Oxygen Builder Review 2026: Is Oxygen 6 Worth It?

Our test page in the Oxygen editor, free download version 6.2 RC 1 on WordPress 7.1.2, October 2026.

Our verdict: Oxygen is the best value visual builder for WordPress if you already know HTML and CSS. One payment of $199.50 covers unlimited sites for life, and the rebuilt Oxygen 6 produces very lean pages: our test hero section shipped with under 300 bytes of its own CSS. It is a poor pick for beginners. Out of the box there are no ready-made designs, only 21 core elements, and nothing is styled until you style it. If that sounds like hard work, choose Breakdance or Bricks instead.

This review covers Oxygen as of October 2026: what changed with Oxygen 6, what the new free download does, the lifetime license, what Oxygen 6 means if you still run Oxygen 4, and when Bricks or Breakdance is the better buy.

Oxygen Builder Quick Facts

Facts below were checked on oxygenbuilder.com, its changelog posts and the plugin files in October 2026.

Item	Details
What it is	A visual site builder plugin for WordPress that replaces your theme
Developer	Soflyy, the company behind Breakdance and WP All Import
Latest stable version	6.1.3 (September 1, 2026)
Latest pre-release	6.2 RC 1 (September 30, 2026), the version the public download serves
Oxygen Classic (version 4)	4.9.8 (September 14, 2026), still maintained
Price	$199.50 one-time, unlimited sites, lifetime updates and support
Refund	60 days
Free version	Yes, a free download with no account; every feature is free during the 6.2 beta, with a “Built with Oxygen” badge on your site
Core elements	21 in our free install, plus 130+ more from the Breakdance Elements add-on
AI tools	Agent Connector and an MCP server, so Claude, Codex, Cursor and other agents can build pages. You bring your own AI subscription
Best suited for	Developers and designers who think in HTML and CSS classes and build many sites

How We Reviewed Oxygen

Oxygen used to be paid only. In October 2026, the vendor’s “Try Oxygen” page offers a free download with no account. That download currently serves the 6.2 release candidate (6.2-rc.1), not the stable 6.1.3.

We installed it on a fresh WordPress 7.1.2 test site with a few sample posts. We built a hero section from scratch, changed the main settings, and measured what the published page sends to the browser. For comparison, we also measured the same content built in the block editor with the default Twenty Twenty-Five theme.

We did not buy a license, enter a license key, connect an AI agent, or use the hosted demo. Facts about the paid license, support and the add-ons come from the vendor’s own pages. Because 6.2 is a release candidate, some details may change in the final release.

What Is Oxygen Builder?

Oxygen is a visual site builder for WordPress made by Soflyy. It launched in mid-2016 at $99 for a lifetime license, and it is still sold as a lifetime license today. The vendor says more than 30,000 customers have built over 100,000 websites with it.

Like Bricks and Breakdance, Oxygen is “themeless”. You design the header, footer, blog templates and every page in Oxygen, and your WordPress theme stops mattering. On our test install, activating the plugin also installed and switched the site to Oxygen Zero, a blank theme that exists only so WordPress has something to load.

What sets Oxygen apart is who it is for. Soflyy says it plainly on its own blog: Oxygen “is not suitable for those who don’t know HTML and CSS.” The controls map one-to-one to CSS properties, and you style elements through classes, the way a developer would in a code editor.

Oxygen 6: The Rebuild on Breakdance’s Engine

Soflyy announced Oxygen 6 in February 2025 as a full rewrite, and the final 6.0.0 release shipped on February 24, 2026. The company skipped version 5 on purpose. It reserved those numbers for the old version, now called Oxygen Classic.

The big change is under the hood. Oxygen 6 and Breakdance now run on one shared builder engine. In February 2025, Soflyy said about 80% of the code was already shared, and the Oxygen 6.2 plugin file we installed literally sets a “breakdance mode” to “oxygen”. The vendor says nearly every bug and plugin compatibility fix made for Breakdance now reaches Oxygen too.

