A Look At The New Breakdance Builder for WordPress
A Look At The New Breakdance Builder for WordPress
Soflyy, a well known WordPress development company recently launched a new page builder for WordPress called Breakdance.
In this article, we're going to take a look at the features, market positioning, team, and news behind the newest addition to the WordPress website builder market. This will serve as more of a news report, not a review. As the builder matures and we learn more about it, we'll also publish a detailed review.
What Is Breakdance?
Breakdance is a brand new page builder focused on usability. It aims to make it easy to build pages visually, including 100+ elements like an integrated form builder, advanced slider, and more basic elements like sections, containers and divs.
Some of the core selling points are full site editing with theme support (though by default this tool disables the theme, removing that part of the equation).
It also has a pretty robust WooCommerce integration, alongside dynamic data and conditions, built in forms, a mega menu builder, and a focus on outputting lean code.
It's targeting the section of the market that Elementor and Divi have both dominated for years - easy to use page builders with great GUIs, aimed at "regular people", not really developers.
A recent addition to this market is Bricks, which has grown in popularity due to doing that Breakdance also looks to focus on - speed alongside usability.
Breakdance Features and UI
Use With or Without Themes
You can use this to build content within themes, but also completely design your site from the ground up by disabling themes.
General Look And Feel
The overall UI looks like a mix between Oxygen 4.0, Bricks, Motion.Page, and Elementor. It's really easy to use and understand, which is in line with the mission of allowing everyday creators to build sites.
Dynamic Data Interface
Robust dynamic data feature for conditions or populating pages.
Right Click Menu
A basic right click menu which allows for copy/paste, deleting and saving as a global block.
Robust Animation Engine
There's a surprisingly detailed animation engine which even allows for scrolling animations.
Built in Form Builder
There's a built in form builder that you can use directly in the builder. It's not as robust as stand-alone plugins, but it does the job for basic use cases like a contact page.
Breakdance Launch Drama
Breakdance is developed by Soflyy, the same company behind Oxygen Builder. While there are two different development teams, there was a lot of drama and fear in the Oxygen community when Breakdance was announced.
That's because (on the surface) Breakdance has a lot of features that Oxygen users have been requesting for years.
Users were also worried about Soflyy being able to develop and maintain both builders at once.
Louis, the founder of Soflyy, cleared this up in the Facebook group.
Essentially, it's positioned that Breakdance is for beginners, whereas Oxygen is and always has been for more advanced users.
Market Positioning
In terms of overall market positioning, as mentioned before, this is a website builder that's looking to go toe-to-toe with Elementor - a page builder made for "non techies". And you can definitely see that from the launch messaging, initial website, and (of course) the design and UI/UX of the builder.
Conclusion
It will be interesting to see how Breakdance matures as a product. It looks like an incredibly well designed tool that will give Elementor a run for its money in the future. It will also be interesting to see how Soflyy juggles marketing, building, and selling two page builders with different missions - they'll be the first company to attempt something like this.
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James LePage
Thanks for posting! I was curious if you would put something out, as your company is built on Oxygen as the foundation. Have you tested Breakdance out yet? I'm also curious if you've continued testing Bricks since your in depth review back in 2021? I am new to Oxygen, and actually purchased a license a week before this announcement. Seeing as I don't have anything in development with Oxygen yet, I've been pondering whether it makes more sense to switch over to Bricks, as is it built on newer technology and might have a longer shelf life than the legacy code of Oxygen.
What are your thoughts?
I haven't really thought about it long enough to speak with authority on this.
I prefer Oxygen over Bricks (primarily due to my familiarity with it, ecosystem integration, preference to the Oxygen UI and Bricks needing 6+mo to get to where Oxygen is now).
Breakdance won't (in its current form) replace Oxygen.
People are worried that Oxygen is built using Angular JS, which no longer has any active support. This sounds scary but there are bug fixes and security releases still being released in 2022, so that doesn't really make me worry.
My suggestion is that you make use of the refund policy that both Bricks and Oxygen Builder have and figure out which one best integrates with your individual development style and workflow. I would not at all be worried about the future of Oxygen. It will be around and continue to get even better. The 4.0 released a great foundation for the future.
Thanks for your honest feedback. I currently have both Oxygen and Bricks licenses, which are under a guarantee for a 60 days for Oxygen and longer for Bricks. I've been testing both out, and honestly I like both. I'm not too worried about Oxygen, as I'm sure it'll be improved ... they just have some limitation on how far they can go with those improvements. Bricks, while young, has more of an open road ahead of them in terms of possibilities. I'm tempted to keep both LTD licenses and transition if/when the time comes, or use both for various projects.
James, I was waiting for this post, since you obviously have experience with fullstack frameworks (Angular) and Jamstack.
In your experience, what would be the challenges and issues potentially moving forward that could arise from using EOL software into the future, bearing in mind there won't be a rewrite?
Apart from patches and perhaps self-supported libraries, could there be "obstacles" that would eventually lead them to throw in the towel?
What about on the business front; being a "connoisseur" of so many builders and after in the tech industry for sometime as you have been, what do you think is next for Oxy? Do you think it will ever come to a halt? If so, how long do you think we should expect for such an event?
