Gutenberg has gotten off to a very shaky start, but it seems like it’s here to stay. Hopefully, all the kinks will be ironed out over time.
The next question to consider is how it will affect WordPress page builders, such as the following popular ones:
Like it or not, the fact is that Gutenberg will have fast adoption through the practice of forcing it on WordPress users. This will probably put the page builders in a tough spot unless they adopt and morph into something else.
What role do you think the popular page builders will have in the near future? I’d like to hear your thoughts on this topic. Page builder plugins have been big money makers so far, so I’m curious how Gutenberg will affect them.
9 Responses
Congratulations on the excellent article. I hope these changes are to help us.
I look forward to seeing how it will work, hope it’s all for the better.
So far WordPress is veering off into the realm of forcing itself on the community. Guttenberg does not hold a candle to the robust features and modules already offered by the page builders.
It is clear that Guttenberg is/will be a page builder. And, in doing so, it does nothing not already done by existing page builders.
I think Automattic is now preparing itself for an IPO and seeking to dominate the worldwide WP community to achieve that end. Too bad. Publicly traded companies devolve into greedy, self centered, and control-freaks in which the senior management loses sight of “where they came from”.
Too bad. What has been a wonderful WP community will trend to being a “market” to be controlled… that is… until classicpress.net just does a complete end-run.
What you describe is a very possible scenario, although many people keep their heads buried in the sand and believe it’s all rainbows and unicorns in the WP world.
Strange blog post; it’s just a single question. And you didn’t mention the most heavily-used page builder 🙂
Are you referring to Divi? If yes, that was an oversight on my part, adding it now.
Hi Jean, you might want to add Divi Builder into your list.
Re:Page builders and Gutenberg. My initial reaction was “oh no” page builders are dead. Then I realised that page builders have an advantage because they already have a userbase and have worked through the kinks of what users want from a typical page builder. All the “typical” Gutenberg complaints, the page builder developers have already dealt with and found solutions to it.
The trick, as you say in your post is, how will they morph into something else…
I think it is a Massive opportunity for page builders. Converting all their assets to become Gutenberg blocks. Huge opportunity.
We have built a niche business around Divi with premade custom modules and page templates (page layouts) at WP Den and Divi Den. Page builders should aim to become integrated into Gutenberg Asap and use their experience of what users want and need, to build their user base.
It did not “click” for me until I saw what Atomic Blocks did with their beta launch. When I saw that… I realised the epic opportunity hidden inside of Gutenberg.
Excellent thoughts Christiaan, glad to see such innovative thinking. That gives me hope that all will be well in the long run.
It’s a very, very sad forcing too, automatic is not even pretending to care about the 75-80% negative feedback. They are building something that’s more click to do simple stuff, client are confused and many asking to leave WP…this should have been a plugin not a take over….it’s already hurting WP and the community…