Hey folks,
I’ve been working with WordPress for about 15 years now. Most of my work has been pretty straightforward stuff like business websites, booking systems, and some basic online stores. Nothing too crazy.
My usual approach has been to stick with a custom theme that I’ve tweaked over the years. It has around 100+ components I can reuse. I pair this with ACF’s free tier and my own custom code to help clients manage their content and show it nicely on their sites.
This approach has served me well and I can handle about 95% of what my clients need. I can get sites up and running pretty fast too.
But now I’ve got this huge contract (€160K value) and my usual methods just won’t work. The client has made it clear they don’t want my current setup. What they’re asking for instead:
- WooCommerce integration (I’ve always avoided this and made my own selling solution)
- Some kind of page builder system (they’re flexible on whether it’s built-in, plugin-based, or part of the theme)
This project is massive and needs to work with several third-party services. I’m realizing I’ve been playing it too safe and haven’t kept up with how WordPress has changed lately (things like FSE, newer builders, etc.).
I need some solid advice on which direction to go.
These are what I’m thinking about:
- FSE approach using block themes (with React and Node.js behind it)
- Bricks Builder (builder that works as a theme)
- Elementor or Divi options
- Whatever else you think I should seriously look at
Thanks for any help you can give!
Cheers!
After handling several large-scale WordPress projects myself, I’d actually suggest looking at Oxygen Builder as a serious contender alongside Bricks. The learning curve is steeper than traditional page builders, but for someone with your custom coding background, you’ll appreciate how it generates clean markup without the bloat that kills performance on big sites.
The real challenge with a €160K project isn’t just the builder choice - it’s managing the complexity of multiple third-party integrations while maintaining performance. I made the mistake once of choosing Elementor for a similar scale project and regretted it when the client started complaining about load times six months later.
Since you mentioned avoiding WooCommerce previously, spend serious time understanding its hooks and filter system before committing to any builder. Some builders play nicer with WooCommerce’s architecture than others, and you don’t want to discover limitations halfway through development.
Whatever route you take, consider bringing in a specialist consultant for the WooCommerce portions. The learning curve combined with custom integrations can eat into your timeline faster than you’d expect.
honestly for that kind of money i’d go with what’s most reliable rather than cutting edge. elementor pro might feel basic but it handles woocommerce really well and you wont be debugging weird issues at 2am. bricks is tempting but still relatively new compared to elementor’s massive user base and support community. with 160k on the line, boring and stable beats shiny and risky imo
Given your experience level and the scale of this project, I’d strongly recommend against jumping into FSE for something this critical. The React/Node.js learning curve alone could derail your timeline, and FSE still has rough edges that aren’t worth risking on a €160K contract.
Bricks Builder would be my top choice here. It’s incredibly powerful for complex layouts and integrations, has excellent WooCommerce support, and most importantly - it won’t fight against your existing custom code knowledge. The query loop system handles dynamic content beautifully, which sounds like you’ll need for third-party service integrations.
Elementor Pro is the safer fallback if you need something battle-tested with extensive documentation. The ecosystem is massive so finding solutions for edge cases is usually straightforward.
Whatever you choose, build a solid staging environment and prototype the most complex features first. Don’t learn the tool while building the actual project - that’s a recipe for scope creep and missed deadlines.