Elementor Page Builder is a fantastic plugin for creating beautiful websites without any coding knowledge. What’s even better about this plugin is that it has a number of third-party addons. Addon packs supplement the plugin’s functionality. However, not all addon packs are created equal.
Today, we are going to take a look at Essential Addons for Elementor which is the most downloaded Elementor addon on the plugin repository.
It is currently active on over 1 million websites and has been downloaded for more than 14 million times. The plugin has a free version as well as a pro version. The pro version comes with some advanced widgets.
Let’s dive in and see if it is worth your time.
Why You Would Need an Addon Plugin for Elementor?
Elementor is built with the intention to make it easy to create beautiful and functional websites even by those that don’t know anything about coding. The core plugin does this job pretty well.
However, in some cases, you’ll need to add code to your website to achieve a specific result.
Third party plugin like Essential Addons for Elementor solves this by adding those extra functionality to the core plugin without the need to write any code.
Essential Addons for Elementor: Add Extra Features to Elementor
Once you install the Essential Addons for Elementor plugin, you are greeted with a quick wizard that lets you set the plugin on your website.
Here, you can choose what all widgets you want to enable on your website or choose the basic option that has all necessary widgets pre-selected.
Essential Addons also has a separate Elementor templates plugin and you can choose to install it from the quick setup wizard.
What Widgets You Get in Essential Addon for Elementor?
Essential Addons for Elementor comes with a total of 70+ elements. Some are available for free while some are part of the paid version.
They have these elements spread across different categories such as content, dynamic, marketing, creative, form styler, social, WooCommerce and many more.
It adds the missing functionality in Elementor and enables you to create stunning websites with ease.
Below is the list of all elements available in Essential addons for Elementor.
Free Widgets of Essential Addons for Elementor
First, lets check out the list of free elements.
| Post Grid | Post Timeline | Fancy Text |
| Creative Buttons | Countdown | Team Members |
| Testimonials | WooCommerce Product Grid | Contact Form 7 |
| Gravity Forms | Ninja Forms | Caldera Forms |
| WPForms | weForms | Info Box |
| Flip Box | Dual Color Headline | Call to Action |
| Pricing Table | Twitter Feed | Data Table |
| Filterable Gallery | Image Accordion | Tooltip |
| Advanced Tabs | Advanced Accordion | Progress Bar |
| Feature List | Fluent Form | Facebook Feed |
| Sticky Video | BetterDocs Category Grid | BetterDocs Category Box |
| BetterDocs Search Form | Advanced Data Table | Event Calendar |
| Formstack | Woo Checkout | Typeform |
| Login | Register Form | Woo Product Compare | Woo Product Carousel |
| Simple Menu | Woo Product Gallery |
There are a total of 45 widgets included in the free version. These free widgets lets you do and achieve more with the Elementor builder.
I really like how they have included a contact form styler for most of the popular WordPress contact form plugins. The Contact Form 7 styler widget makes it really easy to style everything just like how you would style the form widget of Elementor Pro.
Apart from Contact Form 7, widgets are available for WPForms, Caldera Forms, Ninja Forms, Gravity Forms, weForms, Fluent Forms and Formstack.
All of these widgets have a small tool tip that you can click on to either view the widget’s demo or learn more about it in the documentation.
Let’s also take a look at the premium widgets, which are what give Elementor builder its distinct functionality.
Pro Widgets of Essential Addon
The pro widgets are where the real deal is. You get 30+ pro widgets and 4 extensions with Essential addon. It is these widgets that make the essential addon unique.
Below is the list of all premium widgets:
| Post Block (Flex) | Lightbox & Modal | Testimonial Slider |
| Image Comparison | Interactive Promo | Instagram Gallery & Feed |
| Advanced Google Map | Static Product | Flip Carousel |
| Interactive Cards | Content Timeline | Data Table |
| Twitter Feed Carousel | Dynamic Filterable Gallery | Smart Post List |
| Mailchimp | Content Toggle | One Page Navigation |
| Price Menu | Image Hotspots | Fancy Divider |
| Counter | Team Member Carousel | Post Carousel |
| Logo Carousel | Protected Content | Offcanvas Content |
| Advanced Menu | Image Scroller | Woo Product Slider |
I will talk about some of the above widgets in detail below to give you an idea what they can do.
Instagram Gallery & Feed
This widgets lets you embed your Instagram feed into your website. You control how you want the feed to look with different styling options.
Whenever new post are added to Instagram, they automatically get updated on the website as well. Showing your Instagram feed on the website is a great way to catch your visitors attention and show social proof.
One page Navigation
If you have a one page website, you can use this widget to add a sticky navigation menu on either of the four sides of your website. This makes scrolling between content easy.
The styling option are limitless as you can add icons to your navigation and also control the color and typography for it.
Essential Addons offer smooth navigation between the section which improves the user experience.
Image Hotspot
This is a unique widget that is very useful when you want to make your images more interactive. This draws your visitors attention and can help you in conversion.
In the hotspot area, you can add text content and link it to a specific page.
You set the hotspot to reveal information on click or simply when the visitor bring their mouse over it. The hotspot are mobile friendly and works the same way even on small devices.
Sticky Video
If you have videos on your blog, this widget can prove to be useful. It lets you embed videos from YouTube, Veimo or self-hosted.
You might be confused why am I mentioning a video embed widget when the same can be done using the Elementor widget.
What is unique about this widget is that it makes your videos sticky. This means that when the video is playing and the visitor begins scrolling, the video will appear in picture-in-picture mode and will be visible while scrolling.
Essential Addons also comes with many more widgets that are unique to it.
Is It Fast Enough? Essential Addon Speed Test
Before we start, let’s do a speed test of the website so that when we later add Essential addon widgets to the page, we can compare if it slows down our website.
I am using the Blocksy Theme theme along with the Elementor and Essential addon pack.
I have added the Elemetor template to the page and ran a speed test. As you can see the page size is 666kb with 50 requests. Do note that this is without any optimization done to the website.
Now, I will be adding a few Essential addon widgets to the page and run the speed test again.
As you can see there is not much change to the page size and the number of requests.
Developers at the Essential addons have made sure the plugin does not hamper the page speed.
You can declutter the extra widgets that you need by turning it off in the settings. This not only helps with page speed but also improves the experience of working with Elementor.
How Much Will It Cost Me?
Essential addon comes with a free as well as Pro plan. The free plugin has plenty of widgets but the Pro version is where the deal is. Most of the unique widgets are part of the paid plugin.
If you run a single website, you can purchase the one website license for $40 that will include one year support and updates.
They also have an unlimited plan which will cost you $70 and can be used on an unlimited number of websites. Just like the previous plan, the support and updates are only available for a single year.
The last plan is the Lifetime Unlimited which will cost you $175 and the plugin can be used on an unlimited number of websites for a lifetime period.
All plans include the 33+ premium widgets and the only difference is in the number of licenses and the years of support and updates you get.
You should choose a plan that suits your needs. But in my opinion the unlimited plan would be perfect for most individuals. If you are happy with the service, you can later upgrade to a bigger plan with the renewal discount they offer.
The Final Verdict
The Elementor and the Elementor Pro plugins are enough for designing most types of websites.
But if you want to achieve that extra functionality without writing any code, Essential Addons is the plugin for you. It is the best addons available for Elementor in terms of features.
