I used Elementor for three years. I was good at it. I recommended it to clients. And then one day I measured my site’s performance and felt sick: 28 HTTP requests, 4.2 seconds to first contentful paint, a Lighthouse score of 54.
The Problem with Page Builders
Page builders are optimized for flexibility, not performance. Every widget loads its own CSS and JavaScript, regardless of whether you use it. The DOM gets bloated with wrapper divs that serve no semantic purpose. And every major update risks breaking your carefully crafted layouts.
What a Custom Theme Gives You
With a custom WordPress theme, you ship exactly the CSS and JS your site needs — nothing more. My current theme has one CSS file (113KB, which compresses to ~18KB with gzip) and one JS file (8KB). That’s it. No jQuery, no widget libraries, no icon fonts.
The Trade-off
You need to know PHP, HTML, and CSS. You’re giving up the drag-and-drop visual editor. Updates require a developer (or for you to be one). For most freelancers and agencies, that trade-off isn’t worth it. But for a personal site where performance and ownership matter? It’s the right call.
My Lighthouse Score Now
Performance: 97. Accessibility: 98. Best Practices: 100. SEO: 100. The custom theme didn’t just look better — it performed better in every measurable way.
