Why Elementor slows down your website (and what to do)

Elementor doesn’t make a website slow on its own, but it makes it very easy: every widget, font and add-on brings files that visitors download whether they’re used or not. The result tends to be a page with three times the elements and dozens of code files. I measured it on two of my own sites: nomadict.org, built with Elementor Pro, and nomadictmedia.com, built by hand.

What the measurements show

nomadict.org downloads 112 JavaScript and CSS files (2.1 MB of code) and its page has 1,561 elements. nomadictmedia.com downloads 5 files (77 KB) and has 517 elements. The phone’s processor works for 5.6 seconds on the first and 2.4 on the second, and Lighthouse scores them 49 and 72 for performance.

But the breakdown tells a more interesting story: the heaviest thing on nomadict.org isn’t Elementor. It’s a YouTube video embedded on the home page (4.2 MB between the video and its player), followed by Google’s and Facebook’s services. Elementor and Elementor Pro add up to about 800 KB, and almost three quarters of that is fonts.

Why an Elementor site ends up heavy

Fonts everywhere. Elementor lets you pick a different typeface for every widget. On nomadict.org that’s six families (Lato, Raleway, Open Sans, Montserrat, Josefin Sans and Roboto) plus three icon fonts: 12 files and 578 KB just for lettering.
More layers than needed. Each block is wrapped in several layers of markup so the editor can move it around. That’s why the page has three times the elements of a hand-built one, and the phone takes longer to draw it.
Code just in case. Many widgets and add-ons load their scripts and styles on every page, used or not.
What comes along with it. Because it’s so easy to embed a video, a form with reCAPTCHA or an ad pixel, they pile up. Each brings its own code, and you don’t control it.

What you can do today without changing sites

Turn on Elementor’s performance options. In its settings (the performance and features sections): inline font icons, which skip loading Font Awesome and eicons; optimised markup; CSS as an external file; and element caching. Try them on a copy of the site first: some can shift the layout.
Use one or two typefaces. The same ones across the site. It’s the biggest win for the least effort.
Swap YouTube embeds for an image. A still with a play button that only loads the player when someone presses it. On nomadict.org’s home page that alone would save more than 4 MB.
Review third-party services. reCAPTCHA on every page, pixels nobody checks, chat widgets: each one only where it’s needed.
Measure before and after. PageSpeed Insights is free. Always look at the mobile result.

If you’re starting a new site with Elementor, version 4 (the “atomic” editor, which Elementor uses by default on new sites since April 2026) produces cleaner code. According to Elementor itself, if you mix old and new widgets, the improvement varies from case to case.

When it’s worth leaving Elementor

If the site is still slow after all that, or every design change breaks something, the problem is no longer the settings: it’s the tool. The alternatives are a custom WordPress theme with native blocks, where your team keeps editing in WordPress, or a custom website with a content editor. I compare them in A WordPress template or a custom website.

To be clear, this isn’t a case against Elementor. I built nomadict.org with it because that’s what the project called for, and for putting pages together quickly without code it’s very convenient. The cost is paid later, on every visit.

In short

An Elementor site isn’t slow by definition, but it tends to accumulate: fonts, layers of markup, scripts that always load and third-party services. Start with what weighs most (embedded videos, fonts and third parties), turn on the performance options and measure. If that’s still not enough, it’s time to consider a different foundation.

Want to know what’s slowing yours down? Tell me about your site and we’ll measure it together.