Divi Theme Review – Is It The Best Multipurpose WordPress Theme?
Are you considering using Divi theme for your website?
This review will help you decide if Divi is the right WordPress theme for your website.
Divi is an exceptional theme in many ways. I have seen few themes as multifaceted as Divi, making it an excellent theme for any purpose. Coupled with its great graphics and powerful page builder, it is a worthy contender for the title of the best multipurpose theme.
Great graphics, multipurpose orientation, and a powerful page builder; this in and of itself is a potent combination. But having used Divi on a test site, I can tell you that it is certainly a theme that a non-developer uses to create a functional and elegant website with the least effort. And I believe the best themes should always voice any online entrepreneur’s creative intent without distinguishing those who can and can not code. And Divi certainly goes a long way in that regard as well. Please read our detailed Divi theme review to find out more.
Let’s have a closer inspection of Divi before heaping further praise.
Table of contents
- What is Divi?
- A Preview Of Divi’s Appearance
- Divi ePanel
- Divi Appearance Customization Panel
- Divi Builder – A Powerful Drag & Drop Tool
- How Does It Look?
- Easy To Create With Builder For A WP Newbie?
- Other Theme Options – Languages & RTL
- Support And Documentation
- Security
- Websites using Divi WordPress Theme
- Pricing
- Divi Theme Pros
- Divi Theme Cons
- Divi Alternatives
- Divi Theme Review FAQ
- Final Thoughts
What is Divi?
Divi is a very popular premium WordPress theme developed by Elegant Themes. Over 800,000 professionals use it worldwide to create countless websites.
A Preview Of Divi’s Appearance
Let’s have a first-hand look at how a Divi-run website looks. A theme is a cloak that adorns your website’s content, your content is only as attractive as its theme allows it to be. Using Divi, your content can be placed on the most visually impressive pedestals for your readership to enjoy.
Creating a website like the one shown in the preview above takes a bit of ability and prior programming knowledge without a page builder.
But with Divi page builder, the process is made easy enough for those who aren’t technically savvy enough to build their websites. Enough about the Divi builder; we’ll get to that in greater detail later in the Divi review.
View Full PreviewDivi ePanel
From the ePanel, you can access some pretty important stuff relevant to any website. Under General Settings, you can manage your site’s logo, favicon, navigation bar, MailChimp API, your AWeber authorization code, and display social media accounts on your site.
Accessing the navigation tab in ePanel will help create the right navigation for your websites and modify the number and choice of pages and categories. Ad Management permits easy handling of your site’s display advertisement and the sizes of the banners. Apart from that, you can read the documentation for your theme, add any additional code with integration, achieve the desired level of search engine optimization and manage your layout settings—pretty normal stuff on any excellent theme.
Divi Appearance Customization Panel
Divi comes to you with the customization options under Appearance > Customize. And from here, you can change your site’s color schemes, navigation, fonts, background image, widgets, and opt for a static front page. The developers added quite many new features in the recent version. The new things done on the customization panel will surely catch your eye.
Since version 2.5 Divi theme now supports Module Customizer via the familiar WordPress Theme Customizer live preview. It brings many useful features that will help you create personalized modules easily. To get an idea of how it looks we have prepared a screenshot:
Divi Builder – A Powerful Drag & Drop Tool
If you ask someone to identify the ultimate selling point of this theme, it has to be the page builder capabilities.
Once you open Pages > Add New, you’ll notice a use “Page Builder” button under the standard add new page title bar. Click on the button, and this is what awaits you.
Upon initial inspection, it does not look like much. But upon proceeding to use it further, you realize there is much more to it than meets the eye.
Now you can load one of the 32 premade layouts or create your own. But the list of premade layouts is pretty extensive, and it encompasses the appropriate page layouts for multiple purposes, at least one of which should be the right fit for your website.
I tried to create a layout, but I found it rather difficult to conceptualize the site I am looking for. The easier option would be to use a premade layout and then edit it according to my needs.
If you were to load the Homepage Shop layout, the builder would automatically load a complete schematic of the ideal shopping website.
As you might have guessed by now, it is good to start with a premade layout, it saves a great deal of time. But if you intend to create your site with numerous new pages, Divi builder is a pretty handy tool. You can add sections, full-width sections, specialty sections and modules for functionality.
Modules are an easy way to add functionality to your new page’s various sections. You can not start adding modules when you add a new section because the particular section hasn’t been divided into columns yet. Columns are a way of splitting your sections into different widths as a ratio of the site’s width. With full-width sections, you jump right to adding modules.
If you’d rather not select columns manually, add a specialty section and you’ll get several column choices dividing the section into multiple blocks of differing sizes.
After adding the appropriate sections and columns, we finally add the necessary modules to make your page whole. The developers packed Divi builder with tons of options at your disposal.
Apart from adding modules, you can add your personal touch and CSS to modify the module’s Appearance. You can add a custom background for each section and enable custom CSS with a CSS ID.