I hope to hear a nuanced position on this matter, and in my opinion, you're the authority on this matter, since you have experience in the underlying stack; the beating heart of Oxygen (Angular). Everything else doesn't really matter in this consideration, in my opinion.
In conclusion,
Let me know your thoughts, please.
I'm not really worried about the EOL of AngularJS and Oxygen's future at all.
Oxygen works with this company, https://xlts.dev/angularjs, meaning that for the next 5 years (at least) there will be compliance, security and compatibility with the underlying tech Oxygen is built on. Companies like Microsoft also use them.
Obviously, it would be best if they could rewrite it, BUT if they actually did, it would basically be a 2 year pause in new features. The builder would die.
When buying a LTD, I only expect it to last ~4 years (I get my money's worth this way compared to subscriptions). Everybody thinks LTD means that it will be around for 100 years and it won't. It will be around for as long as the product can support the team behind them. In Soflyys case, they're already a successful company (WP All Import and no doubt Breakdance in the future), Oxygen continues to sell, and it can support it's team for "a long time" (According to management in their Facebook group). I believe that to be true.
I'm not changing anything at all. I'll continue building client sites with Oxygen because it's the best.
Breakdance was being built for 3 years. Oxygen continued to grow and thrive. The Breakdance announcement was done poorly and a lot of people got upset, but realistically, I'm happy with the release schedule with Oxygen and willing to put up with everything else. The Breakdance release changes nothing in the Oxygen world (other than hurting feelings). The same team, resources, and community are with Oxygen. Nothing changed. I literally built a 7 figure agency using this tool, why would I switch?
With the 4.0 release, the new JSON data format is very easy to read and manipulate. I suspect that it will also be possible to convert this data into another format... maybe legitimate Gutenberg blocks even? If worst comes to worst, I'll simply make a converter and move the sites to a new builder. Or I'll just rebuild the client sites. Or I'll just maintain the Oxygen sites as is (not really worried about security) and convert if a client wants to pay for that.
That 4.0 release was also a ton of work to build for that team. I don't think the builder or team are going anywhere for a long while.
This is business, and web design is an ever changing landscape. Everybody in the Oxygen group who were blindsided and are now rethinking everything are misguided. You can't expect a technology, plugin or builder to be around forever. Do you see the same with Flash/Dreamweaver/any of the 100s of CMSs from the 2000s?
To Wrap Up
I will continue to build new websites and maintain existing ones on Oxygen. Other business (as long as it fits into their workflow and ecosystem) should as well.
I'm confident in the team due to the points outlined above.
I will keep using Oxygen until there's a better solution out there.
Thanks for the in-depth reply James. Always great to hear a seasoned opinion.
Vis-a-vis Bricks though, it's being "hyped" as the next Oxygen builder; primarily because people seem to be afraid that Oxy might crumble soon, and that Bricks is being touted as a "developer's dream".
Do you believe this to be the case from your experience?
I hear your views above, and I also believe Oxy is not going anywhere. Also read that XLTS is going to support Angular through 2027, so that's a great sign of things to come.
What's your opinion about that? Is it unwarranted for people to jump ship to Bricks right now?
Bricks is great, as is Oxygen and also Break dance so far. Anything that stops you having to use WordPress themes and allows you to build what YOU want is awesome in my view, without being a coder.
If I am maintaining a site then I'll use Oxygen, if the Client wants to then Bricks. It just makes more sense for a non web dev.
Breakdance will also work well for clients I think, however mroe and more I wonder why we allow clients to update their own websites. They should just let us do it - it always gets in a mess, and how many times can you train a new person..
I've tried both building sites that only agencies can edit and some purpose built for clients to edit and add to.
They ALWAYS broke the site when adding new pages and editing existing ones. Every time, it was a mess. Clients (at least higher $ ones) don't really care about that, all they want is a site that is up to date. If the agency provides it at a reasonable price, at least for me, they've always happily paid for that service.
I've actually found that building Oxygen sites and not giving access to the editor is best for me. For structural changes, my agency does this. For content and cosmetics (images/bg/colors), we build ACF custom fields into the page so clients can make those basic changes themselves. Oxygen Repeaters + ACF Pro are the PERFECT solution IMO for bigger projects.
That's why I moved from Elementor to Oxygen a few years. There was no need for something that "everybody" could use. People just pay us to "deal with it for them". That's why I think Oxygen Vs Breakdance/Elementor isn't really a comparison. It's really for a different market (individuals building and maintaining their own sites from a non tech background compared to pros and maintainers that want 100% control and a ton of speed).
Thanks James. What about comparing Bricks to Oxygen?
Thank you very much for this post!
You make me very hesitant between Oxygen and Breakdance for my e-commerce store.
I'm not tempted to pay every year.
On the other hand, I appreciate Breakdance's contact form and its mega menu.
I have no coding experience (except some copy-paste of css or php hooks).
I want to pay attention to the design.
My concern: stability. I don't want to change systems every five years.
What's your opinion between these two solutions?
Thank you in advance.