The Gutenberg Editor is WordPress's default content editor, built around a block-based system where every piece of content — a paragraph, image, heading, button, or embed — is its own individual, movable block. Introduced in WordPress 5.0, it replaced the older, single text-box "Classic Editor" entirely.
How Block Editing Works
- Every piece of content is added as a distinct block
- Blocks can be freely rearranged by dragging them into a new position
- Each block has its own settings panel for individual styling
- Blocks can be grouped, nested, or reused across multiple pages
Common Block Types
- Paragraph, heading, and list blocks for standard text
- Image, gallery, and video blocks for media
- Columns and group blocks for layout
- Button, embed, and shortcode blocks for extra functionality
Gutenberg vs. Page Builders
Gutenberg has grown steadily more capable, especially with full site editing support in recent WordPress versions, and now handles a meaningful share of what plugins like Elementor were once needed for. Elementor and similar tools still offer more design flexibility, particularly for highly custom layouts, but Gutenberg's built-in, no-extra-plugin nature makes it a genuinely solid starting point for most everyday content needs.
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