Elementra
Wpbakery Classic Theme One-time Purchase
Author: ThemeREX | Last Updated: 30.01.2026

Elementra v1.0.9

Quick Verdict

Elementra is a multi-purpose Elementor theme designed for rapid website deployment with a wide array of pre-built "skins". However, it suffers from critical security vulnerabilities, a problematic "pay-to-patch" update model, and severe vendor lock-in that makes long-term maintenance difficult and risky. While it offers a visually impressive starting point, its underlying technical issues and poor mobile performance make it a hazardous choice for serious projects.

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Analysis

Elementra is a versatile, multi-purpose WordPress theme built exclusively for the Elementor page builder. It is marketed towards users who need to build visually impressive websites quickly, offering a large library of pre-designed “skins” for various industries. This makes it a compelling option for freelancers and agencies working on low-budget projects with tight deadlines, as a professional-looking site can be deployed in a very short amount of time. The frontend editing experience is straightforward for clients who only need to change text or images.

However, the theme’s strengths are overshadowed by significant and critical flaws. Its core companion plugin has a history of severe security vulnerabilities, and the author’s update policy effectively forces users to pay for security patches by keeping them behind a support paywall. This creates an unacceptable risk for any business website. Furthermore, the theme creates deep vendor lock-in by tying essential content like portfolios and team members to its proprietary plugin, making future migration to a different theme a costly and complex undertaking.

Ultimately, Elementra presents a dangerous trade-off. While it delivers on the promise of rapid visual development, it fails on the fundamental requirements of security, performance, and long-term maintainability. The poor mobile performance out-of-the-box, combined with the fragmented backend settings and the risk of being unable to apply critical security fixes without paying, makes it a hazardous choice for all but the most ephemeral “turn-and-burn” projects.

WPBakery
Multipurpose
Classic Theme
✅ Pros
• Rapid deployment with pre-built "skins"
• Intuitive frontend editing for clients
• Good for low-budget, quick-turnaround sites
❌ Cons
• History of critical security vulnerabilities
• "Pay-to-patch" model for security updates
• Severe data lock-in via proprietary plugin
Plugin Compatibility
Will my plugins work?
Research Confidence: High
Safe if
Elementra is a safe choice if your project primarily relies on Elementor and a basic set of bundled plugins, as the core functionality is tightly integrated.
Check before purchase
Be cautious when using third-party WooCommerce extensions, as the theme's rigid and hard-coded template overrides can break the styling or hide important fields from other plugins [7].
Avoid if
Avoid this theme if your project requires complex multilingual capabilities or relies on other page builders, as translating content is a fragmented process and conflicts with builders like WPBakery have been reported [6, 8].

Community Quotes

"User reports highlight conflicts with other page builders like WPBakery and various utility plugins, often resulting in a 'White Screen of Death' or frozen editor canvases due to script collisions."

— reddit.com [6]

Freelancer Recommendation

Stick to the bundled plugins for the most stable experience. If using third-party plugins, especially for e-commerce or multilingual sites, be prepared for potential conflicts and extensive testing.

Alternatives: Kadence, Blocksy, Astra
Client Handoff
Can the client manage it?
Research Confidence: Medium
Safe if
This theme is a safe choice if you are an agency developer who will manage the site long-term and can navigate the fragmented settings panel for your client.
Check before purchase
Exercise caution if you plan to hand this theme off to a non-technical client, as the settings are scattered across the WordPress Customizer, a separate Theme Panel, and Elementor's Site Settings, which often leads to confusion [8].
Avoid if
Avoid this theme if your client requires a simple, unified backend experience for making their own site-wide changes, as the dispersed configuration options will likely result in frequent and frustrating support requests.
Panel Difficulty
Complex
Documentation
Good
Learning Curve
Days

Community Quotes

"Global colors are in Elementor Site Settings, header layouts are in a ThemeREX Header Builder, and logo settings are in the WordPress Customizer. This dispersal of options confuses non-technical clients."

— doc.themerex.net [8]

"The 'ThemeREX' brand is pervasive in the WordPress dashboard, actively promoting 'Premium Support' and 'Customization Services,' which can undermine an agency's value proposition to their client."

— themerex.net [20]

Freelancer Recommendation
Elementra is best suited for projects where the original developer or agency retains full control over maintenance and site-wide updates. The fragmented nature of its settings makes it a poor choice for direct client handoff.
Alternatives: Kadence, Blocksy, GeneratePress
Performance & SEO
Will the site be fast?
Research Confidence: High
Check before purchase
Use this theme with caution if mobile performance is a priority, as its out-of-the-box PageSpeed score of 59 indicates significant optimization will be required to meet Core Web Vitals standards [17].
Avoid if
Avoid Elementra for any project where high mobile performance is a critical requirement, as the theme is prone to code bloat and inefficiently loads assets, resulting in slow load times and a poor user experience on mobile devices [1].
59
Mobile
Benchmark: 90+
90
Desktop
Benchmark: 90+
9.31s
LCP Mobile
Benchmark: <2.5s
2.63s
LCP Desktop
Benchmark: <2.5s
Test Information
Test Date: 2026-02-06
Tested URL: https://elementra.themerex.net/

Code Observation (demo):

The theme's main demo scored 59/100 on Google PageSpeed Insights for mobile when tested on February 6, 2026. This score is considered in the "needs work" tier, primarily due to a very poor Largest Contentful Paint of 9.31 seconds, which is well above the recommended 2.5 seconds. Community feedback confirms that the theme suffers from significant code bloat, often loading large, unused CSS files and desktop-centric scripts on mobile devices, which hinders performance without aggressive optimization [1, 17].