Sections, columns and modules make up the building blocks of your custom page. You can move sections and modules easily and switch positions to meet your requirements.
If Divi page builder is the first drag and drop builder you’ve ever used, the page builder may be a bit difficult to handle at first. But once you see the page builder, it will take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with the builder’s options.
Another thing that will come in handy permits you to add layouts from your previous themes and websites. That way, you do not have to create pages from scratch.
How Does It Look?
Now, if you were to construct something simple and do so in under an hour, wondering what it would look like?
It doesn’t take a great deal of effort to create a simple and yet highly effective clean homepage for your website.
Easy To Create With Builder For A WP Newbie?
When using the Divi builder, you may be confused by the number of options in front of you. But if you stick with it for a while and use the premade layouts to help get you started, then using the builder to create a complex web page shouldn’t be a challenging task.
The developers designed it for the non-tech savvy folks looking for the right tool to give voice to their creative imaginations in the manner of a creative, elegant web page.
Other Theme Options – Languages & RTL
This theme has 32 built-in translations. In addition, it’s fully translatable and comes with full RTL support as well.
So your website doesn’t need to be limited to any region because of language.
Support And Documentation
From what I’ve heard and read, most customers have found the support responsive and sufficient. But with the documentation they provide, it is unlikely that you’ll need to avail of their support.
Elegant themes provide quite extensive documentation about their themes generally. Divi aims its documentation at helping the non-tech savvy to familiarize themselves with the theme and its features.
If you are concerned about your ability to use this theme to the fullest, I suggest you look at the documentation provided.
View DocumentationSecurity
Any revenue-generating website or high-traffic website needs to be genuinely concerned with security. WordPress is a secure platform. There aren’t more than a few vulnerabilities exposed in the last few years. That being said, you can look for excellent security features from your theme. And Divi does not disappoint.
The engineers at Elegant Themes have made it a point to make their themes as secure as possible. Sucuri is one of the best providers of security solutions for websites using the WordPress platform. A code audit by Sucuri, having gone through Divi’s code, confirmed that it’s a secure platform for your site.
Websites using Divi WordPress Theme
Divi theme has powered thousands and thousands of websites on the web. We created another article showcasing over 30 awesome websites to keep this review shorter. You can find these Divi theme examples here.
Pricing
Divi, along with 86 other themes and 6 other plugins, is $89 per year. Paying $89 for a single theme may be considered pricey by some. But, for 86 themes and 6 plugins, it is excellent value for money. But, for 86 themes and 6 plugins, it is excellent value for money. And you shouldn’t discount the value of their other themes and plugins, they are equally well-engineered. A good example would be Monarch. Elegant Theme’s social sharing plugin is one of WordPress site’s best social sharing plugins.
The personal package costs $89 per year but comes without the plugins. Do you like the plugins and themes and have already paid for the personal package? You can upgrade it to Lifetime Access with a one-time payment of $249. The purchase also comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee if you decide that Divi isn’t for you. These are the main things you should know about this theme. We would like to say some things to conclude our Divi review.
Divi Theme Pros
- Ideal for the non-tech-savvy online entrepreneur
- Truly multi-purpose, designed for freelancers, small agencies/businesses, magazines and online stores
- The ability to craft powerful landing pages for any website without any knowledge of HTML/CSS
- One of the best drag & drop page builders with multiple premade layouts, modules and sections
- Aesthetic design & great graphics
- Compatible with WooCommerce, Aweber, MailChimp and Google Maps
- Useful documentation for people new to the WordPress platform
- Lifetime updates
- Very good value for the money
Divi Theme Cons
- The number of options can potentially overwhelm you
- Not the best option for experienced developers
- There is a certain lock-in making it hard to migrate to a new theme
- The main Theme Options panel looks outdated
- It can be heavy on cheap shared hosting.
Divi Alternatives
1. Astra
Astra is the number one Divi alternative with an estimated 1.6M active users. Unlike Divi, it doesn’t have its own page builder, but the theme works with Elementor, Beaver Builder and Gutenberg. Astra is as customizable as Divi theme, and it all comes down to your preference to choose the one best for you.
Download Astra2. Avada
Avada is another very popular WordPress theme and a good alternative to Divi. It is trusted by over 825k users worldwide. It employs a custom drag-and-drop page builder with hundreds of beautiful elements. Avada has over 80 ready-made starter templates you can use as a foundation. Avada is a cheaper alternative if you want to build a single website since its license is for a single site while Divi is more expensive, but you can use it for unlimited websites.
Download Avada3. Elementor
Elementor is the most popular WordPress page builder that has evolved into a full website builder package that offers hosting, domain and even theme in a single package. It is the easiest way to build a drag-and-drop website using WordPress since it removes all the technicalities allowing you to focus on your content.
