Are you trying to decide between Divi and Elementor as your next WordPress page builder?
Creating a website using WordPress can be challenging, and one of the biggest hurdles you'll face is choosing the right page builder. Two of the most popular options are Divi and Elementor. Both are user-friendly and allow you to design professional-looking websites without any coding experience. But which one is truly better?
In this article, we'll do a detailed comparison of Divi and Elementor. We'll answer the following questions to help you choose the best page builder for your requirements:
- Which offers better performance and faster loading times?
- Which features a more intuitive interface that is easy to navigate for beginners?
- What are the modules or widgets you get with each plugin?
- How many templates are available in the template library?
- How do the plugins compare when designing theme templates?
- What WooCommerce features do they offer?
- What are the pricing plans available?
Before we look at a detailed comparison, here's a quick comparison table that highlights the key differences between the two page builders.
Features | Divi | Elementor |
Performance | 86 | 84 |
Interface & Ease of Use | Easy to use with a fixed sidebar. | Can be confusing with floating windows for different settings. |
Modules/Widgets | 65 | 113 |
Theme Builder | Multiple modules to create custom theme templates. | 15 widgets to create custom theme templates. |
WooCommerce Builder | 24 widgets to create custom WooCommerce pages. | 24 widgets to create a custom WooCommerce pages. |
Popup Builder | A separate plugin to add popups. | Comprehensive popup builder with templates. |
Dynamic Content | Limited dynamic content features. | Supports dynamic content display but is limited to the Essential plan. |
Global Styles | Included. | Included. |
Full Website Templates | 350 | 35 |
Marketing Features | Tools for upsells, promotions, and split testing. | Marketing tools for popups, and email capture. |
Free version | No | Yes |
Pricing | Starts at $89/year. | Starts at $59/year. |
Now, let’s go into a detailed comparison of their features.
Divi vs Elementor Overview
Before exploring a detailed comparison of Divi vs Elementor, let’s first understand what each of these page builders is and what they offer.
Overview of Divi Builder
Divi is a page builder developed by Elegant Themes that is known for its customization options. It functions as a visual builder and allows you to design pages directly from the front end of your website. Divi comes with a wide range of modules that are categorized into different sections. You can use Divi as a theme or as a standalone WordPress page builder plugin with your existing theme. It includes a theme builder that allows you to design various parts of the website, such as the header, footer, blog page, and more.
Overview of Elementor
Elementor is known for its intuitive and user-friendly interface. It provides a live editing experience, allowing you to see changes in real time. The fixed sidebar on the left offers easy access to different design widgets, which can be added to a page using drag-and-drop functionality. Elementor is compatible with most WordPress themes or can be paired with the Hello theme for a fully custom website. Similar to Divi, it also features a theme builder for designing dynamic pages of your website.
Divi vs Elementor Page Speed
Website speed is a crucial aspect; you don't want to create a site that takes too long to load, causing users to abandon it. A fast-loading website not only improves user experience but also helps with search engine rankings.
In this section, we'll compare the performance of Divi and Elementor to see which one loads faster.
Divi vs Elementor Performance: Blank WordPress Site
To ensure a fair comparison, we will set up a blank WordPress installation on InstaWP test sites using the default themes and install both plugins. This will give us numbers that we can compare after adding a few widgets/modules to the page. We'll run a page speed test on both Google Page Speed Insight and Pingdom Tool.
Here are the page speed results of the blank WordPress installation with each plugin:
Page Builders | Page Size | Requests | Desktop | Mobile |
Elementor | 176.3 KB | 26 | 94 | 87 |
Divi | 188.5 KB | 31 | 95 | 90 |
Divi vs Elementor Performance: Test Page
We will now create a similar page on both websites to compare the performance of the page with several elements added. The test page we created includes the following modules/widgets:
- Heading
- Text
- Button
- Image
- A couple of Image boxes
After publishing the test page, we’ll run the speed test again. Here are the recorded page speed numbers:
Page Builders | Page Size | Requests | Desktop | Mobile |
Elementor | 592.7 KB | 52 | 93 | 84 |
Divi | 559.0 KB | 66 | 94 | 86 |
The numbers show that the test page designed with Divi loads considerably faster with a PageSpeed Insight score of 86 on mobile, while the Elementor version scores 84. Although this difference may seem minimal, it can significantly impact user experience, especially for those with slower internet connections.
The faster loading time of the Divi test page may be attributed to its built-in feature that minifies and combines CSS and JavaScript.
Winner: Divi 🏅.
Divi vs Elementor: User Interface & Ease of Use
The user interface is an essential feature that can influence your choice of page builder. A clean and intuitive interface can make the process of building your website much more enjoyable.
Although both builders offer a drag-and-drop live editing interface, they take different approaches. Let's take a look at how they compare in this area.
Divi User Interface & Ease of Use
When you first open a page with the Divi Builder, you get three choices:
- Start fresh and build from scratch.
