Builderius is a new site builder from group member Vitaliy. Builderius has a strong developer focus and is very performant, but it is new. In this first look, I tour the interface and create the single template for a Custom Post Type. The video has the full walk-through. The written version has a summary and some notes.
Video Version
Free Version of Builderius
There is a free version of Builderius in the WordPress plugin directory. It is new, and there are only 10+ active installs.
The Pro Version of Builderius
The pro version is available from the Builderius website. The website has a pretty good documentation area and a link to the YouTube channel.
GraphQL Query Language
Builderius uses the GraphQL query language. This makes it possible to add only the fields you need to the query. It also gives you full control of the query, more than most other page builders.
CSS Settings And Working With Dynamic Data
There are two tabs in the Settings section. One is for data settings and the other for CSS settings.
The CSS Settings is where you can enter CSS values via the user interface.
The Data Settings is where you access the GraphQL query and fields.
When you click on the database icon the current query opens and you see all of the fields. You can copy field keys from the list of fields and assign them to the modules.
Builderius Developer Mode and Release System
When creating templates with Builderius the template is in developer mode. This means that you can see the template you are working on and its changes, but site visitors just see the published site. When you are ready to go live, you can create a release, give it a release label, and publish it. This process is similar to how developers work with source code management systems.
Discussion and Conclusions
Builderius has been under development for some time. I looked at an early beta version and was pretty lost, but with the official release version I was able to create the single Custom Post Type template after checking out the documentation and their YouTube channel. I did get help on how to add ACF custom fields to the template query, as I missed that in the documentation. The developer was very helpful and I’ve seen users getting help quickly in the Builderius Facebook group also.
There were all of the basic and most of the advanced CSS options users would need built into the editor. I imagine they will add more modules over time. I like the use and flexibility of GraphQL, the query language, for getting data for the template. This way you can get just the fields you need. It is very cool. As we saw, the front-end output is optimized and very lean, with no bloat. The idea of “releases” closely follows the way developers work, they provides a strong revision system built into the WordPress admin, and a basis for saving code in your source code management system.
I did find the navigation between settings and the module layout list to be a bit clunky. Needing to click the X to close the settings display felt odd. The main lack for me though is that there is no way currently to create and manage global headers and footers. I didn’t run into any bugs, which was surprising for new software.
A strength of Builderius is the vision of the development team. Builderius is meant to appeal to power users and developers. It is not meant for non-technical users. That decision avoids much of the dual personality tension that many builders have when they try to appeal to both experts and newbies. My understanding is that the team eventually plans to add the ability to create Gutenberg blocks with Builderius, and that could be interesting and useful for sites that rely on dynamic data.
Builderius may not be ready for creating production sites yet due to the missing global templates features, but I can see Builderius as it develops as being of interest to technically minded site builders who want a lot of control and great performance.
