Elementor Team’s approach to V4 is fundamentally flawed. Here’s why and what urgently needs to change

[dzbanke]

Description

Elementor Team’s approach to V4 is fundamentally flawed. Here’s why and what urgently needs to change.

Elementor V4 feels less like a true rebuild and more like an overlay on top of V3. The architecture and UX decisions resemble the same layered approach Microsoft used across multiple Windows generations: instead of rebuilding systems properly, new interfaces are stacked on top of old ones. Eventually, inconsistencies pile up, UX degrades, and core functionality becomes fragmented.

Windows 11 is an overlay on Windows 10, which is an overlay for Windows 7. It shows when you enter Control Panel or Device manager on Windows 11. That's why it's called Microslop. For a reason. It just leads to bad UI and bad user experience. And what do they do then? Introduce shitty Copilot AI everywhere. Done and dusted. Sounds familiar? Angie, Elementor One?

V4 is an alpha-state overlay on V3. That’s exactly how V4 currently feels.
The problem is not the atomic approach itself. Atomic elements are good. Class-first styling is good. Components are good. Those are the right long-term decisions. The problem is everything around them.

V4 was released as “production ready”, yet many basic workflows and features that existed in V3 for years are still missing, incomplete, or inconsistent.

Some examples:

• No Adobe Fonts integration
• No ability to set default values for atomic widgets
• No option to choose a default unit
• No way to save local class settings as defaults
• Many global settings are still V3-only
• Missing widgets and missing layout capabilities
• No proper HTML formatting support in text widgets
• No custom CSS support
• Arbitrary class and components limits still exist

These are not edge cases. These are fundamental workflow issues. And the list could go on and on.

I understand that V4 doesn’t need as many widgets as V3 because components and atomic elements cover many use cases. But right now the ecosystem still feels incomplete. Building in V4 often feels like using a promising prototype rather than a mature production builder. The biggest issue is philosophy.

The feedback I get from my clients, many of whom like to edit their websites themselves from time to time, is damning for you as well. The V4 editor is harder for the average user (not a developer) to use. You've always boasted, and continue to boast, that even a regular user - not a developer - can click through a page as easily as a PowerPoint presentation. It’s no longer the case with V4.
It requires knowledge of how to build design systems based on classes effectively. It’s no longer simple drag-and-drop and done.

Custom CSS used to be optional in Elementor for them; now it’s CSS-first. They must think CSS-first, and if they’re not skilled, they simply can’t and won’t do that. So your user base of average, less-skilled users will shrink, in my opinion, and devs and designers will be needed more often. So just make your builder good for devs, then, stop marketing it like it’s easy for everyone. It isn’t the case anymore.
When you introduce a new system, especially one positioned as the future of the platform, compatibility, and workflow continuity should be the priority. Features shouldn’t disappear simply because the architecture changed.

For example: why are grid layouts still unavailable for Divs? Where are the Accordions, Galleries, and Carousels, just to name a few? Do you really expect me, if I want to make the V4-only site, to go to Claude every single time for it to write accordion or carousel JS for me, because I won’t see it in V4 for months?

Grouping component properties was a good addition. But why can’t we group:

• classes,
• variables,
• components themselves?

On my test project alone, I already have ~90 classes, 30 variables and 15 components. Filtering is not enough. Dragging items manually through long lists is not scalable UX. It’s bad UX design on your part.

Why can’t I create: a “Colors” variable group, a “Typography” variable group, or “Spacing” variable group? These are basic information architecture and UX principles. Have you ever worked as actual devs?

And then there’s the class limit. Why does V4 still have a 100-class limit? Maybe that works for landing pages. It absolutely does not work for large-scale websites with proper class architecture. The limit feels artificial and disconnected from real-world usage.

At this point, many developers are wondering whether these limits exist for technical reasons — or simply to create future subscription segmentation, like introducing higher class limits for pricier subscriptions. There you go, just upgrade to Advanced or Elementor Pro, we will give you more than 100 classes! Sounds like you, Elementor Team.

My best guess is you don't use or test your own product. Because every dev would come up to the same conclusions. Going back to Windows analogy, it's like searching for something in Outlook. It's basic stuff, and doesn't work, because nobody on your team thought about it.

What V4 urgently needs:

• Remove default styling values
• Stop injecting default padding, colors, and preset styles everywhere. IT’S BAD UX.
• Or at least provide a global toggle to disable them entirely.
• Allow saving defaults for atomic widgets
• V3 already had this functionality.
• With a class-first system, this should be even easier to implement.
• Improve panel UX
• Add an option for accordion-style collapsing in the Style tab.
• If I open Typography and had Background tab open, Background should close automatically.
• Add missing production-critical widgets
• Components cannot replace everything.
• Accordions, Carousels, Galleries, and WooCommerce-related functionality are still missing.
• Remove limits for classes and components.
• Add proper Custom CSS support
• Improve text formatting capabilities. Paragraph widgets should support: unordered lists, ordered lists, and better HTML formatting overall.
• Restore proper HTML flexibility. Either add a V4 HTML widget or allow inline HTML support inside Paragraph and Heading widgets. Many advanced workflows in V3 depended on this flexibility.

The frustrating part is that most of these issues become obvious after building just one medium-sized website in V4.
Honestly the biggest recommendation I can give the Elementor team: pause feature marketing for a moment and have every product designer and developer build a real client project using V4 exclusively. The amount of friction, missing functionality, inconsistent UX, and workaround hunting would become immediately obvious. Just build one medium-sized website each. The amount of times you would catch yourselves cursing and heading to ChatGPT or Claude for workarounds would be staggering.

V4 has enormous potential. The foundation is actually strong. But right now it feels unfinished, inconsistent, and prematurely labeled as production-ready.

Agreement

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[dannSPM]

Version 4 should be a separate plugin built from scratch, or built like a theme (that would be even better, it would avoid several problems with third-party plugins).

[jlemonz]

I agree in everyrthing you say. I already had an discussion with them about v4. It's too much made for devs and not beginners/normal users. Which v3 is perfect for? I really think that 90% of Elementor users just make websites for themself or simple stuff. Now v4 is a whole study and its flawed and super tiresome to make anything with it. Also no sticky options anymore. So i could not make my header sticky. And had to use javascript too fix it. Which is why elementor was created, right? To not use code and have stuff built in.