In this blog post, I'm going to talk about a new premium website/page builder for WordPress which performs very well. Since I was using Elementor myself, I was particularly interested in seeing if it could be a worthy replacement for Elementor. Judge for yourself based on this blog post and download the trial version to test it out.

There’s a new website/page builder you really should check out: Breakdance! It’s easy to use and helps you create the website you want, right out of the box. You don’t need any programming knowledge—no PHP or CSS, for example. But if you’re a developer, there are plenty of advanced features available, such as custom CSS per element. Breakdance was created by the developers behind a fairly well-known builder called Oxygen.

Breakdancing offers the following opportunities, among others:

• 120+ elements with a drag-and-drop interface
• Full site editing, which does not require a theme
• WooCommerce integration
• Megamenu Builder
• Form Builder
• ACF and Toolset Integration
• Ability to use PHP, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript

Design Options

Breakdance gives you overall control over styles. For example, you can easily set a default text color or text size. The platform also offers great out-of-the-box defaults. So even if customizing isn't your thing, you're still in good hands.

SEO

In Breakdance, you can choose the HTML tag for an element yourself, and it's also compatible with SEO plugins like Yoast.

Built-in tools

You no longer need a slider plugin or a lightbox plugin—Breakdance already has these and other commonly used features built in! You also don't need a contact form plugin, because it comes with a powerful form builder.

No theme required

While Elementor still requires a base theme, Breakdance does not. The WordPress theme functionality is disabled by default. However, sometimes it’s still necessary to use a theme—for example, for functions.php—and that’s where the Breakdance Zero theme comes in.

Full site editing

With Breakdance's editor, you can easily build your entire website. For example, create a header and choose whether it should be visible throughout the entire site or, say, only on the homepage—and create a different header for the rest of the website.

Speed

Breakdance is optimized for speed; it doesn’t have any “bloat,” as it’s called in technical terms. This is because CSS and JavaScript are generated based on what you actually need, whereas other builders load a lot of extra CSS code that isn’t even used. I rebuilt my own website—which I had originally built using Elementor—with Breakdance, and it resulted in a significant performance boost!

Design Library

Breakdance recently launched a design library that includes a number of pre-built websites. You can import these if you have the paid Pro version of Breakdance. Here’s an example: https://breakdancelibrary.com/security/

Costs

Breakdance currently offers a free version with limited features. However, if you want to take full advantage of all of Breakdance’s options and features, you can still purchase a license for $149 per year for an unlimited number of websites. They plan to increase the price of this license by $200, but they’re also considering offering licenses on a per-website basis.

How do you use Breakdance?

Install Breakdance

Start by downloading the Breakdance plugin from their website. Breakdance offers a free version, so there's no risk of being locked into anything.

After downloading, go to Plugins in WordPress, then select "Add New," and then upload it.

Theme or No Theme?

As soon as you activate the plugin, you'll see the Setup Wizard. It gives you two options: Disable Theme and Keep Theme.

Select "Disable Theme," and you'll be able to create your entire website in Breakdance.

Build your website

In the left-hand menu of your WordPress admin panel, you'll find various options under the Breakdance menu:

Templates

You can create templates for, for example, WooCommerce Products and Archives, Single Post, Post Archive, 404, Search Results. But you can also choose your own template.

Headers

Here you can create your header(s). If you'd like, you can create multiple headers that appear only on specific pages or sections of your website.

Footers

Just like headers, you can create footers that are visible throughout the entire website or on a specific part of the website.

Global Blocks

You can create global blocks that you can reuse anywhere on your website. For example, you can create a custom look for displaying a post. With the post loop builder, you can then use the global block to create a list or grid of posts.

Pop-ups

Breakdance lets you create pop-ups and helps you convert visitors into subscribers or customers.

Form Submissions

When you create a form in Breakdance, you can view all submissions here.

Settings

There are various Breakdance settings that you can change here. You can also adjust the global styles here, one of Breakdance's standard features. The customized global styles are immediately visible in the visual editor.

Performance

The Performance settings are a powerful tool. Adjusting these settings can significantly improve your website’s loading speed. For example, you can disable Gutenberg CSS. You don’t need it if you’re using Breakdance for everything. It’s also highly recommended to disable WP emojis for visitors.

The First Steps

My advice would be to start with a header, under the "Headers" option in the Breakdance menu. Next, it's a good idea to create a homepage, and then move on to a page and a single post template (if, for example, you want to display news articles).

You can easily create a homepage by creating a new WordPress page: select “Edit with Breakdance” and set the page as the homepage.

Of course, don't forget to create a footer.

Breakdance: A robust and powerful website builder

If you’re not satisfied with your current WordPress theme and don’t plan on creating your own, using a page/website builder is the right choice. Breakdance is definitely a good option. It requires no programming knowledge to build your site and is intuitive to use. If you are a developer, there are plenty of opportunities to use your skills to expand the capabilities of a site built on Breakdance.