Pros and Cons of Kadence Blocks: Things You Should Know

To overcome the limitation of the default Gutenberg block editor, lots of people today use plugins that offer various custom blocks. The Kadence Blocks plugin is one of them. It’s currently one of the most popular block plugins used by hundreds of thousands of users.

But before you start using it, it’s important to understand what it really offers. Some users love its clean design and responsive layout controls, while others feel it lacks advanced design freedom compared to many available tools online, like Spectra, Divi, and Elementor.

So, in this blog post, I will take a close look at the pros and cons of Kadence Blocks. You’ll learn what makes it special, where it might fall short, and what things you should check before using it on your site. So, let’s get started.

What Is Kadence Blocks and How Does It Work?

With 500,000+ active installations, Kadence Blocks is a renowned Gutenberg block plugin. It is part of the Kadence WP ecosystem and comes with 15 custom blocks. These blocks extend Gutenberg’s core features while keeping your website lightweight, fast, and easy to design.

Kadence Blocks works smoothly with any WordPress theme. It focuses on speed, SEO-friendliness, and mobile responsiveness right from the start. It works in the same way as any other Gutenberg block plugin. Advanced users can integrate Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) to manage dynamic content.

Explore comprehensive review of Kadence Blocks.

Kadence Blocks vs Other Popular Block Plugins

To help you decide whether Kadence Blocks is right for you, here’s a comparison with four other popular Gutenberg plugins – Ultimate Blocks, Spectra Blocks, Essential Blocks, and Otter Blocks. Take a look:

Pros of Kadence Blocks: Its Usefulness

Although the Kadence Blocks plugin doesn’t offer many custom blocks like many other plugins, it still offers significant usefulness, which may be why you consider it. In this section, I will try to list all the positive sides of the plugin that truly can add value to your website. Let’s explore:

1. Offers 27+ Custom Blocks

Kadence Blocks provides 27+ versatile custom blocks, ranging from advanced rows to interactive tabs. However, the free version offers 15 blocks, and the rest is reserved for the pro version of the plugin. These blocks are meticulously designed to align with Gutenberg’s philosophy.

What sets these apart is their depth. Each block includes options for animations, shadows, and responsive stacking, reducing the need for custom CSS. This collection forms a solid foundation for any site, scalable to Pro’s additional 10+ blocks for even more sophistication.

Check pros and cons of Spectra Blocks.

2. Conditional Asset Loading

Kadence Blocks dynamically enqueues only the CSS and JavaScript required for active blocks on a page. This prevents unnecessary file bloat. This leads to faster load times and improved Google PageSpeed scores, which are crucial for modern SEO.

In practice, it means a blog post with just text blocks won’t load gallery scripts, keeping your site lean. Undoubtedly, this is a must for all high-traffic websites where every millisecond counts.

3. 1500+ SVG Icons

Kadence includes a library of over 1,500 resizable SVG icons. So, you don’t have to depend on an additional plugin for icons. SVG icons coming with the plugin scale perfectly across all device types and support custom colors.

This enhances design flexibility without performance hits. Besides, the icon block allows easy insertion with hover effects and alignment controls, which is great for a good UI design.

Learn how to create icon box in the Gutenberg editor.

4. Advanced Typography Controls

Typography in Kadence goes beyond basics with controls for 900+ Google Fonts, text shadows, letter spacing, and line heights, all adjustable per block. This level of comprehensive control ensures brand-consistent headings and paragraphs that pop on any device.

Pro users can unlock text effects like gradients and animations. This can turn simple copy into engaging visuals. It’s particularly useful for marketing sites where readable, stylish text drives conversions.

5. Device Responsiveness

Kadence excels with per-device responsive controls. The plugin lets you tweak margins, padding, and visibility of each block for desktop, tablet, and mobile independently, including column collapse order. This ensures pixel-perfect adaptations.

The interface includes live previews, so adjustments are immediate and intuitive. Developers love how it exports to custom CSS, bridging no-code ease with code-level precision.

