Avada | Website Builder For WordPress & WooCommerce

Avada is not a theme, it is a platform

And worth understanding it that way before buying, because the decision you are making is bigger than it looks. Avada does not get installed the way a theme gets installed: it gets adopted. It brings its own visual builder, its template builder, the header and footer one, the mega menu one, the form one, the shop one and the off-canvas one. Everything you build will be built with its tools.

In exchange, it is one of the best-selling products in WordPress history and has been receiving updates for more than a decade, which in this market means it is not going to leave you stranded.

What it includes

• More than a hundred and ten prebuilt websites, complete, importable in a few clicks, by sector.
• A live visual builder, editing on the real page rather than a preview.
• Its own WooCommerce integration, with design control over the product page, categories, cart, checkout and side cart.
• A performance wizard, guiding speed optimisation step by step.
• Six premium plugins included, among them ACF Pro, Slider Revolution, LayerSlider and FileBird Pro.

The bundled plugins are part of the calculation

Worth pausing here because it changes the arithmetic. ACF Pro and FileBird Pro are not ornaments: they are tools plenty of people buy separately and which come inside here. If you were going to use them anyway, the complete package works out differently from what it looks like when only the theme is considered.

And the usual small print, more pronounced here

Everything you build with its builder is stored in its format. The day you change theme, those pages do not travel: they have to be rebuilt. With a theme using Elementor at least the builder survives the change; here it does not, because the builder belongs to the theme.

That does not rule it out, it frames it. Avada makes sense if you are staying for years, which is normal on a corporate site, and if you are genuinely going to use its ecosystem. It makes no sense as a trial, nor if you want to keep the door open to changing tools.

And on its reputation for being heavy: the performance wizard exists precisely for that and it works, but you have to run it. An Avada installed with everything switched on and unoptimised is slow; one configured with judgement is not. You supply the difference.

Alternatives in the catalogue

If what holds you back from Avada is precisely the dependency on its proprietary builder, there are two routes with the opposite philosophy.

Astra with its starter templates is the light approach: a theme that imposes almost nothing and a library of complete sites imported onto whichever editor you choose. If you ever change builder, the theme does not stop you.

Bricks is the option for anyone wanting fine control without giving up speed: a visual builder with clean code output, highly regarded by people coming from hand-coding.

And one piece Avada includes that is worth knowing about in its own right: Advanced Custom Fields. It is the sector standard for custom fields, used by almost every bespoke build, and knowing it comes inside changes the arithmetic of what you are buying.

Frequently asked questions

Does it need Elementor or another builder?
No. It brings its own, along with the header, footer, template and form builders.

What happens if I change theme?
Pages built with its builder have to be rebuilt. That is the trade-off of a proprietary system.

Does it include premium plugins?
Yes, six, among them ACF Pro, Slider Revolution, LayerSlider and FileBird Pro.

Is it slow?
It can be if unconfigured. It ships a performance wizard and running it before publishing is advisable.