How to Install Elementor in WordPress Localhost, Use WP Elementor Locally 2026

Go to localwp.com and download Local by WP Engine, which bills itself as the #1 local WordPress development tool and is free to use. Unlike XAMPP or WAMP, which set up a generic local server that you then have to manually install WordPress onto, Local is purpose-built specifically for spinning up WordPress sites — it handles the web server, PHP, and database for you behind a simple interface, which is why it's the faster route if WordPress is specifically what you're testing.

Once Local is installed, use its "Create a new site" option to spin up a fresh WordPress install on your machine — you'll name the site, choose a local environment (PHP version, web server, database), and set an admin username and password. Local handles the WordPress core download and database setup automatically, and within a minute or two you'll have a fully working WordPress admin running at a local address rather than a public domain. This local site behaves exactly like a live one for the purposes of installing plugins and building pages, it just isn't reachable from outside your computer.

From Local's site management screen, click into your new site and open its WP Admin — this drops you into a standard WordPress dashboard, indistinguishable from a live site's admin, just running from your own machine. If you've built WordPress sites before, nothing here looks unfamiliar; the difference is entirely in how the site is hosted, not in how the admin works.

In the local WordPress admin, go to Plugins → Add New, search for Elementor in the Search Plugins field, and install the free version from the results. This is identical to installing Elementor on a live WordPress site, since the plugin doesn't know or care whether it's running locally — it pulls from the same WordPress.org plugin repository either way, which does mean your computer needs an internet connection for this one installation step even though your editing afterward doesn't.

With Elementor activated, open or create a page and click Edit with Elementor to enter the visual editor. Drag a Heading widget into a container, edit its text in the Content tab on the left, and use the Structure panel on the right to see how your containers and widgets nest — it's a quick way to confirm what you've actually built as your layout grows more complex. Everything here — dragging widgets, editing content, adjusting style — runs entirely against your local install, with no dependency on an internet connection once Elementor itself is installed.

If the site won't load at all, check Local's site list to confirm the site shows as running — a stopped site is the most common reason WP Admin suddenly becomes unreachable. If a page loads but looks visually broken after installing a theme or plugin, that's rarely localhost-specific and responds to the same fixes as a live site: clearing any cache and checking for a plugin conflict. When you're ready to go live, Local includes its own export and push-to-live-host tools, so the site you built offline doesn't have to be rebuilt from scratch.