Aurora declares explicit Elementor theme support, which means the two are designed to work together. Elementor handles the content you build with it; Aurora handles the site structure around it: header, footer, sidebar, and global styles.
How They Work Together
When you build a page or post with Elementor, Aurora wraps that content in its active layout. Your Elementor canvas sits inside Aurora’s content area. The header, footer, and any sidebar you have configured continue to render as normal around it.
This means you get the best of both: Elementor’s drag-and-drop flexibility for individual pages, and Aurora’s consistent site-wide design for everything else: archives, single posts, the homepage, and system pages like 404 and search results.
What Aurora Controls
- Header layout and all header features: logo, navigation, CTA buttons, social icons, contact info
- Footer layout, menus, bio, and social icons
- Global colors and typography set in the Customizer
- Archive, author, search, and 404 page layouts
- Sidebar visibility on posts and archives
What Elementor Controls
- The layout and content of any individual page or post you build with it
- Any custom section, column, or widget placed inside the Elementor canvas
Using Elementor for the Full Page
If you want Elementor to control the entire page (including the header and footer), you can use Elementor’s canvas or full-width page template, which removes Aurora’s template wrapper entirely. This is useful for landing pages where you want complete design control.
For everything else, the default setup (Elementor for content, Aurora for structure) is the recommended approach and requires no configuration.
Performance Note
Elementor adds its own scripts and styles to pages where it is used. Aurora’s conditional CSS loading still applies, so only Aurora’s active layout stylesheets load. But Elementor’s own assets load on any page built with it, which will affect your PageSpeed score on those pages. See Aurora PageSpeed and Performance for what Aurora contributes to your baseline score.
You do not need Elementor to use Aurora. All of Aurora’s 53 layout templates work without any page builder. Elementor is fully supported for pages where you want additional design flexibility.