If you are a WordPress user, then you know that there are a million different page builders to choose from. So why should you try out Bricks Builder?
Well, for starters, it’s not just another WordPress page builder. This theme is packed with features that allow you to create beautiful pages without having to write a single line of code.
In today’s Bricks Builder review and mini-tutorial, you’ll see why I think it’s worth considering it for your next website build. Especially if you care about fast-loading websites that are efficient and easy to style well. Let’s get into it.
What is Bricks Builder?
Released in mid 2021, Bricks Builder is a relatively new WordPress offering that has slowly been gaining popularity due to its unique features and ease of use. It was created with the goal of simplifying the process of creating beautiful pages without having to write a single line of code, and therefore helps you to create fast-loading websites that are both efficient and easy to style well.
Bricks Builder includes all of the standard features you would expect from a WordPress page builder, such as drag-and-drop layout editing, custom CSS styling, and support for shortcodes. But it also includes some unique features that set it apart from the competition.
What Makes Bricks Builder Different
So what, exactly, sets Bricks Builder apart?
What is all the hype about?
Well, to begin:
- It’s a theme and not a plugin, which works to its advantage because all styling can be kept cohesive easily between the theme and builder
- It’s designed with efficient coding standards and sites built with it do tend to load quickly, which helps with SEO
- After learning the workflow, it’s easy to design pretty much anything you have in mind from a visual standpoint
- If you’re familiar with CSS then the classes functionality can save a lot of time
- The mobile breakpoint design functionality is intuitive and works well
- The query loop functionality is top-notch, which lets you work with WordPress as a true content management system instead of manually building each element on your site
- It was built with performance in mind, which is why it’s able to load pages faster than most other plugins out there, and fast-loading pages are becoming increasingly important for SEO
- Bricks is designed to be as user-friendly as possible, which makes it a great option for those who are new to website building or don’t have a lot of experience with coding
Those are only some of the features that help make Bricks Builder stand out as one of the newer and better WordPress page builders on the market. There are so many more for one to discover and explore and as you gain more experience with the platform, there’s no doubt you’ll become familiar with all of them.
The Downsides to Bricks Builder
As with anything, as much as there are upsides, every tool or theme has its drawbacks.
One of the biggest issues we’ve had since using Bricks Builder to design our various websites is that major updates have caused breaking changes.
That’s because Bricks Builder is still in its early development, and they keep changing how they want to handle containers and sub-containers. We also weren’t as familiar with how to use Bricks in the beginning, so we relied on things like margins to make things look nice but that caused issues with the updates.
I’m holding out hope that this will no longer be an issue once things settle down on the development front.
Another downside to Bricks Builder is that it can be difficult to find support if you run into problems.
They have a general FAQ page and some video tutorials, and a helpful forum where you can ask questions. In the case of more complicated situations that require in-depth help it can be tricky to get a resolution. Hopefully, this will change as more people use this theme and they continue to build more of a support base.
One final thing we’d like to touch upon for those who may not have as much experience building websites or using WordPress page builders is that Bricks Builder can, at times, have a steep learning curve.
Due to its multitude of features and processes, for those who have never used a similar platform before, it might be a little overwhelming at first.
We say this with the intention to warn rather than discourage you, as, as mentioned above, Bricks Builder is one of the easier page builders to use and thus generally doesn’t require you to have any extensive or preexisting knowledge on coding and the like.
Nevertheless, it is still important to keep in mind that you can expect to run into some difficulties upon first navigating it and that’s okay. This will all go away with time as you continue to learn how to manage it.
More Features
We won’t delve into each and every Bricks feature in this overview, however we’d like to highlight those that we have found particularly useful.
One of these includes Brick Builder’s templates library. The platform provides a library of professionally-designed templates that can be easily customized to fit your specific needs.
Whether you’re looking for a simple one-page website or a more complex multi-page site, Bricks Builder has a template for you. And the best part is that all of the templates are fully responsive, so they’ll look great on any device. If you’re not a fan of pre-made templates, Bricks Builder also gives you the ability to create your own custom layouts from scratch.
Another great feature is the ability to save your layouts as templates. This means that you can create a layout once and then use it over and over again on other pages of your site.
This is especially handy if you have a complex layout that you want to use on multiple pages. We’ve used this feature numerous times in order to save time and keep everything looking cohesive on our site.
One of our favorite features is the built-in performance optimization. Bricks Builder automatically minifies your CSS and HTML code to help ensure that your pages load as quickly as possible. It also includes a lazy loading feature that only loads images when they are visible on the screen, which can further improve your page load times.
Another unique feature of Bricks Builder is its “brick” system. This system allows you to create pages using pre-designed blocks, or “bricks” which can also be interpreted as containers. Bricks can be customized to your liking, which makes it easy to create a unique and stylish page without having to start from scratch.
Bricks Builder’s live preview is another handy feature that you’ll undoubtedly find yourself using. The live preview allows you to see what your page will look like as you’re building it, which makes it easy to make changes and see how they’ll affect the overall design. We can’t count the number of times we’ve used this when building our own web pages. It helps you to actually visualize the finished product and also makes you aware if there are any spacing or formatting issues that need fixing before publication.
Finally, one of the best things about Bricks Builder is that it’s constantly being updated with new features. The developers are always working to improve the plugin, which means that you can expect new and exciting features to be added on a regular basis.
More Training
There are a few add-ons available for Bricks Builder, which can help to extend the functionality of the theme. One of these is by the team at Digital Ambition. They’ve created CSS frameworks that integrate with Bricks Builder, and offer a lot of tutorials on making Bricks do cool things.
Bricks Builder Review: Final Thoughts
Overall, we were really impressed with Bricks Builder. If you’re looking for a powerful yet easy to use page builder, then this will be perfect for you. Even better, you don’t have to code!
This theme comes with a ton of features, including performance optimization, live preview, a “brick” system, and more. All work towards bringing your website to life and making your design process as seamless and as efficient as possible.
If you’re looking for a WordPress page builder, then we highly recommend checking out Bricks Builder. It’s one of the best that we’ve used and it’s sure to help you create beautiful pages in no time.
What do you think of Bricks Builder? Have you used it to create any pages? Be sure to let us know with your own experiences or opinions!