Download ElementorDivi Theme Review FAQ
I would like to finish by answering common questions about the Divi theme.
Divi is an excellent theme for beginners because it has loads of pre-designed templates you can modify using a visual drag-and-drop page builder. It comes with extensive documentation and outstanding customer support as well.
It depends on your personal preference and the website you are working on. I like this theme, but it might be too much for someone looking to make a simple WordPress blog.
Yes, you can! The Divi Builder is a standalone plugin with any WordPress theme. In a plugin form, it will offer all the great website building benefits just like it would with the Divi theme.
It is not the fastest premium WordPress theme, but it is not terrible either. Any other popular multipurpose theme will offer similar performance and there isn’t any tradeoff if you choose Divi over others. Make sure to use the cache plugin and CDN to make the most out of it.
Divi is part of Elegant Themes membership, which starts at $89/year, or you can get lifetime access for $249.
Yes, it is! It follows all the best SEO practices to rank your website well in Google and other search engines. We still recommend using any free SEO WordPress plugins to optimize it further.
Divi used lock-in users by scattering shortcodes all over your website once you disabled the theme or Divi Builder plugin. However, it is no longer the case, and you can easily move away to any other WordPress theme or page builder plugin.
Maybe. There aren’t any such this as the best WordPress theme. Each use case and project might require a different theme. Divi is a great theme for many cases but it is not a theme for everyone.
It has the highest review score on Trustpilot for any WordPress theme. One of the highest for any product I have seen. 97% of customers have given them a 5-star rating. That’s a remarkable achievement.
Both offer outstanding flexibility to build a custom design website using WordPress. You can’t go wrong by choosing one or the other. It all comes down to your preference and the design you like more. The functionality for both are the same.
Final Thoughts
Should you use the Divi WordPress theme?
Div offers amazing flexibility that only a few other themes can match. Divi is a great theme to build a custom design website using WordPress without any previous technical knowledge or experience.
If any, few themes offer so much in the way of choice to a WordPress newbie. The creators designed this theme very well and used all of its features in a pretty intuitive way. It caters to the needs of all possible niches. The page builder is a powerful ally for any online entrepreneur. You can use it to create landing pages for specific purposes. This theme helps with adding your CSS code into the theme with little effort. You can do this even when you have a little bit of design skill.
I am leery of calling any theme the best. Divi is a multipurpose theme with a powerful page builder for an online entrepreneur in any niche. This is certainly a theme that anyone interested in creating a WordPress site should look at. Are you a current/past user of Divi or Elegant Themes? Then, let us know what you think of the updates in the comments below! And if you have any other questions, fire away! That’s it on our Divi theme review!
Purchase Divi/ More Info
Related Posts
I have to say I am beyond impressed with Divi builder, it’s easy to use, very versatile and makes website building a breeze… I think the main thing that you missed was the inability to remove the “Divi Builder” branding. There is no way to hide or lock or remove their branding when handing over to clients unless you want to do some major coding. While the support forums for DIVI are incredible on just about every level, they avoid any questions asked about white label branding like the plague…
Jeremy,
Thank you for your comment!
Back in the days when I was doing custom development I never tried to whitelabel and usually communicated what plugins and themes (if any) I will use to create their project. I usually didn’t charge 6 figures to create a website based on a theme. You need to find a way how to communicate to your client why you think that this theme or plugin is going to be a great starting point for their website.
One thing that I have noticed is that many web development companies advertise that they are building everything from scratch but charge few hundreds for that. It is obvious that they are not going to do more than just add content on free or premium theme for that price. These developers are usually looking for whitelabel themes, plugins or just removes everything by themselves.
If you don’t want to fall in my above mentioned group I recommend to clearly communicate what you tools are you going to use to build their website. Some clients are not going to be ok that you use ready-made plugins and that’s fine. Just explain how much time is required to create one, how much it will cost and they will change their mind right away.
But it definitely wouldn’t hurt if ElegantThemes would offer white label licence for its Divi Builder. It is another way for them to make money as extended licenses on Themeforest are usually costs $1,000+. Not sure why they are not doing it already.
Sir, Can you please tell me, how to upgrade my current Divi theme into Latest version of Divi 2.4.
Subash,
For support related questions you will have to contact Elegant Themes directly as we don’t have any agreements with them to provide technical support. We are here to answer pre-sales questions and from there Elegant Themes takes over support.
Btw, 2.4 is not the latest version and Divi 2.5 is already around for some time.
No, you can remove the bottom “powered by wordpress” and the theme name on any wordpress theme, you simply need to use the editor and change a line of code in the footer.
Steven,
It won’t become a white label theme if you remove Divi theme name and “powered by WordPress”. There are still going to be dozens of places where Divi name will be visible in dashboard and website source. White labeling means that there are no traces from the original theme author but it is very unlikely that Elegant Themes will release such an option.
Hey Jeremy, have you found any more resources on white labeling the Divi stuff?
