Bold Builder

What it is

Bold Builder is a WordPress page builder plugin made by Bold Themes, an author of free and premium WordPress themes and plugins. It is a drag and drop editor for people who build pages and do not want to write code, and it also gives WordPress developers an API to extend it. The company says it is "actively developed and maintained" and promises "a constant flow of new and exciting features."

What you build and how

The core of the product is the Drag & Drop Backend Editor. You add elements and drag them around to build pages, and the company says no coding experience is needed. Since version 4.0.0, marked on the site as new from 2022, there is also a front-end editor. The company explains that you can now manage content both in the back end and on the front end, and that you can view your website pages as you edit them. Its wording is that the drag and drop builder "just got better with adding easy to use front end editing options." The home page describes the same feature as editing page elements on the page itself, under the heading "Save Your Time!", while the back-end editor is pitched as the place to "Experiment and play with your layout." The two work on the same content, so you can lay out a page in the back end and then fine-tune it while looking at the live result.

The element library is the part you actually build with. The features page counts "20+ content elements," while the home page says "30+ content elements." The features page lists them: accordion, button, countdown, counter, column, custom menu, Google Maps, headline, icon, image, image slider, inner row, inner column, image grid, latest posts, OpenStreetMap, post grid, price list, progress bar, raw HTML/JS content, row, separator, service, simple cost calculator, slider, tabs, text and video.

That list says a lot about the sites this is meant for. A price list and a simple cost calculator suit small service businesses that want to show rates or let a visitor estimate a job. A countdown suits a launch or a sale. Latest posts and post grid pull blog content into a page, and Google Maps and OpenStreetMap give a choice of map provider. Raw HTML/JS content is the escape hatch when a built-in element does not do what you need. Rows with inner rows and inner columns give nested layouts. Accordion and tabs fold longer text such as FAQs or service details into a compact block, counters and progress bars present figures, and the image grid, image slider and video elements cover galleries and media. A custom menu element places a navigation menu inside the page layout itself.

Two behaviors are worth singling out. The first is responsive control: Bold Builder lets you hide any sections or elements on chosen screen sizes, so you can tailor content to different audiences and usage occasions. The second is time-limited content. A "custom" feature lets you set a publish date and an expiry date on a section, row or content element, which the page pitches for time-limited promotions or scheduled appearance of content, without a separate scheduling plugin.

Copying is the feature the company and its reviewers return to. Full clipboard functionality lets you copy any content element from one page to another, and even from one website to another. The company calls this unique and says it makes customization easier and more efficient. Several reviewers on the home page name it as their favorite part.

For developers, the pages say an API is included: "simple and intuitive API" with a detailed developer's documentation and examples, so you can extend the builder with your own components. The home page frames the product as built "for developers and users with no coding experience."

On compatibility, Bold Builder works with most WordPress themes, free or premium. The company points to its own demos, which are built with free themes and plugins from WordPress.org. All of Bold Themes' premium WordPress themes are built with Bold Builder, and the home page shows several of them, including Nifty (business consulting), Craft Beer (brewery and pub), Oxigeno (sport club and team), Avantage (business consulting), DentiCare (medical and dental clinic), ProHauz (handyman and plumber), Pawsitive (pet care and pet shop) and Goldenblatt (lawyer and law office).

The evidence

The company's headline claim is speed: "Bold Builder is a speed champion and the only WordPress drag & drop page builder with the instant user interface response. Beats other popular page builders by far." The features page files it under the heading "Lightning Fast Visual Builder," and it is the company's own claim.

The site offers the plugin through a Download now button rather than a pricing table, and one reviewer, Gilbert Cattoire, calls it "a great free page builder," adding that "Using this plugin is actually pretty self-explanatory." A Demos section shows sites built with it, and visitors can leave an email to hear when Bold Themes publishes a new WordPress theme.

Support is spread across three resources, listed on the resources page under "We Got You Covered!" There is online documentation to "help you get the most out of Bold Builder plugin as quickly as possible," a support route for any questions about the plugin, and video tutorials on YouTube, which the page recommends because "Watching a tutorial is sometimes the fastest way to learn." A contact email for Bold Themes sits in the footer.

The reviews on the home page are short and specific. One says: "I haven't yet found a layout it could not handle." Another singles out Undo/Redo as the feature it values most. One says it has exactly what is needed to get the job done and singles out drag and drop and copy and paste from one page to another. A third says it "works fast, is easy to get the hang of" and that copy and paste across multiple websites "that use the same page editor" was the deciding feature. Others say "Fast and simple, nice content elements, clipboard is very useful" and that the ability to copy and paste any part from one page to another, or from one site to another, is "quite well thought-out."

Who it suits

Bold Builder suits WordPress site owners, freelancers and small agencies who want a fast editor with a clipboard that works between sites. An agency that keeps reusing a pricing block or a testimonial row across client sites gets the most from the copy and paste feature. Developers who want to add their own components can use the included API.

It is a narrower tool than a theme and builder bundle: the finished-looking designs come from Bold Themes' premium themes, while the plugin itself supplies the editor, the elements and the clipboard. The site's copyright line reads 2023, so the online documentation is the place to check the current element set.