WordPress on it's own is great. WordPress with a page builder plugin is incredible.
WordPress is a content management system based on MySQL and PHP, which can be used to create a good looking website involving HTML, CSS, and JavaScript without the user ever touching much of the base-level code. It's a reasonably simple task to create a basic site with WordPress by itself, to the point where a user with no coding experience can create a passable site. For those of us with coding experience WordPress offers a great deal of flexibility, but it really helps to know php, and, like any coding experience, can create a bit of a headache. However headaches are not the focus of this article. In fact something approaching mind numbing monotony is the approach of this article. Do you like coding, the thrill of getting things right, the challenge of a confusing puzzle? Well congratulations, the WordPress page builder genre of plugins takes away all those things.
To begin understanding the page builder genre (referred to as pb from now on) take in that it is basically a grid system. Just like bootstrap, or any other css grid system pb divides the page into rows and columns, and gives you the ability to size divs as a portion of a row rather than having to mess with padding, margins and all the other fun things you get to do with CSS. Pb, however, does this visually. Rather than typing in something like "grid.gives_box(2/12)" you can simply add a new row, decide how many boxes there should be in that row, and size them, all through interacting with pop up windows or other type of mouse clicks. (I have not used all the page builders out there, so I cannot be more precise)
So what, you say. It's a grid. Grids are useful, but not some groundbreaking revelation that makes coding into drudgery. Not so fast, my friends. Pb's real strength is that you can put almost any object into the nicely sized divs you have just created, still without code! Blasphemy, I know. This is done through widgets. Each widget has a dedicated purpose, such as text, image, lists, maps, etc. etc.. If you have need for a more specific widget than is available you can create your own. However without doing this there is no real code required to get your site looking exactly as you want it, leaving you with plenty of free time to devote to other, more enjoyable, pursuits.