First, I need to tell everyone, that I am completely and utterly ignorant when it comes to css, html, j..whatever…
I have purchased the lifetime version of Divi and would like to give a review based on my perspective as someone who is looking to build a website that does what I want without having to resort to ‘professionals’ who, and please excuse me for saying so, would like to keep building a website as a ‘black art’.
I started using Wix (apologies again for any offence) and managed to build a pretty good website (in my opinion) within a week. Then I discovered the flaws… i needed a form, I needed my customers to upload a file via an attachment… aha, yes can can do it, but now you have to pay more monthly fees. Bearing in mind I’m not rich, if I was I wouldn’t be building websites myself now would I?
The Wix editor has its flaws, but without any need to resort to CSS or any other ‘code’ related program/text etc, I did get almost what I wanted. Having approached a few ‘friends’, I was immediately chastised for breaking the ‘code of honour’ by not using wordpress. OK, so I looked into it and it seemed from all the blurb that DIVI Builder was the way to go, especially as it released the awesome version 3.
As I said, I blew my last pocket money on the lifetime updates version..in for a penny, in for a pound.
Initially, all looks good…
Initially, all looks good…
However, what I have found is to be honest very frustrating. The DIVI VISUAL Builder is marketed as a WYSIWYG editor, but having used the Wix WYSIWYG editor, it was immediately apparent that the DIVI visual builder was anything but.
Whereas it is fairly easy with WIX to align modules, text, buttons etc etc. with DIVI its a nightmare. Now before you all offload lots of you don’t know what you’re talking about etc, I am new, so this is purely from my perspective.
So as an example, in my WIX site I have four columns with a logo at the top, text below and a button below that. Took all of a few minutes to do. I have spent the last two days trying to duplicate it using DIVI and even though I have had to resort to using CSS (OMG!), from lots of hours searching the net, I still cannot duplicate that simple module, I have achieved a ‘version’.
I’ve tried the blurb module, I’ve tried image+text+button…all to no avail.
Its meant to be a WYSIWYG editor, but it cannot handle alignment properly…a major problem for me. It appears to ‘add’ lines, paragraphs etc. so nothing is aligned easily without resorting to ‘padding’ etc.
Obviously, I’m not alone as there are so many websites, posts, that try to get around the problem. REALLY, DIVI should solve this as it is a fundamental issue ..or I am I missing something?
There are a number of descrepancies between the way the ‘Page Builder’ works and the Visual Builder. When I add a text module and then try to edit it, I have to use two different methods, one allows you to alter the size…but not the colour, and you have to select the other mode to change the size….really??
My problem is… I don’t really want to learn CSS or anything else. I want to build my site and get on with work.
Yes.. I fully understand the huge flexibility that WordPress offers and the awesome effects (if that is the correct term) that can be achieved with HTML/CSS/J-?
But I am a mere mortal who can use MS word. (which doesn’t work the same as MS Publisher…but that’s another story)
Despite all the above, I have managed after 2 weeks to create a functional website using DIVI.
I hate having to ‘setup’ a variety of settings, just to get to a blank slate, eg logo, footer etc. whilst we are talking about footers…why are the headers and footers so difficult (again from my perspective)?
I hate that I have to constantly switch between the visual builder and the page builder because of the inconsistences.
I hate that I have to search the internet for workarounds what should not be an issue
I hate MOST that the modules do NOT perform the way you should expect.
As an example.. the Blurb module….
you should be able to choose the background for each element, ie the icon/image, text, button…not just a global setting.
Don’t get me started on trying to align modules in a column.
I hate NEXT the various module settings. Some settings that should be in design are not…
I hate that the various modules don’t have consistent settings, text, alignment etc etc.
OK…enough whinging…..
My honest opinion is that DIVI and the good folks who own it (please do something about your hair….), should take a good look at WIX. Its not perfect, but it is a ‘hellova sight better’ than the DIVI editor.
And Finally…
DIVI has a massive advantage in that it has access to a huge WordPress library.
But it cannot market itself as the ‘Go-To visual builder’ unless it seriously addresses the current failiings.
My caveat is that I’m a girl, innocent to the ways of CSS and the other ways…
I want to build MY websites…
DIVI for LIFE…( I paid or it)
Being a girl has nothing to do with it. Remarks like that are degrading to you and to other women who are just as capable as men working in IT and web development. Best of luck to you.
Thanks for the clarity and insight. Out of curiosity, where does the white label show up on the site?
Also, any other downfalls you see with this theme? I am a non-developer and am considering this theme. If this is not a fit do you have suggestions for another theme that gives you similar flexibility and content?
Thank you in advance.
Larry
Larry,
White label is for designers and developers looking to build a website for others using Divi theme but don’t want to reveal that. White label means that they want to hide that website is built on Divi or any other theme. In your case it doesn’t play an important role or any roll at all.
