Migrating from the Nexus Page Builder to Elementor

In this article I’m going to describe what you need to take into consideration when deciding to migrate from the Nexus Page Builder to Elementor.

End-of-life status for the Nexus Page Builder

On January 1st of 2023 it will reach an end-of-life status. This means:

• We will no longer provide updates to ensure the Nexus Page builder is compatible with the latest version of WordPress and/or PHP.
• Questions related to the Nexus Page Builder are deemed out-of-scope of our support.

This is what the end-of-life status of the Nexus Page Builder means for your website

I love retro-gaming. Among others I have a Windows ’95, and Windows 7 PC. It’s clear that both operating systems have reached the end-of-life status.

Both PC’s are working fine, but obviously I haven’t updated them for years. And I have long since moved on to a computer with a more up-to-date operating system for my day-to-day activities and online browsing.

Your website will still work

The same is going to happen to the Nexus Page Builder. Reaching the end-of-life status does NOT mean your website suddenly no longer works.

That is, unless you decide to change and/or the components that make up your website to the aforementioned known incompatible state. E.g. updated WordPress and the web server’s PHP beyond stated version.

Whether or not to start using another page builder is your decision

We started the end-of-life process in March 2021, and actively notified clients who were up for license renewals of the upcoming end-of-life status at the beginning of 2022.

Starting March 2021, we decided to start offering our theme designs using Elementor. We have created 155 Elementor versions as of this writing.

Whether or not you actually start using the Elementor version, or any other page builder for that matter, is ultimately your decision.

Migrating an existing website using the Nexus Page Builder to Elementor

There are a number of things related to changing page builders

You cannot automatically migrate content created with the Nexus Page Builder to Elementor

There is no automatic migration option available for displaying content created with the Nexus Page Builder to Elementor (or any other page builder).

The Elementor templates we’ve created ourselves, and were based on the Nexus Page Builder versions, were designed manually.

You cannot use Elementor on a site running the Nexus Page Builder

Themes designed with the Nexus Page builder are NOT compatible with Elementor. E.g. you cannot use them at the same time.

The Nexus Page Builder is a THEME, Elementor is a PLUGIN

The Nexus Page Builder has always been part of a WordPress THEME, whereas the Elementor page builder is a WordPress PLUGIN.

Since WordPress requires a theme, we’ve chosen to run the Elementor WordPress PLUGIN alongside the FREE OceanWP WordPress THEME as a foundation for our Elementor Templates.

As of this writing Elementor has more than 5 million active installs, and the OceanWP theme 700.000 thousand.

Nexus Page Builder turnkey installation versus Elementor Template file import

Themes with the Nexus Page Builder have a feature that import demo content upon activating the theme’s zip file.

Since Elementor is a plugin not a theme, such a theme activation feature cannot exist. Instead, Elementor Templates come in the form of a .wpress archive file, you need to import into a new WordPress installation.

We’ve chosen the FREE All-In-One WP Migration plugin as the go-to solution to import any of our Elementor Template designs.

As of this writing the All-In-One WP Migration plugin has over 5 million active installs.

We use both Elementor and the Elementor Pro extension in our Elementor templates

In all of our Elementor templates we’ve also used the Elementor Pro paid extension.

The most obvious question related to this paid extension is: “Can I use Elementor for free?”. We’ve written a separate article to convey to what extend we’ve used Elementor Pro in our Elementor templates.

Not using Elementor Pro with one of our Elementor templates means that part of the design created with these Elementor Pro features will NOT be shown on your website.

Both the Nexus Page Builder and Elementor work with content created with the classic WordPress editor and the Gutenberg block editor

Should you have an existing website with content created with either the classic WordPress editor or the newer Gutenberg block editor (the default WordPress editor since 2017), that content will show up in websites using a theme with either the Nexus Page Builder or Elementor.

E.g. you do NOT need to migrate content created with the WordPress editor and/or the Gutenberg block editor.

How easy is it to migrate to Elementor?

One of the most common questions I get is how easy it is to migrate to Elementor. The answer to that question is that it totally depends on your website, and how well versed you are both in WordPress and Elementor.

Hopefully you now understand there is no automatic content recreation in Elementor. It means that you’ll need to recreate content with the Nexus Page builder in Elementor, if you want to keep that content. How easy that’s going to be is dependent on the amount of content, how complex the design of that content is, and how well you know Elementor to redesign/recreate it with that plugin.

A good approach is to start with an Elementor Template of your choice, install it on a fresh WordPress installation and work from there. You can decide if and how you want to recreate content with Elementor (you don’t need to recreate content with the WordPress block editor), while your live site works uninterrupted.

Support

With this article we’ve hoped to have answered some of the most commonly asked questions related to our products. And if you have any more questions feel free to email us at support@nexusthemes.com or get help in our Facebook group.