plugin like Simply Static to convert your website to static HTML (or have AI do this). Heck, I would probably eliminate the need for any WP plugins if I went 100% AI. Going with AI for everything has it's benefits in that you get exactly the features you need built exactly for your website the way you want it. The con being your code can get difficult to manage without using AI, thus you end up being completely reliant on AI to do everything. Another option is to use WordPress as a headless CMS.

Yes , I'm using ai for plugins too, now i have a core plugin for my theme, rankmath +woocommerce and payment gateways. Keeping wordpress is good as they update it and we can be up to date, if we have to manage everything that will be headache.
The point is efficiency in resources and time, with this package without overengineering and over optimizing many things fixed and even get better for overal business and SEO game. The minimum impact is that i don't have to update many wp plugins that i don't use half of their features

viceroyviki · Oct 9, 2026

ReactiveOffers said:
agree on it, when you know your code or have responsible person to write and inspect it - you definitely more protected in this case, but as you know any system has vulnerabilities - the only thing matters - how hard hackers want to hack you

I second that thought. Hackers and vulnerabilities existed before AI too. Previously, if you knew your codebase, stayed up to date with the latest developments and kept your platforms, plugins updated, you could still get hacked. AI adds another layer on top of all that now, but it does make it easier to reach satisfactory level of completion if you know what you are doing.

Nikolaos · 2026-10-20T08:57:39+0100

Ahmirof said:
For many years, I used Elementor for most of my websites. It worked well, and I have nothing against it. But recently, I reached a point where I realized I no longer really need it.

I wanted to redesign three of my websites, but I wasn’t interested in manually designing everything myself again. So I tried hiring website designers and freelancers. I spoke with many people, but most of them made big claims without a clear process. Some didn’t really understand what needed to be done, and a few even stopped in the middle of the project.

After that experience, I decided to try a different approach.

I spent a few hours creating a full brand CSS palette and design system for my website using Claude AI. Then I used ChatGPT, that CSS file, and my own requirements to create visual concepts for the web pages. Once the design direction was clear, the only thing left was implementation.

That was when I realized something important: with AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude, I could create a full custom WordPress theme instead of depending on Elementor, extra addons, and freelancers who may or may not finish the job properly.

I gave the AI my page designs, CSS file, website structure, and list of required pages. After several rounds of revision — probably around 7 or 8 — I ended up with a complete custom WordPress theme in a ZIP file.

Of course, it was not perfect from the first attempt. It still needed testing, fixing, and refinement. But the result was much cleaner than what I expected.

Now I no longer have to constantly update Elementor, Elementor Pro, and multiple addon plugins. I removed many unnecessary plugins and replaced some of them with small custom AI-assisted plugins made only for what my websites actually need.

The biggest surprise was performance. On Google PageSpeed Insights, I’m now getting 100 scores across all major areas on both desktop and mobile.

For me, this was a turning point.

Now, with AI, a clear design system, and some patience through revisions, a custom WordPress theme feels more lightweight, more flexible, and more future-proof for my own websites.

You do know that you can monetize the templates you've created right? Also congrats for not giving up!

The End of Wordpress page builders for me

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