Etch vs Bricks

Detailed Feature Comparison of Etch vs Bricks

Trying to understand the meaningful differences between Etch and Bricks? This page should help.

  • HTML Access

    Feature

    Does the builder allow viewing, editing, and authoring of the HTML?

    Etch: Yes

    Etch users can fully view, edit, and author HTML. You can even copy and paste HTML from an external source and Etch will parse it properly into blocks.

    Bricks: No

    Users can't view or edit the HTML generated by Bricks. The only way to author HTML is via a manual code block, but this is separate from the builder-created HTML.

  • Gutenberg Block Authoring

    Feature

    Does the builder author everything you build to editable core Gutenberg blocks and keep the block editor in sync with the builder? Do users get the benefit of full data liberation and easy client editing?

    Etch: Yes

    Etch authors everything you do to core blocks in Gutenberg, including templates, patterns, components (as synced patterns), loops, and conditional logic. Clients can use Gutenberg for easy editing and all data is liberated from Etch.

    Bricks: No

    Bricks is working on authoring components as blocks, but it's an opt-in feature and it's unclear what value component authoring will have by itself if the entire page isn't authored. There's no client-editing experience and no data liberation.

  • Full Selector System

    Feature

    Can you add and style any valid CSS selector?

    Etch: Yes

    Etch has a full selector system that allows you to add and style any valid CSS selector including complex selectors and compound selectors.

    Bricks: No

    Bricks only has a class and ID system, so users are limited to styling classes and IDs unless they want to write custom global CSS.

  • Advanced Loops

    Feature

    Can you loop through posts, users, taxonomies, JSON, and third party APIs?

    Etch: Partial

    Etch has support for posts, users, taxonomies, and raw JSON. We're working on adding support for third party APIs.

    Bricks: Partial

    Bricks has support for posts, users, taxonomies, and third party APIs, but lacks support for raw JSON.

  • Dynamic Data

    Feature

    Does the builder support dynamic data for templating, content insertion, loops, and logic?

    Etch: Yes

    Etch allows the injection of dynamic data anywhere, including WordPress custom fields and offers dozens of modifiers to manipulate the data output.

    Bricks: Partial

    Bricks has above average support for dynamic data, but users can't pass dynamic data via WordPress custom fields and the options to modify the data are more limted.

  • Prop-Based Components

    Feature

    Does the builder have full support for prop-based components with slots and logic-based variations?

    Etch: Yes

    Etch has full support for components, props, slots, and logic-based variations. It features one of the easiest and most powerful component engines available.

    Bricks: Partial

    Bricks has above average support for components, but they're far less flexible than Etch due to the lack of slots and logic-based variations.

  • Modern Responsive Development

    Feature

    Does the builder make it easy to use modern responsive development techniques like container queries and tokenized queries?

    Etch: Yes

    Etch featueres a dynamically responsive canvas, auto-insertion of media queries and container queries, and is the only development environment to offer support for the tokenization of media/container queries.

    Bricks: Partial

    Bricks has a fixed canvas that resizes according to old-school breakpoint presets. Styling is applied at each breakpoint with no assistance when writing custom queries. Bricks also lacks support for tokenized queries.

  • Advanced Conditional Logic

    Feature

    Does the builder make it easy to show or hide elements or groups of elements with conditional logic?

    Etch: Yes

    Etch has a full logic engine with support for basic and advanced logic via the Conditions element. Users can easily apply logic to single elements or groups of elements without generating extra wrappers. You can also move elements into and out of logic blocks easily.

    Bricks: Partial

    Bricks has a decent logic engine, but applying logic to groups of elements costs an additional wrapper. Additionally, logic appears to be incompatible with component props and logic attached to single elements can't be transferred easily to another element or to a group.

  • Flexible Templating

    Feature

    Does the builder make it easy to build templates, create conditional display scenarios, and inject loops and dynamic data?

    Etch: Yes

    Etch is fully compatible with the WordPress templating architecture and has clear separation between templates, components, and patterns. Users can access templating from directly inside of Etch and all templates are authored to WP's Full Site Editor.

    Bricks: Yes*

    Bricks has full support for WordPress templating, but muddies the water between templates, components, and patterns. Headers and Footers are referred to as templates and showing or hiding headers and footers in certain areas requires messy conditional logic.