If you are looking for multipurpose theme similar to Divi you might want to review these options. On that theme collection you will find the most popular multipurpose themes available today.
Why can I not put my office address on Divi front page …same line as for phone and e mail address
And the contact form has no sender phone number provision
Simple glaring omissions
David,
For support related questions please contact Elegant Themes support directly. They will take care of your request.
I considering on page loading, responsiveness and retina ready. What is your take on div 2.4 in that level?
These days most free themes are even responsive, mobile friendly and retina ready. Since Divi is one of the most popular premium WordPress themes available today you can expect much more than just responsive layout and retina ready graphics.
Divi Great is really a great Theme! Been using this for a couple of website projects and this theme helps me a lot. Its very easy to use and comes with different powerful features. One of the best thing about Divi is that saves you more time using the premade layouts. 🙂
How can i design my site if i purchase the personel subscription(the 69 dollar one, without divi builder plugin) ? Do i need to coding if i don’t have the divi builder plugin? Because it says it’s not containing any plugins. And if i don’t continue to subscription after one year, does my website have problems with the wordpress updates? Because it’s meanless to purchase 1 year subscription if my site is gonna blow up when i don’t keep up my subscription.
Acc,
Divi Builder Plugin is included in the theme itself and therefore you don’t purchase it separately. However, for “Personal” tier package you can’t download it as a plugin and use it with other themes. It is bundled in the package and that’s the only way to use it. Developer user package comes with several plugins and Divi Builder plugin separately that you can use anywhere, with any theme and website.
If you don’t renew subscription after one year you won’t get any theme updates but you continue to receive WordPress core updates and third party plugin updates. But since a lot make change in WordPress core over the time, it might break your theme as theme no longer follow WordPress development. In case Elegant Themes find some security flaw in their theme, then your website will remain vulnerable because lack of updates. I am not saying that your website will be hacked the next day but the longer it will take to upgrade your theme the higher is the chance to get your website hacked. It’s always better to play safe than sorry.
Hi Aigars,
Thanks for the answer, you illuminated me 🙂 I’m gonna make a web site design for the company that i work. But i don’t work for web design here actually. So we want to use a simple theme and make it solid. Because we don’t want to spend much time on it, while designing the site or after that editing its problems.
I have searched the other theme The7 and liked its design. It contains page builder and lifetime theme updates. I actually don’t need 87 themes, just one good-designed theme is enough for me. So do you know about the7, and can you suggest me for this job?
Both Divi and The7 are well built themes. If I would have to choose then I would go with Divi because I like its design. But it is my personal preference and if you like The7, then just go with it. Both themes are used by thousands of webmasters therefore are well tested and you can’t go wrong by choosing either.
Divi theme also has its own page builder which is similar to Visual Composer which is included with The7 theme and again it is about personal preference which one you like better. Both page builders have the same functionality but visually are different and that’s the main difference.
I’m interested in the Divi theme and have some questions about what is included in the $89 price category. Specifically, are does this include all future updates to the theme, and what exactly does the Layered Photoshop option entail? Can I see / access the images that are available to choose from with this option? Further, the second image on the Divi 2.5 demo shows a group of floating lanterns: is this image standard with this theme, or is it among the Photoshop images that are available with the $89 option, or is it just an example but not available?
Gregg,
$89 package includes theme updates and support for one year. If you a are looking for a lifetime updates and support it will cost you $249. Or you can renew your subscription yearly for $89.
Photoshop files means PSD files that were used to create theme. If you are not a designer who uses Photoshop these files won’t be useful for you. Images that you see on theme demo are for preview purpose only and are not included with theme. You will have to use your own images or purchase some stock images. Images are not included in any of theme packages.
Good day,
What is the difference between WordPress and Kalatu?
Errol,
Kalatu is a simpler WordPress alternative with limited functionality. It is also paid with no free version available and you are paying for everything. You get a better support but you are limited with few themes and other options to choose from. WordPress is much, much more flexible and it’s free to use. Flexibility comes with some complexity but at least you can do whatever you want with your website and you don’t depend on some platform that might be killed within months.
Do you know if these themes work with WordPress version 4.4.1? And you mentioned as one of your ‘cons’ that if you move from Divi to another theme its a disaster waiting to happen. What about the other Elegant themes? Can you move between them without everything breaking? Do you know?
Kim,
Divi theme is in active development therefor it is compatible with WordPress 4.4.1 and will be compatible with any future version of WordPress as long as you keep theme updated on your side.
Problem with Divi is their page builder which is embedded inside theme for base price ($69) therefore switching to another theme all these elements will be lost. Solution here is to use a bit more expensive package for $89 and that way you will get a the same page builder which is installable as plugin. From there you will be able to switch to any WordPress theme out there including Elegant Themes, Avada, Salient, Enfold or any other theme. It is sort of “A poor man pays twice” situation with Divi, so don’t make that mistake from the very beginning and enjoy future proof website.
