Wordpress + Elementor to Wappler practical question

Wappler General
#1

Dear all

I studied the thread Wordpress user looking at Wappler thinking about switching has some questions initiated by Toby_Bear. I do have the same situation (WP + Elementor, no real HTML, CSS, JS, DB knowledge).

I worked through the excellent and recommendable getting started courses of Ken Truesdale and do have 3 practical questions:

A) From what I’ve learned in the getting started courses I believe I can easely rebuilt a static site with the App Structure and Bootstrap framework in Wappler: Tabs, Tables, Navigation Bars - all is available. Also I can set global styles in ThemeManager. Would you agree on that or do I miss here something?

B) Assuming A) is positive. How difficult is it with no real no real HTML, CSS, JS, DB knowledge to get the built website live/online and what is the current situation compared to Wordpress + Elementor + Plugins on Speed Optimization and SEO?

C) Having the field open to more dynamic websites is IMO one strong argument for Wappler. Having no real HTML, CSS, JS, DB knowledge - how do you see the chances the necessary knowledge can be acquired via online-courses / as autodidakt?

Thanks for any help on my questions above -

Thomas

#2

Hi @Engel

I have built many dozens of websites with Wordpress and Elementor so know them both very well. However, I’m now slowly rebuilding some of those sites in Wappler because the end result is sooooo much better. But the CMS in Wordpress, particularly with Elementor, makes me still choose WP as a basis for building sites quickly where others will be maintaining the content. I’ve not had time to properly looks at ways to create a similar page building featureset like Elementor but there are others in this forum who have created a full CMS all in Wappler.

To respond to your questions…

A) Yes, you can certainly create sites much the same using Wappler and the Theme Manager. The modules that Elementor provides aren’t available so there would be more work involved there but Wappler gives you all the tools you need and Bootstrap sorts all the responsive issues.

B) This is harder to answer. Wappler does have a learning curve so your first site will certainly take longer than building it in Wordpress. The end result, however, will be much faster and should be easier to optimise for search engines, too.

C) The courses linked to in this forum will certainly get you up and running. The time spent learning and trying will be worth it in the long run but you might hit frustrations from time to time as you get familiar with it. But this forum is full of Wappler experts who are always keen to help others. It’s the best community online.

I hope this helps a little.

Jon

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#3

Hello Jon -

Thanks for your thoughts.

I am about to jump into Wappler and get the licence, but I am a bit hesitant because I understand only 5% of this tool. Reading through different threads I am convinced it is a fantastic platform.

Maybe I need to just set up a simple website and get it live in Wappler in order to see what the answer to B) really is.

Thanks again -

Thomas

1 Like
#4

Hi Thomas

Don’t expect to get results within a few hours. You really do need to spend a good amount of time with it. I didn’t have the benefit of the courses that are available now so it took even longer but I haven’t looked back.

They do a 7-day free trial or I think you can pay monthly so investing in one month might be a good way to go. Just immerse yourself in it and go through the courses.

#5

WP + Elementor is like buying a house. You just do the home staging.
Wappler is like building it from A to Z, foundations included.

You have full control with the latter.
That also means a lot more work, time and responsabilities (like handling DB upgrades between releases of your app).

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#6

Thats exactly what I start to understand. Also what I just see from Kens starter courses: You finally start understanding how the different parts of a website (db, webserver etc.) are playing together. You really start to understand and by that build valuable knowledge.

Thinking this to the end I believe there is no way around to dig into Wappler or a similar tool if you want to get access to all the possibilities WebDevelopment offers.

Thanks for your input!

#7

Exactly. If you use something which gives a quick-to-build solution then you’ll realise quickly just how limiting that is.

#8

Yes, knowing HTML, CSS and db is a must to be able to develop in Wappler and be able to use it to its full potential. JS is good to know.

Online training can be helpful in understanding general concepts - then you can just jump right into building - we’ve found that learning by building is often better way to gain confidence and skill.
Good luck.

#9

Hey @nshkrsh - thanks for your encouraging words! I believe I just jump in and start with static sites and expand from there.

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#10

Is wappler having a feature or at least working on automatically updating the files of a project when new components are added to the wappler platform or is this in truth the negative aspect of wappler?

#11

My experience has been that Wappler automatically updates its own scripts when new versions come out. When they introduced globals a few weeks back, all the server connect API scripts updated automatically.

#12

Hi.

Before Wappler i too had only used Wordpress and Elementor (and only built 2 websites)

Yes the lerning curve is more, but i had not HTML, CSS, JS experiences whatsoever and it has been great. I had to go back into one of me WP websites and makes some changes and found it so clunky after learning Wappler. I wanted to something simple that i knew how to to do in Wappler, but it was more complicated in elementor.

Also, from an optimisation perspective, i found it easier with Wappler as you had more control and understanding of some of the things the SEO / Optimisation pages were recommending, like in one example the recommendation from Google lightspeed(?) was to move some CSS code inline to make the page load quicker, and then move the main CSS file to load at the end of the page. I was able to do that fairly easily and soon got to 100% on the SEO/Page speed score.

This would have not been possible with WP + Elementor.

I also found the elementor pages were far more bloated with theit HTML/CSS code and would have had to be have been slower to load.

Just my 2c

#13

Thank you @sitestreet for info in this important detail.

1 Like
#14

Hello @Philip_J

Thank you very much for sharing your journey with me. I highly appreciate this as I believe your journey might be similar to mine.

Do you do static sites or also use the dynamic elements possible in wappler that go further than forms in Elementor?

Thanks for your answer and a great day ahead!

Thomas