What Oxygen 6 added over Classic, according to the vendor:

• CSS variables for colors, spacing and type, defined once and reused.
• A selectors system with nested selectors, so styles live on classes, not on single elements.
• Components, reusable blocks you update once and see change everywhere.
• Interactions and animations, including scroll-driven effects, without writing JavaScript.
• Element Studio, for building your own custom elements with HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
• A new interface, with keyboard shortcuts and a Structure panel.

Oxygen 6.2: building with an AI agent

The headline feature of 6.2 is AI. You install the free Agent Connector plugin, switch on MCP access, and connect an AI agent such as Claude, Codex, Cursor, Windsurf, Cline or Gemini CLI. MCP is a standard way for AI tools to use other software. The vendor says the agent can then create pages, templates, headers, footers, classes, variables, dynamic data and interactions, and that everything it builds stays editable in the visual editor.

The Oxygen home screen on our test install, version 6.2 RC 1, October 2026.

Soflyy does not sell AI credits. You need your own subscription to whichever AI tool you use. We did not connect an agent, so we cannot say how well this works on a real site. On our install, the Agents & MCP settings tab offered three things: a one-click install of Agent Connector, a switch to allow MCP access (off by default), and a separate switch to let agents use the Design Library (also off by default).

Hands-On: Building a Page in Oxygen 6

The editor opens on the front end of your site. On our local test install, it was ready to use in about one and a half seconds. You get a dark interface with an Add panel, a Structure panel and a properties panel on the right.

The Selectors panel listing the classes behind our test page, Oxygen 6.2 RC 1, October 2026.

We built a simple hero: a Container set to a section tag, a Text element set to h1, a Text element set to p, and a Text Link styled as a button. What we noticed:

• The element list is short. Our Add panel listed 21 core elements: Container, Image, Text, Rich Text, Container Link, Text Link, Swiper, Component, Shortcode, loop builders, and code elements for HTML, CSS, JavaScript and PHP. There is no ready-made button, menu, gallery or form in core. Those come from the Breakdance add-ons covered below.
• You style through classes. A Text element showed only its content field until we typed a class name. Then the Layout, Spacing, Typography and Background controls appeared. When we set padding on the container without a class, Oxygen made one for us, named container-1.
• Controls speak CSS. Clicking a padding value opened a box labeled padding-top, with “Apply all” and “Apply opposite” buttons. If you know CSS, you know where everything is.
• Nothing has default styling. The Modern Normalize reset that loaded on our page sets margins to zero, so our heading, paragraph and button sat flush against each other on the published page. That is a clean slate for a developer and a confusing one for a beginner.
• Small rough edges. A new Text Link pointed to oxygenbuilder.com until we changed it.

The output was as lean as promised. The published page was a main element holding our section, h1, p and a, with no extra wrapper divs. Oxygen put all of our styles into one stylesheet of 276 bytes.

Page weight on our test install

We measured the published page while logged out, with Oxygen’s default settings and again after switching on two of its Performance options. Sizes are uncompressed, on a local server.

Page	Total size	Requests	HTML elements
Oxygen 6.2 RC 1, default settings	56.3 KB	5	38
Oxygen 6.2 RC 1, block CSS and emoji script removed	25.8 KB	4	32
Baseline, not Oxygen: same text in the block editor with Twenty Twenty-Five	187.8 KB	5	129

The baseline row is not Oxygen data and not a fair race. Twenty Twenty-Five adds a header, a footer, navigation and a 52 KB web font, while our Oxygen page had no header or footer at all. It shows what a default WordPress page weighs, not how much faster Oxygen is.

The more useful finding is where Oxygen’s 56 KB went. Most of it was WordPress itself: about 14 KB of block editor styles in the HTML and a 22 KB emoji script. Oxygen’s own files were a 2 KB reset stylesheet, our 276-byte stylesheet and a 7.5 KB script.

The Performance tab in Oxygen’s settings, with two options switched on for our second measurement, October 2026.

That is what the Performance tab is for. It can strip WordPress extras you may not need: block editor CSS, the emoji script, pingbacks, admin icons for visitors, oEmbed and a few old header links. Ticking the first two cut our page from 56.3 KB to 25.8 KB. Only remove the block CSS if you do not use the block editor for posts.

