You want to add some features and customize certain parameters on your Elementor pages. But you discovered Elementor lacks these attributes and also its customization capabilities are limited.
Now, you want to consider Essential Addons to get rid of this drawback. Fret not as I will cast light on every aspect of Essential Addons, helping you decide confidently if it’s a right fit for you. Let’s get started for Essential Addons Review —
Table of Contents
Essential Addons Overview
Essential Addons is a robust Elementor addon that offers an arsenal of handy widgets, elements, and extensions, allowing users to create tailored and modern websites.
Whether you want to add dynamic content, enhance your site design, or maximize your user experience, the Elementor addon can help you achieve your goals with its array of features & functionalities.
Essential Addons Feature Analysis
Essential Addons comes with a host of advanced pros & features that ease Elementor page creation & customization. Let’s check them out —
User-friendliness
- The pro version automatically installs the free version, making the installation process efficient.
- The UI boasts loads of elements and extensions which some users may find overwhelming.
- It offers options to toggle elements on and off which is useful but excessive options may require a learning curve for those not familiar with the platform.
Primary Setup
Essential Addons is an all-in-one plugin for the popular WordPress page builder Elementor.
That means first up, you need to install Elementor whether free or pro version.
Then, install Essential Addons which offers both a free version and a pro version with more advanced features.
If you want the free Elementor addon version, search for it in the plugins repository.
Plugins > Add New plugin
For the premium version, you have to purchase a paid plan first from their website and then download the pro plugin files from your account.
Finally, upload and install the plugin by doing the following —
- Go to Plugins > Add New Plugin > Upload plugin
- Browse through your files and select the plugin
- Click the “Install Now” button
Elements
Essential Addons comes packed with 85+ advanced widgets, categorized into 7 types of elements.
Here are the categories the widgets are divided into —
- Content elements
- Dynamic content elements
- Creative elements
- Marketing elements
- Social elements
- WooCommerce elements
- Documentation elements
The Widgets
Essential Addons’ widgets you can avail by pairing with Elementor’s widgets to create your website pages.
Some of these widgets are unique and unavailable on Elementor by default. Some are common with Elementor’s native widgets but come with different setting options.
For instance, Essential Addons has a widget Creative Button. The same widget is already offered by Elementor. The former differs from the latter by letting you create buttons with the option of applying animation effects.
Important free widgets offered by Essential Addons —
- Post Grid
- Info Box
- Progress Bar
- Post Timeline
- Flip Box
- Feature List
- Fancy Text
- Dual Color Headline
- FluentForm
- Creative Buttons
- Call to Action
- Facebook Feed
- Countdown
- Pricing Table
- Sticky Video
- Filterable Gallery
- BetterDocs Search Form
- Image Accordion
- Advanced Data Table
- Content Ticker
- Event Calendar
Important pro widgets offered by Essential Addons —
- Post Block
- Content Timeline
- Lightbox & Modal
- Data Table
- Testimonial Slider
- Twitter Feed Carousel
- Image Comparison
- Dynamic Filterable Gallery
- Interactive Promo
- Smart Post List
- Instagram Gallery & Feed
- Mailchimp
- Advanced Google Map
- Content Toggle
- Static Product
- One Page Navigation
Features Widgets to Create a Dynamic Website
You can leverage Essential Addons to build any type of website, including static websites and dynamic websites. However, I find this add-on ideal for building a dynamic website as it has widgets that you can leverage to display the posts on your website dynamically.
- EA Dynamic Gallery – You can utilize this widget to show the featured images of your posts with a link to the posts.
- EA Post Block – Display posts on a certain section. Posts can also be filtered by category, tag, or author.
- EA Post Carousel – Showcase posts in a carousel.
- EA Post Grid – Organizes & displays multiple posts in a grid layout.
- EA Smart Post List – Display posts on a sidebar area of your website
Boasts Widgets to Integrate Your Social Media Accounts with Your Website
Essential Addons lets you integrate your business’s social media accounts with your WordPress site. Here are the widgets that do the job —
- EA Facebook Feed
- EA Instagram Feed
- EA Twitter Feed
- EA Twitter Feed Carousel
Extensions
For advanced customization & interactivity, Essential Addons also offers 15 extensions that provide extra capabilities going beyond the standard widgets.
Here are some of Essential Addons’ extensions —
- Content Protection
- Cross-domain Copy Paste
- Dynamic Tags
- Advanced Tooltip
- Interactive Animations
- Parallax Effect
- Scroll to Top
- Conditional Display
The Content Protection, for instance, lets you bar access to Elementor content by allowing you to set up user permission or password for the content.
With this extension, you can protect Elementor content and jazz it up to make it visually appealing.
In addition, the Parallax Effect allows you to create dynamic web pages by adding interactive motion scrolling effects to the content.
Furthermore, Advanced Tooltip enables you to highlight important messages and draw attention to a specific item.
It lets you display text, specifications, and other key information about your products strikingly.
Templates
Essential Addons also gives access to 5,000+ pre-made templates and blocks through Templately.
These templates cover a number of categories, including —
- Landing pages
- Portfolios
- Blogs
- E-commerce sites
Reliability
- Essential Addons showcases a stellar performance, consuming less memory than 64% of other plugins. It’s also faster than 99% of them.
- The date inconsistency in the changelog for the pro version makes it complex for users to track the frequency and timing of updates.
- The frequent updates and regular maintenance of the lite version also make it a reliable Elementor addon.
The overall reliability of Essential Addons is sturdy, with consistent upgrades and bug fixes ensuing it remains a credible tool for web developers and designers.
Customer Service
Essential Addons has two options for customer support through the WPDeveloper website:
- Start live chat
- Create a new ticket
Based on their website, customer support typically replies within an hour and to verify this, I sent a query to their live chat.
Once you click send, they will ask you for your email (presumably for identity verification follow-up and detailed support).
Knowledge Base
Essential Addons’s knowledge base consists of its resourceful documentation, video tutorials, and community forums.
The documentation section on their website provides extensive guides on how to use each element, extension, and feature.
This encompasses step-by-step instructions, screenshots, and examples to help users perceive and implement the features effectively.
This section is laid out into various categories, which makes it easy for users to discover the specific information they need.
Essential Addons also has a series of video tutorials (demos) in its collection that visually guide users through the installation process, configuration, and use of various elements and extensions.
Pricing
For pricing, I rate Essential Addons 4 out of 5.
Why so?
- The lifetime unlimited plan incorporates all pro widgets and extensions, support for unlimited websites, and lifetime support and updates.
- The upfront cost of the pro plans might be a barrier for some users, especially those with limited budgets.
- The 14-day money-back guarantee might not be sufficient for users to fully explore all the features and decide whether the investment is worth it.
As a whole, it offers a good balance between cost and value, making it a solid investment — provided they can manage the upfront expense.
Is Essential Addons Worth Grabbing?
I am done with the Essential Addons review. If you are looking for a feature-rich, no-code Elementor page builder to build a professional website, Essential addons is a right choice for you. No matter whether you are a web developer, web designer, or content creator, Essential addons will fulfill your needs.
However, you may find Essential addons’ pricing plans a bit costly, but the features & perks it provides like access to widgets, extensions, etc. picking up the product is a good value for money.
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