The reason why the Gutenberg Editor was developed

Over the years, the classic editor of WordPress has not had any positive changes. With its outdated structure, the classic WordPress editor makes it difficult for users to use, especially for those who are just starting out and don’t have any coding knowledge, this is really a huge challenge. To make it easier for more people to use, many developers have developed a lot of plugins to help website owners easily drag and drop and manage website content according to their preference. And the outstanding plugin in this list is Gutenberg Editor. However, the new version of this plugin has received a lot of conflicting opinions. Some people think that Gutenberg is the optimal choice for WordPress while others prefer using Classic Editor to use Gutenberg. For these reasons, in today’s topic, we will compare Gutenberg vs Classic Editor to help you have better insight and choose the right one for your website later.
The battle between Gutenberg Vs Classic Editor will be analyzed based on some main features, user interface, advantages, and disadvantages, ratings from users. Now, let’s dive into the comparison to understand more about two useful tools.

Gutenberg Vs Classic Editor: Introduction

Gutenberg

Gutenberg

Gutenberg is the new block text editor of WordPress and became the default Editor from WordPress 5.0 version. The name Gutenberg was derived by Johannes Gutenberg-the “father” of the portable printer more than 500 years ago. The Gutenberg Editor has become available since December 2018. The new editor gives you plenty of blocks that help you easily create rich and attractive content. This tool enables you to utilize a drag and drop system to build pages and posts by using multiple pre-built blocks. With each block, you can easily customize the size, position, color, thanks to its own set of useful options. 
In addition, this tool has been optimized to suit a wide number of users even for those who don’t have any knowledge of CSS or HTML. Especially, this tool has been integrated with a lot of complex features. It means that you don’t need to install any extra plugins such as menu plugins, gallery plugins,…Moreover, the new block styles permit you to embed media files and different features in your posts. As a result, your content will be created with a more appealing appearance and impressive shape.

Classic Editor

Classic Editor

Classic Editor is the old default editor of WordPress. This tool is regarded as a simple text editor or in other words, it may be a simple word processing software as Microsoft Word. The Classic Editor is considered a lightweight content material editor that allows you to format simply. Despite being essential, it makes you include several HTML tags that are important for search engine optimization purposes.

If you are a beginner and don’t have professional coding skills, the most difficult thing is that you will encounter many problems when creating content for your site. However, everybody is used to use this plugin and they find it not hard to use later.

Main Features

 Gutenberg Editor  Classic Editor
 Drag-and-drop interface  Yes  No
 Download media directly to the editor  Yes  No
 Requires HTML knowledge  No  Yes
 A plain area to create content and type text  No  Yes
 Creating content with blocks  Yes   No
 Advanced features such as contact form, table, inserting videos, etc  Yes  No
 Have page preview while editing  Yes  No
 Parallax effect when scrolling  Yes  No

 

As you can see on the table, Gutenberg vs Classic Editor have quite a few differences. Firstly, Gutenberg provides you with a drag and drop interface. This interface is quite friendly with users, so you don’t take long to get used to it.  Whereas Classic editor doesn’t offer any such a function.

Secondly, the new editor allows you to upload media files directly to the editor to help you increase the productivity of your website, and however, the old editor only enables you to upload media files to the library first and then to the editor.

Another significant difference is that Classic Editor gives the blank area to create rich content and type text. On the other hand, Gutenberg permits you to generate content through blocks. Thanks to these blocks, you can finish your tasks quickly without investing much time. In addition, the Gutenberg Editor also comes with a lot of advanced features such as an insert table, video,…These features that you never experienced in the old editor.

User Interface

Gutenberg

Classic Editor 2

The Gutenberg editor is different from the Classic Editor because it has a much cleaner layout. Instead of using a basic blank box, the Gutenberg is replaced by a full-page view with seamless integration between the name of a page and its content in the same area. Thanks to that, you can view the entire page how looks like when it is displayed on devices. Especially, you can use blocks to edit the content instead of using complicated HTML and shortcodes.

Classic Editor

Classic Editor

In contrast, if you used the classic editor, you will be provided a basic blank text box that includes all functionality to help you create an attractive page. It offers you the ability to add header text, paragraphs, images, and other formats for text. Nevertheless, you want to create a more complex design, this editor doesn’t seem to meet these requirements. For example, if you want to add two-column layouts or format images to fit the page, you need to have the support of a third-party tool. Because the classic editor interface allows you to customize content through HTML and shortcode. Therefore, if you don’t have any technical skills or coding knowledge, it is really difficult for you to use this editor.

Advantages and disadvantages

Gutenberg Editor

 Advantages  Disadvantages
  •  Provide more screen space and fewer redirects
  • Have diverse layouts that allow you to design content with many different layouts
  • Still retain the same basic features as the blog medium.com
  • This editor work through blocks with a lot of alignment options that are completely compatible with different screen sizes
  • This editor works well on all mobile devices
  • It offers the ability to use plugins and theme developers with the capability to generate custom blocks.
  •  It has not supported Markdown yet
  • Some of the blocks are still difficult for users to use
  • Responsive column layout is not supported
  • Not yet integrated with old plugins and interface, so users temporarily use the old editor
  • It is not accessible as expected
  • It is a new editor, so it takes much time to get used to and master it
  • Persistent errors
  • There is no longer any support for meta boxes

 

 

Classic Editor

 Advantages  Disadvantages
  • It is easy for everyone to add content and format it
  • Allow you to include various HTML tags
  • Everyone has gotten used to using this old plugin

 

  • It is not a perfect choice for complex page layouts
  • This editor requires HTML knowledge to use competently
  • Need to install many plugins for extra features

Rating from users

Gutenberg

Gutenberg Rating

 

Classic Editor

Classic Rating

It cannot be denied that the classic editor is an old editor, but it wins a lot of users’ hearts. The fact that the plugin has 947 5-star ratings and only 14 one-star reviews.

In contrast, Gutenberg records up to 2252 1-star ratings along with thousands of negative reviews from users worldwide. This figure shows that people still favor the classic editor because the new editor has quite many shortcomings and problems for them.

Gutenberg Vs Classic Editor: Final thoughts

Overall, both editors have their own pros and cons. However, in our perspective, using Gutenberg Editor can be beneficial to all aspects of your website. You can easily control your pages. Especially, if you are a new user, the Gutenberg Editor is truly easy to use in comparison to the Classic Editor because a huge value of blocks is that you can edit your content in a single place and manipulate your content directly instead of using fields for editing or the text of the button.

Nevertheless, after everything many people identify that the new editor is hard to use and not ready for their WordPress interface. Therefore, most of them want to go back to the classic editor.

And what is your opinion? Which is the most suitable editor for your website? Don’t hesitate to share your standpoint or any question about the matter above by leaving a comment below.

Hopefully, the battle between Gutenberg vs Classic Editor will bring you the necessary information to help you choose the right editor for your WordPress site. If you want to consult more plugins that support you edit multiple elements on your website effectively, you can access WordPress Editor Plugin to get more. Last but not least, our free WordPress Themes have numerous beautiful, modern designs that totally work well with the two editors above. Let’s visit and update them for your desired website.

5/5 - (2 votes)
Lt Digital Team (Content &Amp; Marketing)
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