What Makes WordPress Blocks Great

I've been building with WordPress blocks since Gutenberg launched, and I have opinions. Some blocks are fantastic. Some are frustrating. Let me break down what makes the difference.

What Works

Composability The best blocks are the ones that play well with others. The Group block, the Columns block, the Cover block — they're containers that let you build complex layouts from simple pieces. That composability is what makes the block editor genuinely powerful.

Pattern-Based Thinking Block patterns changed the game. Instead of building from scratch every time, you assemble pre-made sections. For clients, this means they can build new pages without calling their developer.

Theme.json One configuration file that controls typography, colors, spacing, and layout across the entire site. When it's set up properly, clients literally can't mess up the design. Everything stays on-brand.

What Needs Work

Performance Some blocks — especially embeds and complex layouts — load too much JavaScript on the frontend. The Interactivity API is helping with this, but there's still work to do.

The Learning Curve For people coming from classic WordPress, the block editor is a paradigm shift. It's better, but it's different. And "different" means training, which means cost.

Custom Block Development Building custom blocks is still more complex than it should be. The tooling has improved, but it's not as simple as writing a shortcode used to be.

The Bottom Line

WordPress blocks are the future of content management. Not just for WordPress — the approach of composable, pattern-based content building is spreading across the industry. If you're building websites, invest the time to understand blocks properly. It pays off.