Elementor VS Cornerstone. Is the Game Worth the Candle?

After my successful mystery shopping experience, I decided to try a WordPress website builder that I have never used before, that’s the Cornerstone.

In this article, I’ll compare it to the Elementor builder which is so much appreciated by WordPress community and particularly our regular WordPress theme buyers.

So let’s begin.

Elementor VS Cornerstone

First of all, let’s see how their creators have described their builders.

I’ve highlighted phrases that are particularly important for website builders, since we've already talked about Elementor page builder quite a lot, in this piece I’ll focus a little bit more on the Cornerstone page builder.

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Cornerstone Builder + Theme X Installation

Now let’s play with the Cornerstone page builder and a Theme X.

As you know this theme is called an absolute bestseller at Themeforest marketplace, and now we’ll find out if the play is worth the candle.

After you pay for the template you’ll get an installation archive.

Go to your admin and install the piece.

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X Menu

When you’ve installed and activated the theme a new menu item will appear in your admin.

If it’s there, it means that you’re on the right track.

This menu item has a few subitems.

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Overview

In this section you can setup theme updates, get support, install additional demo content, import/export customizer settings, and manage theme extensions.

The theme has lots of demos though I decided to install the first one from the list called “Agency”.

This is what it looks like.

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Cornerstone

The Cornerstone section has a number of basic settings which you try.

And the last item is, the...

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Launch

This is how you can enter the Cornerstone editor, after pressing the Launch link you will see this screen.

Here you can choose among Options, Templates, and Content.

Options is exactly what it sounds to be.

Later you will find out that all items included in this Options menu are available in Customize but with minor differences.

For some reason, they decided to dub theme options, from my perspective this is too much.

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At first, you will see is this notification:

“Manage all of your fonts and colors from one central location!”

Fonts

This menu can do only two things:

• choose a font for the body copy;
• choose a font for the headings.

There’s a preview option, you will never guess why you need it.

So basically you can:

• choose a font;
• choose font weights...

...and that’s it.

If you want to edit selected fonts you need to go to the Customize >> Typography

There you can edit various aspects including letter spacing, uppercase use, the font size on screens with different resolutions.

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Colors

The colors menu allows to edit:

• brand primary;
• brand secondary;
• link;
• link interaction.

Also, you can change the color of various theme elements via Customize, by visiting sections highlighted in the screenshot.

Let’s move on to the last section.

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This is the place where you need use the Cornerstone builder.

In the left side of the screen, you will find the list of posts and pages.

For this test I’ll create a new page, calling it Test page.

Hover any of these and click edit.

 

And this is your work area in Cornerstone builder.

Now let’s try to add some content. First of all, we need to add a section.

Once it’s there, click the cube icon to add some elements to the page.

I’ll add a full-width image and a passage of dummy text.

This is what it looks like.

But there’s a thing, no matter how hard you with headbang the wall you will not be able to make this image 100% width without making some CSS alterations. Actually, I’m not the only one who had the same issue.

As for me, this is really strange.

In terms of other things, Cornerstone provides its user with a vast array of elements which play well only with Theme X.

I’ll show you right now.

I’ve deactivated Theme X and activated Twenty Seventeen. And the same problem here, making this image 100% width is not possible without CSS alterations.

But there’s a good thing about Cornerstone, the so-called "blocks" and "templates".

These are page/content elements with some predefined settings.

Here’s how the Core values template looks like.

My favorite is the Use the force template which works as a set of two vertically flipping cards.

Now, let’s sum up things we’ve seen here.

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Elementor Builder + Digitalium Theme

Now let’s see how the Elementor builder differs from the Cornerstone builder.

For this test, I’ll use one of the latest themes built with - Digitalium - Marketing Agency WordPress Theme.

After you install and activate the theme you need to go through the onboarding system which installs all components of the template. That's the Cherry Wizard plugin.

While the theme components are being installed you will notice this.

This is an additional plugin which extends significantly the capabilities of Elementor builder. Here you can read more about JetElements.

When all components are installed I’ll create a new test page to make just a few manipulation with Elementor builder.

This is how the work area in Elementor builder looks like.

The lover part of the menu are the elements provided by the JetElements plugin.

So you know how many elements are actually there, I've made this collage for you.

Are you impressed?

Ok, let's move on.

As you can see, you’re offered either to add a New section or a Template.

By pressing the Section you will have to choose the number of columns for this very section.

I just pressed two and...here they are.

I received two column layout.

Sleek, right.

But if press Add template, you will find 147 pre-designed layouts most of which you can use right away (unfortunately some of those page templates are available only in Elementor PRO)!

As for me, this is a very large advantage over Cornerstone.

Just for laughs, I’ve activated the template CV.

Each and every element in this layout can be edited or altered anyhow you want.

Previously with Cornerstone, I’ve tried to add a full-width image to the page body, but to no avail, and here I’m offered to use various templates to build pages.

Based on this set options I think I’ve already made my choice, and not in the favor of Cornerstone.

Let’s see what happens if I switch the theme to Twenty Seventeen.

As it was expected, everything worked as with the Zemez theme.

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Final Ideas Regarding Both Builders

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The Verdict

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