Element Pack plugin review and common issues

Element Pack requires individual widgets to be enabled in its management dashboard. Go to Element Pack → Elements in the WordPress admin. The dashboard lists all 170+ widgets with toggle switches. Search for the widget by name and enable its toggle. After enabling widgets, go to Elementor → Tools → Regenerate CSS and clear all caches. The newly enabled widgets appear in the Elementor panel under the “Element Pack” widget category. By default, only a subset of widgets is enabled to prevent initial performance impact — enable only the widgets you actively use.

The Element Pack template library requires an active internet connection to fetch templates from BdThemes’ server. If the library is empty: (1) check your server’s outbound connection to bdthemes.com — a firewall or security plugin may block the request; (2) clear the WordPress transient cache to remove a potentially cached failed library response; (3) verify your Element Pack license is active (for Pro) or that the free version connection is properly established; (4) try from a different network or VPN if firewall rules are the issue.

In the Element Pack Login Form widget settings, find the Redirect After Login option. Enter the custom URL (e.g., /my-account/ or a specific page URL) where users should be sent after successful login. If the redirect setting is not applying: (1) verify the URL format is correct (use the full URL or a root-relative path starting with /); (2) check if another plugin (WooCommerce, members plugin) is overriding the login redirect with its own redirect logic — conflicts arise when multiple plugins hook into the login redirect filter; (3) clear all caches after changing the redirect URL.

Add the Element Pack OpenStreetMap widget to your Elementor section. In the widget settings, enter the latitude and longitude coordinates for the location to display (find coordinates via map.google.com by right-clicking a location). Configure the map height, zoom level, marker style, and popup content. OpenStreetMap uses free tiles without requiring an API key (unlike Google Maps which requires billing-enabled API), making it a zero-cost, privacy-friendly alternative for displaying location maps. For click-to-navigate functionality, add a link to the marker popup pointing to the location on OpenStreetMap or Google Maps.

Add the Element Pack Reading Progress Bar widget to your blog post template. For the progress bar to work across all posts, place it in a Global Widget or in a template applied via Elementor Pro’s Theme Builder (Single Post template). In the widget settings, configure position (fixed to top or bottom of the viewport, or within the post content area), height, color, and z-index. The progress bar calculates reading progress based on scroll position relative to the content length and updates dynamically as visitors scroll through the post.

Element Pack provides more total widgets (170+ vs 90+) and more templates (2,700+ vs Essential Addons’ library) for the most diverse requirements. Essential Addons has a larger user community, more tutorials, and more consistent widget quality. For agencies building many different types of sites and wanting maximum widget availability, Element Pack’s broader coverage is an advantage. For most standard business site builds where the top 20 widgets cover 90% of needs, Essential Addons’ community strength and quality consistency are meaningful advantages.

Element Pack can affect performance if many widgets are enabled simultaneously, as each enabled widget registers potential assets. Use the widget management dashboard to disable all widgets not actively used on the site — this prevents unnecessary script and style registrations. Like most Elementor addons, Element Pack uses modular loading to load widget assets only on pages where those widgets are used. With proper widget management (keeping only 20-30 needed widgets enabled from the 170+ available), performance impact is comparable to other Elementor addon plugins.

Yes, that can happen, especially on older sites with many plugins. This usually happens when the plugin, theme, and add-ons are updated out of sequence. In most cases, testing on staging catches the issue before it reaches the live site. From experience, backups and changelog reviews save a lot of cleanup time.

Start by checking whether another plugin already does the same job. In most cases, overlap is what creates avoidable conflicts and performance issues. A common issue is installing a plugin because it looks convenient without checking the stack first. From experience, a short compatibility review avoids most of the pain later.