- Select a pre-designed layout from its library.
- Clone an existing page you've created previously.
We’ll select the first option. Divi operates on four building blocks to add new content to a page. It consists of sections, rows, columns, and modules. To start designing your page, you click the blue plus icon to add a new section and then select the number of columns to display in a row.
Divi interface features various icons that open floating windows when you click on them. These windows can be freely moved anywhere on the page or you can snap them to the left side of the page. It uses color coding to represent different types of modules on a page.
You can add different modules to a column by clicking the gray plus icon. This opens a floating module selector window where you can scroll and select the module you want to add to a page.
Each module's settings window consists of three tabs: Content, Design, and Advanced. These tabs allow you to customize various module settings. Once a module is added, you can freely drag and drop it any on the page.
It's worth noting that Divi does not allow you to change column width freely. Instead, you must stick to a predefined structure, or add a custom code to adjust the width.
While Divi provides a lot of useful modules and customization options, the interface can sometimes feel cluttered due to the floating icons. This might make navigation a bit challenging for new users.
Elementor User Interface & Ease of Use
In contrast, when you open a page to edit with Elementor, you'll notice a blank canvas with a fixed sidebar on the left. You can close the sidebar for a fullscreen preview if you prefer.
The sidebar contains various widgets that you can easily drag and drop into your design. Once a widget is placed, the same sidebar allows you to customize its style and content. Like Divi, Elementor divides settings into three tabs: Content, Style, and Advanced.
Any settings you apply in the sidebar are reflected in real-time on your page design. Elementor also supports inline editing for text content. When you're finished adjusting widget settings, you can click the plus icon at the top left to exit the widget settings and return to the widget list.
Elementor uses Sections and Columns to structure and organize the content. They also recently added the Flexbox Container which gives you more design flexibility.
Elementor also includes a helpful tool called Navigator, which provides an outline of your page structure. You can also preview your page on tablet and mobile by clicking the icons available in the top ribbon.
With a fixed sidebar, the Elementor interface feels clean, less cluttered, and easy to navigate. Conversely, Divi presents a bit of a learning curve due to its various icons and floating windows.
Winner: Elementor 🏅.
Divi vs Elementor: Modules & Widgets
Both Divi and Elementor provide various modules and widgets that act as the building blocks of your pages. Let's compare them to see which one offers more and better building blocks.
Divi Builder Modules
Divi comes with a wide range of modules, including 40 content modules, 25 WooCommerce-specific modules, and 3 structural modules. As Divi is only available as a premium plugin, you get access to all modules in all pricing plans.
The most commonly used modules are the Text, Image, and Button modules. There are also advanced modules like the Slider, Gallery, and Tabs. If you can’t find a module that meets your needs, Divi also has third-party add-ons that extend its functionality.
Elementor Widgets
Elementor takes a similar approach to its widgets. It includes a total of 113 widgets out of which 52 are Pro widgets and 29 are Advanced widgets. The widgets are divided into four categories: Basic Widgets, Pro Widgets, Theme Builder Widgets, and WooCommerce Widgets. Basic Widgets are available in the free version while Pro widgets are part of Essential plans and WooCommerce-specific widgets are available in Advanced and higher plans.
The most commonly used widgets are Container, Heading, Text Editor, Image, and Button widgets. The popular widgets in the advanced category include Loop Grid, Form, Animated Headline, and Gallery. These are categorized into different sections to help users quickly locate the widgets they want to add to a page.
Like Divi, Elementor also has great third-party add-on support that lets you extend your website design to another level.
Winner: Elementor 🏅.
Divi vs Elementor: Pre-Designed Templates
Pre-made templates provide an excellent starting point that you can easily customize to match your branding. They cut down your design time and give you a professional-looking website in just a few clicks.
Both page builders offer a variety of templates. Let's see which one provides more and better designs.
Divi Pre-Designed Template Library
Divi has an impressive template library of over 2700+ pre-built templates, organized into 350+ Layout packs. Each layout pack consists of various pages of a website such as the homepage, and contact page designed around a specific website type.
Divi covers almost every niche, so you often won't need to search for a third-party template. While Divi offers a vast number of page templates, it lacks dedicated section templates. This can be a drawback for users looking to create highly customized websites by designing individual sections.
Elementor Pre-Designed Template Library
Elementor templates are organized into three main categories: full website kits, complete page templates, and individual block designs. If you use the free version, you can access 40 block templates and around 30 full-page templates.
Elementor Pro unlocks the full library and gives you access to Template Kits as well. As of August 2024, Elementor has around 35+ template kits spread across different industries. The Pro version also increases the full-page template count to 300+ and tons of section templates.
While both plugins offer a good number of pre-designed templates to help you get started designing your website quickly, Divi stands out as a clear winner with its extensive library.
Winner: Divi 🏅.