Read this post on the complete overview of Ultimate Blocks.

6. Lottie Animations Block

The Lottie Animations block helps you add lightweight, high-quality animations to your WordPress site using the Gutenberg editor. These animations are made from JSON files, usually exported from After Effects. They are smooth, scalable, and do not require heavy libraries.

You can use them in hero sections, loading screens, or anywhere you want a stylish motion effect without slowing down your site. This block also gives you easy control over animation behavior. You can adjust the playback speed, set the animation to loop, or make it play when users hover over it.

7. Dynamic ACF Integration

Kadence works perfectly with Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) to show dynamic content on your website. It can pull data like post meta, user information, or any custom field you create. This makes it easy to create personalized and dynamic content without manual updates.

You can use it for custom post loops, conditional displays, and more. The setup process is very simple. It also supports repeating data, so you can create loops for lists or collections. Once connected, any change you make in ACF automatically updates everywhere on your site.

Take a look at the best WordPress custom post type plugins.

8. Integration with Pexels (Stock Image Library)

The plugin gives you built-in access to Pexels’ free stock photo library right inside the editor. You can search for images, insert them directly into your blocks, and even optimize them automatically. The images use lazy loading and WebP format to keep your site fast.

You don’t need to switch between tabs or visit other websites, everything happens right inside the Gutenberg editor. The Pro version makes it even better with bulk image imports and smart AI suggestions for alt text. This helps you manage visuals quickly and improve accessibility.

9. Kadence AI Generator

Kadence AI uses advanced generative tools to help you create complete website sections, pages, or small content parts just by giving simple prompts. The AI automatically follows your site’s global design styles, so everything looks consistent and professional.

It can help you write SEO-friendly text, headlines, and other marketing content faster. Many marketers use it to build and test page layouts quickly. You can easily adjust the generated blocks to match your exact needs.

Here, I have discussed the best WordPress AI plugins.

10. Custom Icon Uploads

Kadence Pro users can upload their own custom SVG icons to the icon library. This means you can add your own brand icons or unique graphics along with the 1,500+ built-in icons. There are lots of icon libraries online, like flaticon. Just download and upload them to your site.

This feature helps you keep your design original and consistent with your brand. You can use your company logo in navigation menus or add custom icons to infographics and buttons. Many designers say this feature reduces design issues and support requests.

11. WooCommerce Compatibility

Kadence Blocks comes with special blocks for product grids, shopping carts, upsells, and more. These blocks can show real-time data such as prices, stock levels, and discounts directly from your store. The setup makes sure your eCommerce pages load very fast.

It also includes flexible hooks and filters, so you can customize store layouts without depending on a specific theme. You can create advanced features like mega menus for product categories or unique product sections.

Check the best WordPress product tabs plugin.

12. CSS Grid Layouts

Kadence’s Row Layout block uses CSS Grid technology to create advanced and responsive layouts that go beyond what Flexbox can do. You can easily adjust how columns and rows work by dragging to resize or span elements, and you can control the spacing between them with simple gap settings.

It follows the latest web design standards that help you build layouts that are both modern and future-ready. The block also supports creative design features like blend modes and parallax backgrounds to add visual depth and movement. Even with these effects, everything stays optimized for fast loading.

13. Support White Labeling

The white labeling feature in Kadence Pro lets you remove all Kadence branding from client websites. This helps you create a clean and professional dashboard that looks fully customized, without any outside attribution links. It’s especially useful for agencies that build and manage websites for clients.

You can replace the Kadence logo with your own and rename menu items to match your brand. This feature also supports exportable configuration files, making it easy to apply your white-labeled setup to other sites quickly. It ensures a smooth and consistent experience across all client projects.

Cons of Kadence Blocks

Like any other plugin, Kadence Blocks also has some limitations. Actually, nothing in the world is unconditionally free of limitations. So, let’s now take a look at some major cons of the Kadence Blocks plugins below.

