Oxygen Builder Review: Is It Still Worth Using in 2023?

Oxygen Builder is a WordPress Page Builder that makes it easy to create custom WordPress websites capable of handling any type of content. The plugin was created by Soflyy, a WordPress development company, and is now one of the most popular WordPress plugins available. With Oxygen Builder, you can design custom templates, pages, post types/taxonomies, and control every aspect of your website's design from one central location.

Currently, the builder is on its 4th major update – with recent updates introducing an overhauled builder UI, cross-site copy and paste, JSON in replacement of shortcodes, and tons of performance and quality-of-life improvements.

With the influx of WordPress Page Builders on the market, it could be easy to write off Oxygen Builder as just another builder. But doing so would be a mistake – as Oxygen Builder is one of the most powerful and polished builders available at the moment. The builder is definitely aimed at more seasoned WordPress developers and users as it has a higher learning curve, but if you're looking to have the most control possible over your WordPress website's design, Oxygen Builder could be your answer.

What are the Main Features of Oxygen?

The builder prides itself on its beautiful design features, expert WooCommerce integration, and powerful performance & SEO options. It includes a header builder, composite elements, and an easy to learn UI. The builder supports dynamic data, making it easy to manage your website's content.

Oxygen also offers a wide range of ready-made design blocks and templates to help you get started with your website's design. These can be easily customized to match your website's branding and style. A huge benefit to Oxygen is it's speed – clean code output and fast loading time keep both its visitors and search engine bots happy.

The builder has a ton of official and unofficial tutorials on YouTube and Facebook. With the right guidance, you can learn how to use Oxygen Builder to create any type of WordPress website imaginable.

How Much Does Oxygen Builder Cost?

Currently, a lifetime Oxygen Builder subscription costs either $129 or $149, depending on if you want the basic or ultimate package. Ultimate is $20 more but includes WooCommerce Integration, Gutenberg Block Builder, a Simplified Client UI, and Composite Elements. For the marginal upgrade, this is an incredible deal.

When we started our agency a few years ago, we paid $349 for the ultimate package. Although we got our money's worth, recent concerns have been brought up regarding the current state of Oxygen & its future developmental plans.

Oxygen Builder vs Competition

Oxygen competes with a few advanced builders but the main one at the moment is Bricks. It's also in competition with builders like Elementor, Divi, and Beaver, which are all popular but not as advanced. Bricks was initially released in March of 2021, so it's approaching year 2 of development. It has an active development team run by its two founders who are very open to community requests and bug fixes. It also has an active Facebook group with 7.4k members.

Oxygen has a very active Facebook group and has been out for longer. Oxygen developers seem to be a bit less responsive to community requests & feedback. The team still does a good job at implementing requested changes when possible (especially very popular ones). The builder is more polished than Bricks so it doesn't seem to be as buggy. We've played around with Bricks and see the potential but also ran into a few bugs that made it a bit cumbersome to work with. The biggest advantage Oxygen has over Bricks is its age – it has a whopping 34 thousand members in its Facebook group! Since it's been out for so long and is considered to be the most advanced WordPress Page Builder, it's going to take time for Bricks to catch up. Overall, both are great products and we can't wait to see where they'll both be in a year from now (especially with Oxygen's seeming decline). If Bricks keeps up its active development, it could easily surpass Oxygen in the next few years.

Oxygen Builder Controversy

With the recent introduction of Breakdance, a powerful and easy-to-use alternative also created by SoFlyy, many are wondering if it's time to switch over completely and if the current developers are even still focused on Oxygen. Louis, SoFlyy founder & CEO, has stated that both builders have different but equally important purposes and that they will continue to invest in both. The community has also been worried about the lack of updates to the builder and reported bugs, as it has fallen significantly behind since a few months before Breakdance was released. While I don't think we need to worry about Oxygen being discontinued anytime soon, the recent controversy has been a cause for concern. I think it's important to note that, even with everything that's going on, Oxygen is still an incredibly powerful WordPress builder that can help you create just about anything you can imagine.

With the announcement in July came a roaring upset from Oxygen users. Most don't think the death of the builder will happen overnight, but this announcement was the pop of the anticipation-filled bubble for many. It had many questioning the sustainability of investing time and effort to continue developing with the builder.

"It's not so much that Breakdance will pull away from the development of Oxygen that concerns me, it's that Oxygen needs to be completely rebuilt and they literally said they will never do that. Oxygen may not die for years to come, but it will never become the tool we all hope it would grow to be." - Ryan Brown

A good chunk of the community is rightfully upset, stating their trust has been broken with how the developers handled the announcement. While it was inevitable that the Breakdance announcement would come eventually, the way it was done seems to have been a thoughtless move on the part of the team. It would've been much better received had they not seemed to describe Oxygen as a legacy product in the same breath as announcing its replacement.

"I think they really screwed up. There’s so much untapped potential in Oxygen, and instead of trying to expand on that market, they’ve skipped into a saturated market and massively damaged brand trust, which is going to make competing very difficult." - Extra Terrestrial

Oxygen Builder's Future

As for now, the builder is still being updated and maintained. Elijah Mills, the VP of Oxygen, is still very active on the Oxygen Facebook and YouTube channels. The team is continuing to work on new features, though at a slower pace now that Breakdance is in the works. While some have jumped ship to other builders, many are still sticking it out with Oxygen. Generally, software doesn't necessarily just disappear overnight. With such a large and active community, it'll be interesting to see how things play out for Oxygen Builder in the coming years. We would still recommend the builder because it truly is just amazing for speed and efficiency in design & development.

Is Oxygen Builder Dead?

I don't think so. While Bricks & Breakdance are on the rise, Oxygen is going to stay supported for at least another few years. I'm going to continue developing websites with Oxygen until Bricks completely takes over, then I'll make the switch.

If you're thinking of using a WordPress Page Builder, Oxygen Builder is a great option. It's been around for a while, is still being updated, and has a large active community. However, with the recent announcement of Breakdance, some users are concerned about the future of Oxygen. Only time will tell how everything plays out – for now, we're still sticking with Oxygen Builder.

We've built tons of great websites with it and will continue to develop our more advanced client websites using this powerful tool. With its powerful speed, general lack of bugs, great coding standards, and ease of use – it's still our top recommendation for an advanced WordPress Page Builder!

What do you think? Have you used Oxygen Builder? What are your thoughts compared to other WordPress Page Builders? Let us know in the comments!