Experience Builder
Experience Builder is the Salesforce visual editor for creating and configuring Experience Cloud sites: customer help centers, partner portals, learning sites, marketing microsites, branded community experiences.
Definition
Experience Builder is the Salesforce visual editor for creating and configuring Experience Cloud sites: customer help centers, partner portals, learning sites, marketing microsites, branded community experiences. The builder provides a drag-and-drop canvas, a component palette, theme controls, audience targeting rules, and the publishing workflow. Admins and developers use Experience Builder to assemble pages from Lightning Web Components, configure navigation, set branding, and deploy the site without writing custom front-end code for most use cases.
Experience Builder is the Experience Cloud counterpart to Lightning App Builder. Both are drag-and-drop UI editors, but Experience Builder targets external-facing community sites while Lightning App Builder targets internal record pages and app pages. Experience Builder supports both Lightning Web Runtime (LWR) and Aura templates; the LWR builder is more modern and the recommended path for new sites.
What Experience Builder lets you do
The canvas and component palette
Experience Builder opens on a canvas representing one page of the site. The left palette holds Lightning Web Components (and Aura components in legacy templates) you can drag onto the canvas. Drop the component, configure its properties on the right rail, save. The canvas reflects the rendered page in real-time.
Pages, navigation, and the site structure
Experience Builder lets you define multiple pages per site: Home, Knowledge, Account, Contact Us. Pages have unique URLs and can be parameterized (Account record pages, generic Lightning record pages). The navigation menu is configured separately: define labels, links, and visibility rules per audience.
Theme and branding
Experience Builder includes theme controls: primary and secondary colors, fonts, button shapes, logo upload. Themes apply consistently across every page in the site. For organizations with strict brand guidelines, custom CSS can override the theme; for most teams, the built-in theme controls are enough.
Audience targeting and personalization
Each component on a page can have audience-targeting rules: show only to authenticated users, only to users in the VIP audience, only to users in a specific locale, only when a record matches certain criteria. This is the foundation of personalized customer experiences without writing custom logic.
Templates: LWR versus Aura
Experience Builder supports two template families: Lightning Web Runtime (LWR, the modern default) and Aura (the legacy option). LWR sites are faster, support modern LWCs, and are where Salesforce''s investment is going. Aura sites still work but are not recommended for new builds.
Publishing and versioning
Each Experience Cloud site has a draft state and a published state. Changes in Experience Builder are saved as drafts; users see the previously published version until you click Publish. Versioning lets you roll back to a prior published state if a publish goes wrong. This is the safety net for production site changes.
Multi-language and translation
Experience Builder supports multi-language sites: configure supported languages, translate text per component, and the platform picks the right language based on the visitor''s browser. Knowledge articles flow through the standard Knowledge translation queue; UI text is translated through the Experience Builder language settings.
How to build an Experience Cloud site in Experience Builder
Building an Experience Cloud site takes a few hours for the basics and weeks or months for a polished production site. The build is iterative: start with a template, customize pages and components, layer in branding, then publish.
- Open Experience Builder
From the All Sites list in Setup, then Digital Experiences, click Workspaces next to your site, then Builder. The Experience Builder canvas opens.
- Choose or customize the template
For a new site, start with a Salesforce template (Customer Service, Partner Central, Build Your Own LWR). Each template has a set of pre-built pages and components. Customize from there.
- Add components to pages
Drag Lightning components from the palette onto the canvas. Configure each component''s properties on the right rail. Combine standard components (Knowledge Search, Recommendations, Feed) with custom LWCs as needed.
- Set the theme
In the Theme panel, set the primary color, secondary color, fonts, logo. The theme applies across every page. For custom CSS, use the Edit CSS option to override theme defaults.
- Configure navigation and audience targeting
Set the site navigation menu: labels, links, target pages. Add audience-targeting rules to components: show only for authenticated users, only for the Premium audience, only on certain pages.
- Preview, save, and publish
Use Preview to see the site as different audiences would. Save drafts. When ready, click Publish. The new version goes live; visitors see the change immediately.
Lightning Web Runtime. Faster, supports modern LWCs. Default for new sites.
Older template family. Still works; not recommended for new sites.
Build your own LWCs and add them to Experience Builder''s component palette.
Component-level visibility based on user attributes or context.
Color, font, logo, button-shape configuration. Applied across the site.
- Components added in Experience Builder render only after the next publish. Saving drafts updates the builder; visitors see the change only after Publish.
- LWR and Aura templates are incompatible. Migrating an Aura site to LWR is a major project; do not assume drag-and-drop transfer.
- Custom CSS overrides theme settings but can cause version-update breakage. Keep custom CSS minimal; use theme controls where possible.
- Audience-targeting rules apply at render time. Performance-conscious sites should keep targeting rule count low; complex rules slow page render.
Trust & references
Straight from the source - Salesforce's reference material on Experience Builder.
- Experience Builder OverviewSalesforce Help
- Lightning Web Runtime DocumentationSalesforce Developers
About the Author
Dipojjal Chakrabarti is a B2C Solution Architect with 29 Salesforce certifications and over 13 years in the Salesforce ecosystem. He runs salesforcedictionary.com to help admins, developers, architects, and cert/interview candidates sharpen their fundamentals. More about Dipojjal.
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