Gutenberg in 2025: My Experience as a Developer — What Really Works and What Still Lags

Table of Contents

• What Works Well
• Where Gutenberg Still Struggles
• Conclusion
• Frequently Asked Questions

I’ve been building websites with WordPress for years. When Gutenberg launched in 2018, I ignored it like most developers did — it felt unfinished, slow, and nowhere near as capable as Elementor or Divi. The Classic Editor stayed in my workflow for a long time.

In 2025, that’s changed. Gutenberg is now the core of WordPress, not an experiment. Most modern themes and plugins are built around it. The Classic Editor is essentially gone. So the real question isn’t whether to use Gutenberg — it’s whether it’s actually ready for serious projects.

I use it daily, across everything from landing pages to corporate sites and large blogs. Here’s what I’ve found.

What Works Well

Performance

Gutenberg is lean. No unnecessary scripts, no jQuery dependency. Even without caching plugins, it’s straightforward to hit strong Google PageSpeed scores. For SEO and long-term scalability, that clean baseline matters more than most developers give it credit for.

Full Site Editing

FSE lets you edit headers, footers, archive pages, and post templates directly inside the editor — no PHP required, no child theme gymnastics. It’s genuinely powerful. The catch: it only works with block-based themes. If you’re using a classic theme like Astra, FSE isn’t available. In 2025, it’s still not a universal standard — but on the right setup, it changes how you build sites.

Block Patterns

Block Patterns are one of Gutenberg’s most underrated features. You build a section once — a testimonial block, a CTA layout, a card grid — save it as a pattern, and reuse it anywhere on the site. No copy-pasting, no rebuilding the same design from scratch. On multi-page projects, this alone saves a significant amount of time.

Dynamic Content Blocks

Core blocks connect directly to your content: post titles, featured images, author data, metadata. You can build fully custom post templates without writing a single line of PHP. For developers who want control without complexity, this is where Gutenberg genuinely shines.

Cleaner Admin

You can disable any blocks you don’t use. On large projects with multiple editors, this keeps the block inserter clean and reduces confusion. It’s a small thing, but it noticeably improves day-to-day workflow.

Accessibility

Gutenberg outputs semantic HTML with proper ARIA attributes and keyboard navigation support. It meets WCAG standards out of the box — something many page builders can’t say without significant extra work.

The Ecosystem: Block Packs

Core Gutenberg is intentionally minimal — no sliders, accordions, tabs, or carousels. For anything beyond basics, you need a block pack. The ecosystem is growing, but quality varies considerably.

A poorly built pack will slow your frontend and make the admin feel sluggish. In my experience, the two strongest options right now are Spectra and Greenshift:

• Spectra — lightweight, easy to work with, integrates cleanly with Astra. Good default choice for most projects.
• Greenshift — more advanced layouts and animation tools, but heavier in the admin. Better suited for design-heavy projects where you need that extra control.

Neither is perfect. I’ll cover both in separate deep-dives.

Where Gutenberg Still Struggles

Responsive Controls

This is the biggest gap in core Gutenberg. There’s still no native way to set a heading to 90px on desktop and 45px on mobile directly in the editor. You’re stuck relying on fluid typography or theme.json customization. For simple sites, it works. For anything requiring precise responsive control, you need a block pack or custom CSS. In 2025, this should not still be an issue.

Query Block Performance in the Editor

The Query Block is one of Gutenberg’s most powerful tools — it lets you build post grids, blog feeds, and custom post type displays with filters and custom layouts. But it makes the editor painfully slow. A single Query Block can lag the entire admin interface. The frontend renders fine, but editing becomes frustrating. This is a known issue that still hasn’t been properly resolved.

Scalability at Large Page Sizes

On small and medium sites, Gutenberg is smooth. Once you’re working with pages containing hundreds of blocks or a large library of reusable patterns, the editor starts to drag. It’s not a dealbreaker, but it does affect productivity on complex projects.

Advanced Custom Layouts

For standard layouts, Gutenberg handles things well. But the moment you need asymmetric grids, intricate responsive behavior, or advanced animations, you’re either writing custom CSS or building a custom block. Page builders like Elementor or Bricks still have an edge here when it comes to raw visual flexibility.

UX and Interface

Gutenberg looks modern, but working in it daily exposes its friction points. Key settings are buried in dropdowns. Side panels shift as you switch between blocks. On pages with deep block nesting, it’s genuinely difficult to track what’s selected. None of these are fatal problems, but they add up over the course of a long project.

Learning Curve

For anyone coming from Elementor or Divi, Gutenberg requires real adjustment. Nested blocks, style inheritance, theme.json configuration — it takes several projects before it clicks. For non-technical clients editing content themselves, expect onboarding time.

Conclusion

Gutenberg in 2025 is mature and stable. It produces clean, fast, SEO-friendly output and has grown into a genuinely capable foundation for WordPress development. But it still has real gaps — no native responsive controls, editor performance issues with the Query Block, and a UX that creates unnecessary friction.

My approach: use Gutenberg as the foundation, extend it only where needed. Start with core blocks for speed and stability, bring in Spectra or Greenshift for UI components, and write custom solutions only for what neither can handle. This keeps projects fast, maintainable, and free from the bloat that page builders tend to accumulate over time.

It’s not a perfect tool. But in 2025, it’s the right tool — and the gap between Gutenberg and traditional page builders is closing faster than most people realize.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Gutenberg better than Elementor in 2025? It depends on the project. Gutenberg produces cleaner, faster code and is better for performance-focused or SEO-heavy sites. Elementor offers more visual flexibility out of the box, especially for complex responsive layouts. For developers comfortable with theme.json and block packs, Gutenberg is the stronger long-term foundation. For designers or non-technical users who need maximum control without code, Elementor is still easier.

Does Gutenberg support responsive design? Partially. Core Gutenberg lacks native responsive controls for things like per-breakpoint font sizes or spacing. You can work around this using fluid typography, theme.json settings, or a block pack like Spectra or Greenshift — but it requires extra setup compared to dedicated page builders.

What are the best block packs for Gutenberg in 2025? The two strongest options based on real project use are Spectra (lightweight, integrates well with Astra, good for most sites) and Greenshift (more advanced design and animation tools, better for complex layouts). Both have trade-offs — Spectra is easier to work with daily, Greenshift gives more control when you need it.

Is Gutenberg good for SEO? Yes. Gutenberg outputs semantic HTML, loads no unnecessary scripts, and doesn’t depend on jQuery — all of which contribute to faster page speeds and cleaner code. Combined with a plugin like Yoast or Rank Math, it provides a strong SEO foundation.

Can beginners use Gutenberg? Yes, but there’s a learning curve. The block-based editing model takes getting used to, especially for users coming from classic editors or visual builders. For simple content updates, most users adapt quickly. For building full pages and managing complex layouts, expect a few weeks before it feels natural.