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Oxygen vs Oxygen WooCommerce vs Oxygen Agency

By James LePage
 on December 23, 2020
Last modified on January 7th, 2022

Oxygen vs Oxygen WooCommerce vs Oxygen Agency

By James LePage
 on December 23, 2020
Last modified on January 7th, 2022

Here’s what you get with each official Oxygen extension/addon.

It may be confusing to some first time buyers in regards to what you're actually getting when purchasing the Oxygen Builder, Oxygen Agency (Gutenberg) and Oxygen WooCommece. We're going to take a look at what actually ships with each of these packages. We own the agency license, which gives us access to each of these additional features.

The first thing to note is that the Gutenberg and WooCommerce extensions are installed as separate plugins to the Oxygen Builder. Each adds its own functionality, and if you disable the plugin that functionality is disabled on your website. What this means is that you can choose what to install on various projects. It doesn't make sense to install Oxygen WooCommerce on a project that isn't going to sell anything online.

Oxygen Builder

This is the standard builder, and doesn't come with any additional features. However, you'll be able to build out visual pages in the back end of your WordPress website using this plan. You won't get access to the WooCommerce add-on pack, the Gutenberg extension, or any future functionalities that apply to higher plans.

Oxygen Builder - One of The Best Template Builder for WordPress?!

In our opinion, this is a bad purchase because of the lifetime license. It's a one time payment, and if you're on a higher plan, you'll get access to more features in the future.

Oxygen WooCommerce

This is the second plan out of three, and it adds widgets directly to the back end builder that pertain directly to WooCommerce. These widgets include a cart, checkout page, WooCommerce elements like a Gallery, title, product tabs, and more, and allow you to visually build out pages. It also enables a global styling feature for all WooCommerce colors, fonts, buttons, and more.

It's possible to build a WooCommerce website in Oxygen using only shortcodes, removing the need for this extension pack, but it's much more difficult as you don't have access to the global colors , and the individual widgets make the build process a lot easier. If you're considering building out an ecommerce website using Oxygen, WordPress, and WooCommerce, we consider this a must have addition. What it doesn't come with is anything related to front end editing for your clients, which is what the Oxygen Gutenberg extension is for.

To summarize, this is simply an add-on pack of additional widgets that have to do only with the WooCommerce platform, and it also gives you access to global colors and styling specific to these widgets.

Oxygen Gutenberg (Agency)

The Oxygen Gutenberg extension ships with the agency license and is designed to make it easy for your clients to edit the content of various page templates directly in the back end Gutenberg editor, instead of initializing the Oxygen Builder and breaking layouts.

You can also create Gutenberg blocks which are reusable by the client . This is helpful if they are looking to add repeating pieces of content into Gutenberg blogposts, and you can even make it so they can build out their own pages in Gutenberg using prebuilt Gutenberg block elements. These Gutenberg block elements are actually created in the Oxygen Builder by you, though the client doesn’t know that.

There are some caveats to mention here. The editing that is done on the Gutenberg interface is not actually pushed to the underlying template. For some, this is a pro, and for others, this is a con. For example, if a client edited a heading within a hero element, it would be pushed live (so everybody would see it), but the underlying template would not be changed. So, if the client changed the title from “we sell cars” to “we curate cool cars”, and then the Gutenberg add-on/extension was disabled, it would revert back to “we sell cars”.

This extension is helpful if you have a pre built website, but your client will need to change and edit content quickly and easily. Instead of having to load the Oxygen Builder, they only have access to a Gutenberg page, which is easier to edit, and won't break the entire website. It's also helpful if you want to make use of Gutenberg elements within a blog post. For example, you can create email call to actions, and add them into a Gutenberg blog post just as you would add any other type of block.

Though we haven't done this, you can even make it so your client can build out new pages using pre made Gutenberg blocks like a hero section, services section, and more. You could probably get so complex with this functionality that the client doesn't even know that the underlying website is using the Oxygen Builder.

One thing to consider here is that this is a feature of the Oxygen Builder that is very love hate. If you go onto the Facebook group and ask about it, you'll get some people who absolutely adore this, and others who avoid it like the plague.

In my opinion, and there's no basis behind this, but because WordPress is pushing Gutenberg so hard and many people are saying it's the future of the CMS, this integration will probably end up receiving a major overhaul by Oxygen to remain relevant as a page builder in the future WordPress ecosystem.

Conclusion

If you're unsure of what package you should get when buying the Oxygen Builder, consider the 60 day money back guarantee. You can purchase the highest package, mess around with it, and if it doesn't suit your needs , refund it and get a lower plan. The thing to consider as well is the fact that this is a lifetime license, and if you own the highest plan, you'll get access to the highest features in the future.

However, you can upgrade for the difference in price between what you paid, and the current list price of what you’re looking at now.

Just food for thought. We are very happy with our agency license which was bought over a year ago, as new features have been released that only the planholders get access to.

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Article By
James LePage
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James LePage is the founder of Isotropic, a WordPress education company and digital agency. He is also the founder of CodeWP.ai, a venture backed startup bringing AI to WordPress creators.
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