---
title: "Is Elementor Bad for Site Speed?"
description: "Elementor adds weight, but it is rarely why a site is slow. The four real causes, what a good PageSpeed score is, and how to actually make a site faster."
---

800website builds on Elementor, so here is the criticism taken seriously rather than dismissed.

## Is Elementor bad for site speed?

**Elementor adds weight, and it is rarely the main reason a site is slow.** It loads more CSS and JavaScript than a hand-coded theme. On a well-hosted site with optimised images that difference is measured in fractions of a second and does not decide your Core Web Vitals.

What actually decides them, in order: unoptimised images, cheap hosting, plugin sprawl, and render-blocking scripts. Elementor is fourth at worst, and it is the one people blame first because it is the most visible.

The evidence is that well-built Elementor sites routinely hit PageSpeed 60+ on mobile. We commit to 40+ on our Business package and 60+ on Premium in writing, which would be an unwise promise if the builder made it impossible.

## How do I make my website load faster?

In order of impact per hour spent:

- **Fix your images.** Serve WebP at the size actually displayed. A 4MB phone photo in a 400px slot is the most common single cause of a slow page.
- **Set explicit width and height** on every image, so the page does not shift while loading.
- **Move to decent hosting.** Time to first byte should be under 600ms. On oversold shared hosting it is routinely over 2 seconds and nothing on the front end fixes that.
- **Cut plugins.** Every plugin loads assets on every page whether that page uses it or not. Sites we take over commonly run three plugins doing overlapping jobs.
- **Enable caching and a CDN.** Usually included with managed hosting.
- **Lazy-load below-the-fold images** so the visitor downloads what they can see first.

Speed optimisation on an existing site is AED 1,200 with us as a standalone job, targeting PageSpeed 60+.

## What is a good PageSpeed score?

**60+ on mobile** is a sensible working target for a content-rich business site. Treat 90+ as a bonus, not a goal — chasing it usually means removing things that earn money.

More useful than the score are the three field metrics underneath: Largest Contentful Paint under 2.5 seconds, Interaction to Next Paint under 200 milliseconds, Cumulative Layout Shift under 0.1. Those are measured on real visitors rather than in a lab, which is why a site can score well in a test and still feel slow to use.

Check field data, not just lab data. Google’s Chrome UX Report shows what actual visitors experienced, and that is what feeds ranking.

## Should I rebuild without a page builder?

Almost never worth it purely for speed. You would spend a rebuild budget to gain a fraction of a second, and lose the ability for your team to edit pages without a developer — which is usually a bigger practical cost.

Fix hosting, images and plugins first. If you are still slow after that, the builder was not your problem.

See [our WordPress development](https://800website.ae/wordpress-development-agency-dubai/), [published pricing including speed work](https://800website.ae/packages-pricing/), or [talk to us](https://800website.ae/contact/).

## Talk to us

800website is a Dubai web design and development agency with published fixed prices. Send the details and you get a fixed scope and a fixed price back — no hourly billing. [Contact us](https://800website.ae/contact/), [message us on WhatsApp](https://wa.link/800website), or call [+971 58 578 5380](tel:+971585785380).

```json
{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","headline":"Is Elementor Bad for Site Speed?","description":"Elementor adds weight, but it is rarely why a site is slow. The four real causes, what a good PageSpeed score is, and how to actually make a site faster.","datePublished":"2026-09-16T05:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2026-09-11T06:11:37+00:00","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"admin"},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"800website","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://i0.wp.com/800website.ae/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/cropped-Group-82.png?fit=512%2C512&ssl=1"}},"mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://800website.ae/is-elementor-bad-for-site-speed/"}}
{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://800website.ae"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"BLOG","item":"https://800website.ae/category/blog/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Is Elementor Bad for Site Speed?","item":"https://800website.ae/is-elementor-bad-for-site-speed/"}]}
```