Is There a Free Version of Oxygen?

Yes, as of October 2026, with a catch. The download from the “Try Oxygen” page installs without a license key. On our test install, a site with no key showed:

• A “Built with Oxygen” badge in the lower right corner of every page, for every visitor, linking to oxygenbuilder.com.
• A “Get Pro” page in the Oxygen menu. It says going Pro removes the badge today.
• Zero admin notices. We saw no upgrade banners on the dashboard, the plugins screen or the pages list.

Our test page as a logged-out visitor sees it, free Oxygen 6.2 RC 1 with no license key, October 2026.

The bigger catch is in the small print on the Get Pro page: every feature is free “only during the beta”. The vendor says the final split between Free and Pro will be decided before 6.2 leaves beta, and some features that are free today will need Pro.

The Get Pro page on our free test install, Oxygen 6.2 RC 1, October 2026.

So treat the free download as a way to learn Oxygen and decide, not as a free builder for a client site. The vendor also offers a hosted demo site (through InstaWP, no signup, expires after four hours) and a one-line local install that needs Node.js and Docker.

Templates and Add-Ons

Our free install’s Design Library was empty. It asked us to add “Design Sets” by URL. You can also turn one of your own sites into a Design Set and copy sections from it, which is handy for agencies that reuse their own starter sites. Breakdance, by comparison, lists 37 full website designs in its library.

The Templates page on oxygenbuilder.com shows finished sites from independent designers. The one we opened, a restaurant pack, links out to a separate seller’s site to buy it, so check each one’s price and license.

The add-ons that matter most come from Breakdance:

Add-on	What it adds	Price listed
Breakdance Elements for Oxygen 6	130+ ready-made elements: menus, headers, sliders, galleries, tabs, popups	$49.99/year, unlimited sites
Breakdance Forms for Oxygen 6	A form builder with email, storage and webhook actions	$49.99/year, unlimited sites
Breakdance WooCommerce for Oxygen 6	Custom shop, product, cart and checkout design	$49.99/year, unlimited sites

Soflyy’s February 2025 post on lifetime licenses says all three are included free with an Oxygen lifetime license, and the pricing page promises “no add-ons to buy”. The $49.99 yearly prices appear on the extensions marketplace. If you buy Oxygen for these add-ons, confirm they come with your license before the 60-day refund window closes.

Pricing and the Lifetime License

The Oxygen pricing page, October 2026.

Oxygen has one plan: $199.50 once for unlimited sites, with lifetime updates and support and a 60-day money-back guarantee. There are no tiers, no per-site limits and no renewals. Client sites are covered, so clients do not need their own license.

Two things to know:

• The price looks like a sale price. The buy button applies a code named “LIMITED_TIME_50OFF”, so the price may rise. The page does not say when.
• Soflyy has kept its lifetime promise so far. When it rebuilt Oxygen, every lifetime customer got Oxygen 6 at no extra cost, and the pricing page says updates are included for as long as Soflyy ships them. In 2025 the company said it was considering optional paid add-ons, such as an AI writing assistant, but would not lock core features behind them.

Here is how that compares with the two builders most buyers weigh against it, as of October 2026:

	Oxygen	Breakdance	Bricks
Free version	Yes, with a badge (features may change after the beta)	Yes, with a badge and faded Pro elements	No
Yearly price, unlimited sites	None	$199.99/year	$249/year
Lifetime price, unlimited sites	$199.50	No lifetime license	$599
Refund window	60 days	60 days	60 days
Built-in templates	None in our install	37 websites in Pro	67 design sets and 180 wireframes

Pay-once pricing is Oxygen’s strongest argument. Over three years, Breakdance Pro for unlimited sites costs about $600 and Bricks about $750 on yearly plans, while Oxygen costs $199.50.