This response was just what I needed to see. I have been researching Divi and Genesis and was having a hard time deciding after I read on another site that if you use Divi, you basically have to stick to it because it would break if you used it on another theme. I already new if I did go with them, I would purchase the Developer option. Off I go to purchase now! Thank you again.
Hello,
is Divi still your number one theme for wordpress? Can i make with divi something close to this webpage – boobsandloubs.com (close to newspaper site with read more options etc.)
Thanks for your answer.
You can create a similar layout using Divi. But you might want to check Metz theme, which is the theme used by your mentioned website.
thanks for your recommendation! Do you have any experience with this Metz theme? Because i can’t find any video tutorial for this theme and for divi you have plenty of them. I’m pretty new with this wodpress stuff and i don’t know much coding. I think i could handle divi pretty easy with that much tutorials but I’m not sure with Metz. So i would like to hear what do you think about Metz theme.
Currently there are no video tutorials available for Metz theme. If video tutorials is what you are after then Divi theme is going to be a better choice. If you want to create a website that looks exactly like website you mentioned then Metz is the right choice. While it doesn’t have video tutorials, its documentation covers most important aspects of theme installation and setup. Like for any theme, you need to get some WordPress basics in place and that’s where Youtube will help you a lot.
do you think the new version of divi has addressed the speed issues. i am caught between divi and enfold but as speed it key i am thinking of plumping for enfold but feel like i could do more with divi?
thanks in advance
Themes are almost never the ones that slows down your website. It is not a secret that WordPress by default is very slow but as you can see browsing Colorlib it can load fast. We are using WordPress specific server side caching that helps to reduce page load time by up to 10 times. This is something very few hosting providers offers. We are using WP Engine but you might want to consider its cheaper brother called SiteGround that offers similar caching platform but it is meant for smaller websites.
By using these hosting providers you will be able to use Divi, Enfold or any other premium multipurpose theme without complaining about performance of your website. It will just work and load really fast.
Both Enfold and Divi has the same amount of CSS and JavaScript files loaded meaning that they are equal when it comes to performance and the hosting is going to be the one that makes the difference.
If I go with the annual option does this mean at the end of one year I will not be able to update the theme anymore.
Does that include security vulnerabilities etc.?
I am assuming the answer would be to go with the lifetime or renew it annually if I am looking to be up to date correct?
Mark,
With Divi theme you will have to go either with yearly subscription of lifetime access or otherwise you won’t be able to get any updates (not even security fixes) and support when one year subscription will expire.
Personally I would go with “Lifetime Access” because you will get access to all themes by Elegant Themes, even ones that are not released yet. For example you will be able to get your hands on their newly released and very popular magazine theme called Extra. You can read more about this theme here. They have several awesome plugins as well that we use on our website as well such as Bloom eMail Opt-In Plugin.
Mark,
Small clarification about Divi and security updated after your subscription has ended. Yesterday Elegant Themes pushed an updated to all their theme users even ones that had their subscriptions expired. The reason behind this was a nasty security bug that was really easy to exploit therefore making potentially several hundred thousand websites vulnerable.
So there might be cases when Elegant Themes might offer you security updates after your subscription has ended but these are rare cases.
Dear Aigris, I am an affiliate marketer. I have been looking for a conversion friendly page builder. I am stuck between Thrive content builder and Divi Builder. Which one do you think I should choose? Money is not a problem. It will be helpful if you could suggest me.
Sal,
I personally prefer Divi Builder because it is better suited for real business websites. Thrive on the other hand is built for marketers by marketers. For me Thrive themes and related plugins associates with “get rich” and “make money online” schemes that can be a profitable businesses but never looks like a serious thing for me. Most bloggers and marketers who choose Thrive themes and plugins creates their of “magical” product that helps make money online but in reality just helps to make author itself rich. There is a huge market for this kind of products but I really don’t like this kind of business therefore I prefer Divi Builder.
Thanks for the great article. Can you please tell me what you prefer and why: Divi builder or Avada builder. And this is also important to me: is Site Origin visual editor (free plugin) comparable to these two?
Alex,
Site Origin Visual Editor is nothing in comparison to Divi or Avada. They are not meant for the same thing. Site Original allows to use very, very basic elements such as buttons, columns, tabs but Avada and Divi comes with visual drag & drop visual elements that allows tow create and configure portfolio, parallax sections, slider, ecommerce store, service sections, galleries and everything you can possibly imagine.
But if we put Divi and Avada side by side then there is no clear winner as both of them does the same thing, uses similar technology and design. It’s more about personal preference and both will get the same job done.
“If you switch from Divi to any other theme, then there is a disaster waiting to happen..”
Can you expand on this warning?
I see that Divi mentions saving and exporting *layouts* but not *content*. What if I want to switch to another theme/company down the road? What if I want to export my WP site to an e-book?
