Oxygen Builder 6.0 First Look: UI, Features Overview + First Impressions! [Video 27:00]
Fabrizio Van Marciano
WordPress Educator
Also published on YouTube.
Hey everyone, Fabrizio Van Marciano here, welcome back to the website, if you’re watching this on Van Marciano Pro. Welcome back to the channel, if you’re watching on YouTube. So if you’re new around here, don’t forget to hit the subscribe button and notifications bell for updates on new content. Also, if you enjoy my tutorials here on the channel, I do encourage you to check out Van Marciano pro, where I have a lot more to share.
You can continue this post by watching the video below –
So, just over 24 hours ago, at least from at the time of recording this short video, we got some news of a brand new, completely rebuilt from the ground up, re-invented, re-inspired, re-written, re-what ever else you want to call it, Oxygen Builder version 6.0.
Gotta admit, this caught me off guard. I don’t think anyone expected a new Oxygen. Oxygen Builder version 6.0 dropped before GTA 6—who saw that coming? But, should we really be that excited? After all, it’s still WordPress, and as some of you may know, my enthusiasm for WordPress these days isn’t exactly sky-high.
That said, I still have hope for WordPress and would like to continue using it for as long as possible. So I’m grateful . I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing if it wasn’t for WordPress, and all of the amazing tools that exist in the ecosystem. Maybe I’d be using something else that isn’t WordPress. But this little bit of news, is welcomed, for me anyway.
Now just going back to the topic of the state of WordPress, I’ve been exploring alternative tools and builders outside its ecosystem—particularly Webflow and Framer. Lately, I’ve been using Webflow more frequently and appreciate its intuitive UI and freedom from plugin and theme dependencies. Security and performance are also major advantages of Webflow. But the UI for me is what really makes Webflow I love how everything is laid out, it just feels like a professional tool.
Unfortunately, that’s not always the case with WordPress. At times, building on WordPress feels like trying to construct a modern luxury home on an unstable foundation of sh*t.
So, what about Oxygen 6?
Well, I’ll talk about the UI in just a second and share with you my honest thoughts. Before I do, there’s a couple of things I want to talk about –
I do understand there might be people that feel the need to continue holding grudges with Oxygen, with regards to the drama that unfolded a few years back. I would say that Oxygen has stood true to their words.
They said they would continue supporting the now classic Oxygen Builder 4.9 for as long as possible and they did just that.
The Oxygen team never said they were going to abandon Oxygen Builder. Those rumors was spread around by some people in the community looking to cause fear and panic. And to a greater degree, they achieved their goals.
So what happened?
Not everyone, but a lot of people jumped ship and went to the next best thing.
There’s always going to be the next best thing, especially in the WordPress realm. I remember reading a line from a comment in the Facebook group from a member of the Oxygen team, I can’t remember who it was. But it said something along the lines
– ‘All we can do is prove it to you, that they were not going to give up on Oxygen’.
And so here we are…
So, back to Oxygen Builder v6.0 people.
Is it any good?
Well, this is not a review by the way guys.
It is way too early for me to say whether it is amazing or not. But, what I will say, my opinion is that Oxygen 6 is off to a good start.
Its far from perfect, it is in beta phase 1, just remember that. But there’s certainly potential for it to be the best builder in the business, again, why not?
If you’re coming from Oxygen 4.9, like a lot of folks are, you’re definitely going to see some new innovation here. But more importantly, Oxygen now has the foundation for ground breaking new innovation, whereas it couldn’t before due to the redundant codebase. That is one of the many reasons why the team decided to rewrite Oxygen.
And some people will argue that it’s not great. I mean, each to their own. I think Oxygen 6 is off to a great start!
When I first tried out Breakdance, I’m going to be honest. I wasn’t sold on it. I wasn’t impressed, but over time, it got better, with new features, new innovation, and now most would consider Breakdance to be the best and easiest visual builder to use for building WooCommerce websites. So in time, Oxygen 6 will do mature into a great builder, there is no doubt in my mind!
Now before we take a look around the user interface and have a look at some of the features, I won’t be diving too deep into what is available in the beta version, we’ll go over what some of the features are, briefly but not into any detail.
And if I miss anything guys, please leave me a comment, correct if I’m wrong about something. You know, let’s talk about Oxygen 6 together!
So here we are, we are inside of the editor – this is the UI, and I’ll be honest, I’ve only been playing with this for 4 or 5 hours, so please forgive me. I’m not familiar with everything as of yet.
As you can see here I’ve created a pretty mediocre header section, with a nice boring-looking hero section. Currently I’m editing the front page. That it not the point of this video, so no workflow, no plot, no systematic approach or anything like, at this point I don’t care about any of those things, I just jumped into this and started playing around.
So, let’s start with the UI. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been using Webflow a lot more recently, and this is leaning quite heavily towards a Webflow inspired UI. And for me, that is a good thing. I can’t speak for others, I mean if you don’t like it, then you don’t like it – it is what it is. The UI, for me is a good start.
One of the things I’m not going to do is compare this Oxygen 6 with Bricks or Breakdance, or the classic Oxygen, not now at least. I think there is some useful documentation on the Oxygen website you can read.
I see people posting absolute nonsense in groups on social media. Even people I look up to are starting to sound a bit clueless. O6 is in beta phase, let’s just remember that. Again, things can only get better.
As far as features go, I’ve been able to navigate around some of the features here which we’ll have a look, so I kinda have an idea where to go.
Again, I’m sure as time goes by, the Oxygen team will be releasing new updates, so I’m not going to start talking about what is missing and what you can or can’t do, in any substantial detail.
One thing that is cool, is that we have Breakdance extensions that integrate with Oxygen Builder 6 now. From what I understand, there are key differences between Oxygen 6 and Breakdance, but both run on the same core builder engine. Lots of possibilities open up for extensions created by the Oxygen team and third party devs.
At the time of recording this little video, we do have Breakdance elements, forms, and WooCommerce integration extensions available for Oxygen. At this time, only have the elements extension installed for this demo.
First impressions
So, just to summarize my first impressions. Again, I think this is a promising return for Oxygen Builder. They now have a builder with a name that a lot of people are going to be familiar with, one that is well and truly established in the world of WordPress page. But more importantly, they now have a builder that they can improve upon and make one of the best if not the best. That is the bottom line.
I know so many people who are still in love with Oxygen and are still using the legacy or classic builder.
Also, I should mention, as I understand there is no direct upgrade path from classic Oxygen to Oxygen 6. So if you want to upgrade your site from the old Oxygen, you’ll need to rebuild it from the ground up with Oxygen 6. Perfect opportunity to learn more about it.
Oxygen 6 beta phase 1 looks great, my first impressions are pleasantly positive. I’m glad I stuck around because I honestly believe this is the start of an incredible new chapter for the builder and the team. Watch this space, and keep an eye out on my channel, and of course, Van Marciano Pro for new content, design tutorials, resources, and much more.