Divi vs Elementor: Theme Builder Features
Both Divi and Elementor have evolved into more than just a page builder plugin. They're now capable of helping you design dynamic theme parts of a website that are typically controlled by the theme itself. You can use both these plugins to design parts of the website such as header, footer, single pages, and archives. Let's look at which plugin excels as a true theme builder.
Divi Theme Builder
Divi theme builder gives you the flexibility to design custom headers, footers, category pages, product templates, blog post templates, 404 pages, and more. It is easily accessible by navigating to Divi › Theme Builder in your WordPress dashboard.
You can use the backend builder to organize your page structure and then use the frontend visual builder to easily add theme modules and design a consistent look across your site.
Divi gives you various settings to let you choose which specific areas of your website the template will apply. You can also choose to exclude it from appearing in certain areas.
Elementor Theme Builder
Elementor's theme builder has been around for some time and has been recently updated to make it easier to design theme areas of a website. It includes support for both theme templates as well as WooCommerce templates like single posts, archives, products, carts, and checkout pages.
It gives you complete control over where exactly each of the theme templates you design applies to your website. You can add various conditions to set if your custom theme template is displayed on the entire website to some specific pages.
When designing theme templates, the dynamic widgets such as the post title, post content, related posts, and others are shown first in the widget panel.
Winner: Elementor 🏅.
Divi vs Elementor: WooCommerce Features
WooCommece is a popular plugin for starting an eCommerce website in WordPress. Both these plugins seamlessly integrate with WooCommerce and allow you to create a custom online store.
They offer specific modules and widgets to help you design your store using a visual editor. Let’s take a closer look at which page builder is good for WooCommerce.
Divi Features for WooCommerce Websites
Divi Builder includes 25 WooCommerce modules to help you design custom WooCommerce pages from scratch.
These modules allow users to create custom shop pages, product archives, add-to-cart pages, checkout pages, and more. Divi also offers upsell and cross-sell modules to help increase your average order value and overall revenue. If you don’t want to design these pages from scratch, it has layout packs dedicated to designing WooCommerce websites.
Elementor Features for WooCommerce Websites
Elementor includes 24 WooCommerce widgets that get dynamically filled when used on a page. These widgets, like Divi, allow you to customize every page of your store, from product archives to small details such as WooCommerce notices.
Elementor also has full WooCommerce website kits, but they are in fewer numbers when compared to Divi.
Winner: Divi 🏅.
Divi vs Elementor: Feature Differences
There are a few features that are unique to each plugin and are not found in the other plugin. These features are unique and can influence your buying decision.
Elementor comes with a built-in popup form builder that allows you to create modals, notification bars, and slide-ins without needing any extra plugins.
This feature is absent as a built-in option in Divi and requires you to use another plugin called Bloom. It's included in all Divi plans but lacks the Divi drag-and-drop interface and is a bit limited compared to Elementor's popup builder.
Elementor also offers a built-in Maintenance Mode and Coming Soon feature, allowing you to inform users and search bots like Google that your website is under construction. This feature is also good for SEO, as it helps avoid 404 error codes.
However, Divi also has some unique features that are lacking in Elementor. It offers a unique A/B testing feature that allows users to split-test any page module against different versions to determine which layout provides better conversion.
The Divi Builder also offers a much more powerful role manager feature. This feature is valuable if you're building websites for clients and you want to restrict access to certain settings that can break the website.
With Divi, you get user roles such as Administrator, Editor, Author, Contributor, and Shop Manager. On the other hand, Elementor restricts you to just Editor, Author, Contributor, and Subscriber.
Divi vs Elementor: Pricing
Pricing plays a very important role in what page builder you'll end up choosing for your website.
Divi Pricing Plans
Divi is a premium-only builder that offers two pricing plans starting at $89/year for a basic license with unlimited websites. There is also a Divi Pro plan priced at $287/year, which provides access to additional services and features like Divi AI, Divi Cloud, Divi VIP, and Divi Teams.
Divi also offers a lifetime license option costing $199 and $220, respectively, though you will still need to pay $150/year for the additional services mentioned earlier.
Elementor Pricing Plans
Elementor offers a free version with basic widgets which is great for personal websites. There's also a premium version which has yearly pricing plans based on the number of websites and widgets.
The Elementor Pro version, which includes 59 Pro widgets and a single website license, costs $59/year. There are also higher plans available for 3, 25, and 1000 sites, priced at $99, $199, and $399 per year, respectively.
Both plugins offer 30-day money-back guarantee, so you can try and see if they’re a good fit.
Which Is the Best WordPress Page Builder?
Given that both visual builders offer similar features, choosing between Divi and Elementor for your next WordPress website can be a challenging decision.
To simplify your decision-making process, we have compared various features to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each page builder.
If you're comfortable with a slightly more complex interface but prioritize fast loading times, a comprehensive template library, and features like A/B testing, Divi would be an excellent choice for you.
On the other hand, if you’re a beginner and prefer a user-friendly interface with a lot of widgets and customization options, a built-in popup builder, Elementor is a great option for you.