Classic editor VS Gutenberg – Which editor to use

In WordPress you have a selection of editors which you can use. When a WordPress website is first installed it will often come with the default Gutenberg editor alone. However, many purists prefer the classic editor over Gutenberg. The community is divided with many deriding Gutenberg, as is evident from its 2 star WordPress plugin rating, compared to the Classic editors 5 star rating. Let’s compare the pair.

Gutenberg

We’ll begin with Gutenberg as it is the default editor packaged with WordPress today.

Gutenberg is designed to be the groundbreaking new editor for WordPress and will allow people to make visually stunning content without code or page builders. It’s commonly referred to as a blocks editor, as it allows users to assemble the page in blocks, one section at a time, allowing for a more unique page.

Gutenberg is also relatively easy for novice users to get used to. The blocks sections allows for searching of necessary fields and also allows you to visualise what you’re doing.

Classic Editor

Classic editor is the traditional editor that was packaged with WordPress prior to WP5.0. It’s a more traditional text based editor that allows for text formatting and insertion of images and iframes. Whie not as user-friendly as Gutenberg for newer users, it offers a much more distraction-free experience.

Which one to use?

This comes down to personal preferences. Newer users will likely refer Gutenberg while more experienced users will prefer Classic Editor. Each one has it’s strengths and weaknesses. If your pages are going to be rich in media and you don’t want to use a page builder, definitely use Gutenberg.