(FYI: all of my WP sites were hacked (using free themes) so am looking for a secure, flexible, reliable paid option with good support if needed.)
Doug,
Actually I need to revise part about switching away from Divi theme. Recent updates to theme that brings Divi Builder as plugin instead of bundled edition. This approach now allows to switch from one theme to another while not losing anything of what you have built using this page builder. Of course you can leave everything behind but now you have an options to take everything with you.
Not sure how you could be able to export everything to a ebook. WordPress does allow to export XML but it is more specific file that plain text/image based ebook. This needs some more research but it will or will not regardless theme because no themes have anything close to this functionality by default.
Free themes as long as they are taken from WordPress.org are perfectly safe to use and well tested. Here are some our top recommendations for free themes from the repository. There is slim no no chance that your site got hacked because of that. Sites usually gets hacked when you attempt to use premium themes that are distributed for free on some shady websites. This is by far the simplest approach how to get hacked and loads of users falls for it. Another thing is unsafe plugins from other website than WordPress.org or CodeCanyon. Again maybe even premium plugins that are distributed as free ones.
Other things about website security comes to your code, hosting and passwords. If you are using the same password everywhere and it’s something like “123456abc” then you are just waiting for your website to get hacked. It is now a question of if but when.
If you have any questions about Divi theme, builder or WordPress security, feel free to ask.
Thanks Aigris.
For exporting to e-books, sorry forgot to mention that’d be via a plugin.
One of my sites that got hacked was using Moesia theme dl’d directly from athemes. The others I got from the WP repository. Same will all my plugins. I’ve never installed third-party dl’s for WP. However, I did leave some versions (WP and plugins) not-updated for what was probably too long.
Just to clarify (because I saw this criticism on another review as well), Divi doesn’t mash content full of its own shortcodes? The content remains content, free and clear?
Hi,
Am researching currently amongst Layers, Themify.me, my themeshop and Divi. Have liked mythemeshop for amazing speed and beautiful option of plug ins and “Socially Viral” theme and need to compare it against Divi. Although plug in options are very less in Elegant Divi, but i liked the email plug in they have, it has amazing opt in options. Whats ur take on mythemeshop v/s Divi.
Thanks
Sandeep,
Divi winds hands down thanks to its email optin plugin. Socially Viral is good too but it is a simple blog themes with limited functionality. Where Divi is a very flexible multipurpose theme that can be used for everything starting from a simple blog all way to complex ecommerce or business websites.
I’m looking for a directory theme for medical companys. To show clinics AND docters. I like Divi but I am not sure if it is a good choice for this web site. Maybe you have a suggestion?
Peter,
Divi theme is not going to be the best choice for directly website unless you have some plugin in mind to manage directory listings. Divi is very flexible but choosing dedicated directory theme will make your life easier because of all custom fields, search filters, star ratings and much more. Of course you can add these things for divi but you will end up installing loads of plugins and I don’t think that it will be worth it.
Here is a list of the best directory themes available for WordPress.
Aigars,
Thanks for your very clear answer. That get’s me in the right direction.
For the directory themes my main worry is how to connect multiple docters to a clinic. Its hard to find out which theme or plugin does that.
hi! I’m thinkind about buying Divi theme and I was wondering if once I bought the theme I can change the skin color (the bar over the logo , icons, backgrounds, titles ecc) since the main color of my brand is red.
Thank you so much
Marta Bianchini
Marta,
Divi theme is a very flexible one and you can change every detail for it and also change colors, fonts and much more. This theme comes with drag & drop page builder that you can use to create completely unique layout for your website.
Hi Aigars. Great article.
I am having a tough time deciding between Divi and X Theme. I want to purchase and commit to learning one or the other. Have you had experience with X Theme and what do you recommend as being the superior option?
Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Tan
Tan,
Both are great themes and very similar from functionality perspective. Your choice should come down to design. Take one that you like the most because both has outstanding drag & drop page builder, load of theme options and various demo content variations that you can use as foundation for your website. Personally I prefer Divi theme but still X theme is an amazing theme and could use that too.
Great article. I use DIVI and I am testing other themes such as AVADA, X theme etc. I think DIVI is amazing in that I can get content, layout and pages built so fast and updated so fast, that SPEED is #1 good point of using such a theme.
However… I am found that the DIVI menu system is ok, but not great. It seems we would all have to do lots of other CSS to make a more robust menu, better sizing, colors, button, etc. Am I am missing something, because the DIVI menu is just like very simple TEXT, and hardly has any ways to edit the standard simple dropdowns. All web designers know that the navigation is KEY to a great website. I wonder why DIVI does not have such a great menu system? Thoughts?
Also since you mention the DIVI plugin can be used on ANY other them. Is it them possible to get a better menu / nav on another theme and yet use DIVI for the layout tool. Which I think DIVI builder/layout tool is the best and easy and clear to use. Any ideas would be helpful. Thanks!
