Products · Product
Gutenberg
Raised as a usability problem by 40 people on Hacker News over 9 years (2018–2026), in 23 threads.
People raised many different problems with Gutenberg, but no single problem has yet been raised by 3 people in 3 different months and threads.
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 46 complaints
- Horrible design makes WordPress's editor a reason to avoid it2026-09-14
- Editing tools only appear when a block is selected, though blocks are invisible, confusing end users2026-09-10
- Forced new block editor replaces the classic editor people wanted2024-10-11
- FSE is different and sometimes confusing for people not used to it2024-10-10
- Clunky and confusing to get even basic things done2024-05-28
- Editor constantly broken; updating block structure requires manually updating every page2024-05-08
- Interface is confusing and counterintuitive when setting up a block theme2024-04-20
- Editor exposes font and background color controls non-technical customers can't hide, cluttering the editing experience2023-11-16
- Block editor is a usability mess for end users2023-11-16
- Everything is needlessly complicated and hard to debug, forcing a years-long migration2023-11-16
- Developer guide is confusing; block preview, edit and glue code are hard to grasp2023-11-16
- Can't bold and color a whole list at once; must select each item, taking many clicks2023-07-27
- Editing a block tweak requires resaving every page for changes to apply2023-05-29
- Editors can freely move and alter any element, producing cluttered, inconsistent designs2022-05-23
- Editor interface keeps getting more convoluted, and clients struggle to work with it2022-05-12
- Doing anything non-trivial is a massive pain with infuriating UI bugs2022-05-12
- Pages break with JSON errors and built-in blocks are awful2022-05-11
- Hard to get started with; theme choice is confusing and opaque2022-02-02
- Non-technical content editors find the block editor too complicated for simple page updates2022-02-02
- Editor lags badly when moving between long annotations and the story text2021-12-25
- Typing, undo, cursor movement and moving between blocks are glitchy and nearly unusable2021-12-24
- Gutenberg block editor is brittle and difficult for site owners to work with2021-01-24
- Lacks advanced layout features clients had with third-party builders, making migration costly2021-01-05
- Gutenberg's editing experience feels clunky to the commenter2020-12-28
- Users must create a new block for every heading and paragraph when writing posts2020-12-28
- Selecting nested blocks like columns is not discoverable without knowing the breadcrumbs2020-12-28
- Gutenberg can't find taxonomies unless they are exposed in the REST API2020-10-14
- Gutenberg was half-baked and barely considered for user experience when shipped2020-09-26
- Editors suddenly face an unfamiliar editing interface with menus hidden and no warning2020-09-26
- Simple linear text editing is annoying because everything is a block; node moving feels clunky2020-09-26
- Writing posts requires adding a separate block for each subheading and paragraph2020-09-26
- Characters appear seconds after typing, making text entry laggy2020-09-26
- Author keeps reverting to the classic editor because Gutenberg is unusable for their posts2018-12-07
- Gutenberg is slower to use and gives imprecise layout results than page builders2018-12-07
- Editor interface is slow to navigate and lacks designer control compared to page builders2018-12-07
- Building new blocks is far more convoluted and complex than custom fields2018-12-06
- Simple posts take more time and feel awkward to write2018-12-06
- Navigation is hidden and unclear (mystery meat), and the editor is slow and resource-heavy2018-10-26
- Editor as a whole is inaccessible; keyboard and screen reader users find its layout incredibly confusing2018-10-26
- Confused about which shortcut triggers redo on Windows2018-10-25
- Editor is a compromise between simplicity and complexity, so users struggle to produce good designs2018-10-25
- Editing experience causes friction and styling a post becomes a messy, tangled process2018-10-25
- Block data stored as HTML instead of JSON is frustrating to work with2018-10-25
- The editor's interface is poorly designed and hard to work with2018-10-25
- Toggling between code and visual modes takes four button presses2018-10-25
- Block editor is confusing and hard for assistive technology users to navigate2018-07-09