⚠️ Based on DevTools inspection of demo, not a production audit

Community Quotes

"On a simple 'About Us' page, up to 90% of the loaded CSS may be unused. Parsing hundreds of kilobytes of CSS blocks the main thread on low-end mobile devices."

— ultida.com [1]

"The theme often struggles to pass a 60/100 PageSpeed score on mobile without aggressive optimization because it loads desktop-centric assets like mega-menu scripts and parallax libraries on mobile viewports."

— fixmysite.com [17]

"Many of the theme's Elementor widgets rely on legacy shortcode logic wrapped in an Elementor control, which adds an extra processing layer, increases DOM depth, and harms performance."

— ultida.com [1]

Freelancer Recommendation

To mitigate the poor mobile performance, users will need to implement advanced optimization techniques, such as asset unloading, critical CSS generation, and script deferral, likely through premium third-party plugins like Perfmatters or WP Rocket.

Alternatives: Astra, GeneratePress, Kadence
Update Safety
Will updates break the site?
Research Confidence: High
Safe if
This theme is relatively safe if you are committed to maintaining an active support license indefinitely to ensure you receive critical security patches in a timely manner.
Check before purchase
Exercise extreme caution due to the theme's history of critical vulnerabilities and its "pay-to-patch" model, which may require you to purchase a support extension to fix a severe security flaw like a Remote Code Execution [13, 15].
Avoid if
Avoid this theme if you cannot risk severe data lock-in, as deactivating the core ThemeREX Addons plugin will cause custom post types like 'Portfolio' and 'Team' to disappear from your site, making migration to another theme extremely difficult [7].

Community Quotes

"Deactivating the themerex-addons plugin results in the immediate loss of all 'Team' and 'Portfolio' data, as the post types are unregistered. This forces developers to perform a complex database migration."

— reddit.com [7]

"While marketing suggests you can 'switch skins' easily, the action is destructive. Switching a skin often resets widgets, menu locations, and global typography settings, effectively breaking the live site."

— themerex.net [2]

Freelancer Recommendation

Given the author’s history and business model, Elementra should be considered a high-risk theme. Users must be prepared to pay for ongoing support to protect their sites from vulnerabilities. Agencies should factor this recurring cost and the high migration difficulty into any project proposal.

Alternatives: Blocksy, Kadence, Astra
Scalability
Can I use it for multiple projects?
Research Confidence: Medium

Community Quotes

"The bundled ThemeREX Addons plugin has had severe vulnerabilities, including one that allowed unauthenticated attackers to upload executable files (PHP shells) via the REST API."

— nvd.nist.gov [13]

"The one-click demo import often fails on shared hosting environments. Agencies report that cleaning up a successful import can take as long as building a site from scratch due to hundreds of orphaned entries."

— doc.themerex.net [8]

Costs
Pricing breakdown
Explicit Costs
  • Regular License $59
  • Support (6) Included
  • Regular License $59
Hidden Costs (Community)
"Users reported that when the critical RCE (CVE-2024-13448) was disclosed, they could not update the vulnerable themerex-addons plugin via the dashboard because their 6-month support period had expired."— reddit.com [15]
Demo Gallery
0 example sites

No demos available.

Frequently Asked Questions
7 questions from community

Is Elementra a secure theme?

General

No, it is considered a high-risk theme. Its core dependency, the ThemeREX Addons plugin, has a documented history of critical vulnerabilities, including an unauthenticated Remote Code Execution (RCE) that allowed attackers to upload malicious files [13, 19].

Sources: 13,19

Do I have to pay extra for security updates?

Pricing & Licensing

Often, yes. Critical security patches are delivered through theme updates, which require an active support subscription. If your support expires, you may be forced to renew your license to patch a known vulnerability, a practice some users describe as a "pay-to-patch" model [15].

Sources: 15

Can I easily switch to another theme later?

Updates & Stability

No, switching is very difficult. The theme creates severe data lock-in by registering essential content types like 'Portfolio' and 'Team' within its proprietary plugin. Deactivating this plugin will cause all associated content to disappear, requiring a complex database migration [7].

Sources: 7

Is Elementra fast on mobile devices?

Performance & Speed

Not out of the box. It is prone to significant bloat, loading large CSS files and desktop-specific scripts even on mobile viewports. This negatively impacts Core Web Vitals and typically requires aggressive, manual optimization to achieve acceptable mobile performance scores [1, 17].

Sources: 1,17

Who is this theme best for?

General

It is best for freelancers or agencies focused on rapid, low-budget projects where the client prioritizes initial visual polish over long-term maintainability, security, and performance [1].

Sources: 1

Is the "One-Click Demo Import" easy to use?

General

The process is resource-intensive and frequently fails on standard shared hosting environments. Even when successful, it creates a large amount of demo content and media that requires significant manual cleanup [8].

Sources: 8

Will my client find the backend easy to use?

Client Handoff

While frontend editing with Elementor is intuitive, the theme's backend settings are fragmented across multiple locations (WordPress Customizer, Theme Panel, Elementor Settings), which can be very confusing for non-technical users [8].

Sources: 8
Sources & Methodology
25 sources indexed

Timeframe

Last 12 months

Analysis Date

February 6, 2026

Confidence Assessment

Data confidence: HIGH (25 analytical sources, 25 total)

Methodology Note

This analysis is based on a combination of official documentation, marketplace data, independent reviews, and public discussions from social media and forums.

Referenced Sources 25