What Oxygen 6 Means for Oxygen 4 Users

If you run sites on Oxygen 4 (now Oxygen Classic), here is what the vendor’s pages say:

• You do not have to move. Classic is still supported, with bug fixes, security updates and compatibility updates. Version 4.9.8 shipped on September 14, 2026 to fix a WooCommerce 11 issue.
• Your lifetime license covers both. Lifetime holders got Oxygen 6 free and keep Classic.
• There is no upgrade button. Oxygen 6 is not backward compatible with Classic. Soflyy calls that “the hardest decision we’ve ever made”. Moving a Classic site to Oxygen 6 means rebuilding its designs.
• Classic has its own home. Docs and tutorials for version 4 live on a separate Classic site, and the main site now focuses on Oxygen 6.

Our advice: leave working Classic sites alone, start new projects on Oxygen 6, and move an old site only when it needs a redesign anyway. Test any move on a copy first; our guide to staging plugins for WordPress covers the easy ways to make one.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• $199.50 once for unlimited sites, the cheapest lifetime deal among the big themeless builders.
• Very lean output: clean HTML, class-based CSS and no wrapper bloat on our test page.
• Controls map directly to CSS, with classes, variables and components built in.
• Lifetime customers got the full rewrite for free.
• A free download and hosted demo let you try it without paying.
• AI agent support via MCP, with no AI credits to buy.

Cons

• Hard for beginners: you need to know HTML and CSS, and nothing is styled by default.
• Only 21 core elements and an empty design library in our install.
• The free tier’s features may shrink when 6.2 leaves beta, and it shows a badge to visitors.
• No upgrade path from Oxygen 4: moving means rebuilding.
• The public download serves a release candidate, not the stable version.
• Mixed signals on whether the Breakdance add-ons cost extra.

Oxygen vs Bricks vs Breakdance: Who Should Pick What

Pick Oxygen if you write or read CSS comfortably, build many sites, and want to pay once. It also suits you if you want an AI agent to draft a site that you then refine by hand, though Breakdance 3.0 is adding AI agent tools too.

Pick Breakdance if you do not code. It shares Oxygen’s engine but gives you finished elements, a design library with full websites, and an easier editor. The trade-off is a yearly subscription with no lifetime option.

Pick Bricks if you want a class-based developer workflow with more included: over 110 built-in elements and about 250 design set and wireframe templates in every plan, at a higher lifetime price of $599. Our Bricks vs Elementor comparison shows how it stacks up against the market leader.

If you are still deciding between all the options, including Elementor and Divi, start with our roundup of the best page builders for WordPress.

FAQ

Is Oxygen Builder free?

Partly. As of October 2026, you can download Oxygen 6.2 for free from the vendor’s site with no account, and every feature works during the 6.2 beta. A site without a license key shows a “Built with Oxygen” badge to visitors, and the vendor says some features will need Pro once 6.2 is final. The full license costs $199.50 once.

Is Oxygen a lifetime license?

Yes. You pay $199.50 once for unlimited sites, with lifetime updates and support and a 60-day refund. There is no yearly renewal. The price on the pricing page uses a limited-time 50% discount code, so it may go up.

What is the difference between Oxygen 6 and Oxygen 4 (Classic)?

Oxygen 6 is a full rewrite on the same engine as Breakdance, with CSS variables, a selectors system, components and a new interface. It is not backward compatible with Oxygen 4, which is now called Oxygen Classic and is still maintained. Lifetime license holders get both.

Is Oxygen better than Bricks?

For price, yes: $199.50 for life against $599 for a Bricks lifetime license. Bricks includes more out of the box, with over 110 elements and about 250 templates, while Oxygen’s core has 21 elements and no templates in our install. Developers on a budget lean to Oxygen; people who want more ready-made parts lean to Bricks.

Is Oxygen good for beginners?

No. The vendor itself says Oxygen is not suitable for people who do not know HTML and CSS. Elements have no default styling and you style through classes. Beginners will have an easier time with Breakdance or Elementor.

Does Oxygen work with WooCommerce?

Yes, through the Breakdance WooCommerce add-on, which lets you design shop, product, cart and checkout pages. Soflyy says it is included free with a lifetime license, though the extensions marketplace also lists it at $49.99 a year. We did not install WooCommerce on our test site.