1. Limited Blocks

Kadence Blocks offer 27+ blocks. But compared to competitors like Spectra, which provides more than 40 blocks, it feels limited. Besides, many important features, such as modals or dynamic lists, are only available in the Pro version. So beginners might feel restricted.

Upgrading to Pro unlocks many advanced options, but the price can be disappointing for users who just want to experiment or build personal projects. Several reviews mention that this paywall slows down creativity for hobbyists or non-commercial users.

Grow your knowledge on the best WordPress automation plugins.

2. Expensive Premium Plans

At $69/year for unlimited sites, Kadence Pro outprices rivals like Ultimate Blocks and Essential Blocks that offer annual plans at only $49. In special events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, they offer these plugins at a discounted price, at around $29, which is incredibly cheap.

Compared to this, Kadence Blocks is undoubtedly expensive for budget-friendly users.

3. Limited Documentation

Kadence’s documentation does a good job of explaining the basic features and setup process. However, it doesn’t go very deep into advanced topics like using custom PHP hooks or fine-tuning the AI tools. So, developers often need to explore community forums for detailed answers.

The official video tutorials are helpful, but the written guides are sometimes slow to update when new features are released. When compared to Otter’s more complete and organized wiki-style documentation, Kadence’s resources feel less thorough for advanced use cases.

4. No Flexbox Container

One of the main drawbacks of Kadence Blocks is that it doesn’t include a dedicated Flexbox layout system like Spectra does. Flexbox helps users create responsive and flexible layouts, especially for arranging content in rows or columns that adjust smoothly on different screen sizes.

Without this feature, users often need to rely on other design tricks or extra CSS to achieve similar results. This makes layout customization a bit more time-consuming, particularly for beginners who want quick, flexible control over alignment and spacing.

Best Use Cases of Kadence Blocks

Kadence Blocks fits many types of websites, from blogs to online stores and learning platforms. Its wide range of features helps users design professional, fast-loading, and visually appealing pages without coding. Let’s explore some of the best ways you can use it to build stunning websites.

a. Building Custom Blogs

Kadence Blocks have the ability to transform general-class blogs into dynamic content with advanced galleries, infinite scroll posts, and SEO-optimized accordions, all while maintaining lightning-fast loads. It can pull content from categories and tags.

Learn how to start blogging on WordPress.

b. eCommerce Product Displays

For WooCommerce stores, Kadence’s product blocks can create engaging showcases with hover effects, quick views, and schema-rich carousels. This can drive sales through visual storytelling. Integration ensures real-time stock, pricing, and conversion-focused pages.

c. Creating Landing Pages

You can design landing pages with Kadence’s hero rows, countdown timers, and AI-generated CTAs, optimized for lead capture and A/B testing. Parallax and blend modes add flair. Responsive controls guarantee mobile conversions, which is great for launching campaigns on tight timelines.

d. Developing LMS Sites

In learning management systems like LearnDash, Kadence pulls course data dynamically into progress trackers and module grids for user navigation. Custom icons and tabs organize lessons intuitively, making it a go-to for educators to build scalable online academies.

e. Designing Portfolio Websites

Portfolios can use their masonry galleries, Lottie-animated case studies, and filterable categories. Global styles ensure consistent branding for empowering creatives to impress clients with interactive, fast-loading sites that highlight skills.

Visit this post on how to create a filterable portfolio in WordPress.

Final Takeaways!

Kadence Blocks stands out as a complete solution for building modern, responsive websites inside the WordPress block editor. Though it has some limitations, it’s still a great and considerable plugin to build comprehensive websites if you use the Kadence theme with it.

Kadence theme and Kadence plugin together actually form an ecosystem. So, when you use the Kadence block plugin and the theme on your site, you will unlikely need additional tools to design your site. But if you consider a different theme with the plugin, you’ll definitely feel the need.

While its free version gives you a basic start, the Pro version truly unlocks its full potential with more customization, automation, and branding options. If you love today’s post, let me know your feedback through the comment box below. You can even give me a chat to talk with me in real time.