Allan,
Actually there are a lot of things you can do with Divi and its menu and you can see some examples on this video.
Of course you can do your own styling via CSS but I don’t think that it is going to be necessary since there are so many theme options that you can use to an create unique menu.
Hi. I’m looking to move from Weebly to WordPress and really like the design flexibility and the page builder offered by Divi. I’m completely new to WP but don’t mind a learning curve. However, I’ve been reading about the problems caused by updates? If i make lots of design and layout decisions building my Divi site, is there a possibility they’ll be lost in Divi theme or WP updates?
I’ve read that it’s wise to use a ‘child’ theme but this sound too complex for me. If i could be sure my site wouldn’t lose modifications I’d definitely go for the Divi framework.
Thanks in advance for any advice.
Theresa,
Theme and WordPress updates breaks those things that you are modified directly inside theme PHP, JavaScript, CSS and other files. While things you have created via WordPress dashboard such as posts, pages, category pages, landing page any anything else will remain in place after any update. Child Themes are for developers looking to modify theme files and I believe this is something you are not looking to do.
Thanks Aigars.
So, font styles, colours and page layouts should not be affected if they are done directly through the Divi builder dashboard? If so, that sounds ideal for me. I also see you recommend Siteground as a reputable WP host so I’ll op over and check them out too.
Thanks so much for your advice … very much appreciated!
It’s amazing, I can already feel the possibilities! But, Aigars, how much i can have with the Divi Builder? I mean, The Visual Composer is great, but I can never be satisfied with the simple designs in the blog element.
And Aigars, There is a theme that can show me FILTERS above the blog posts? I tried already the Be Theme, but the Filterable blog doens’t work properly.
I would love have a filterable blog, a bunch of categories in it and a boxed layout, 960px, if possible.
Please, help me! I can’t spend more any money.
A friend of mine just recently recommended Divi so I’ve been doing a little research. This review has helped but I’m still undecided. The price points of The7 and Avada are appealing. I know Divi has the lower tiers but the $249 tier seems to be the best option in the long run.
How do The7 and Avada react if you had to switch themes later on?
My understanding is that Divi won’t be a mess if you had to switch themes.
Tough decision as the $59 price point is more appealing.
I’m trying to use the Divi in these days and it’s immediate and easy to use, even for a beginner like me 🙂
Hi Aigars.
I am quite new to WP; also, I know merely basic things about HTML5 or CSS3 (right now, I am on a learning curve with the help of The Complete Developer Course 2.0 from Udemy). Still, a friend of mine would like me to make a website for a Medical clinic that will have its gates open a few months from now. So, I thought I would buy the Developer subscription for me (so as to have access to all themes and premium support for this and all my future projects) and use the Divi theme to build that medical clinic website.
The question is this: Once I complete the website and have it uploaded on a WordPress host server, would my friend need to buy the Personal subscription and renew it yearly in order to have the website updated by Elegant Themes? Should I tell her that this is going to be a yearly fee that she would have to pay for her website? Or, would it be enough that I would have a developer account? If I am not getting these things right, what is the best approach?
Thank you in advance for your kind support. As I said, I am but a newbie.
Marius
Hello, I’ve used a couple different WP themes over the years but am not a designer or coder. My husband and I are start-up entrepreneurs in different fields. I am looking at purchasing the one-time package for the DIVI theme because I feel that we’d be able to learn one theme and promote our brands individually yet continue to have a great design and feel. Would the DIVI theme allow us to have multiple different looking sites within the same theme? It sounds like it would be very customizable but with limited experience, I didn’t know how well this would work for our needs.
I love how many options are built into the DIVI theme. We need the ability to create on-demand landing pages, opt-in pages, list building, lead magnets, blog, and I would love to have a plan that would allow for a paid membership site or limit premium content to only those who have purchased the premium content. Could DIVI allow us to do all of this? If yes, would I need to be a web designer to make it all happen or could I learn it with tutorials (yes, I am a quick learner)? Would this potentially replace other monthly subscriptions such as a LeadPages, Ontraport, or ClickFunnels? Would I be able to automate my sales process or am I hoping for too much here?
Also, would I be able to incorporate my email list building with ActiveCampaign with DIVI? I didn’t see that listed as an option.
If DIVI is the best theme for a majority of what I am looking for, then GREAT! If not, is there anything else you’d recommend?
The other theme I am looking it is also the X Theme…
I have been using Divi on just one site. It is indeed very powerful and amazingly flexible. It has some downsides. The first is that your content is buried within the Divi Builder. That is not a problem if you are managing your own website but it is a problem if you are creating a website for a client who will want to manage their own content. They will need to learn to use the Divi Builder and if they are up to that they do not really need me!
My bigger worry is about getting support – there is no route direct to Divi themselves. When something goes wrong you have to post an item on the Divi Support Forum and hope it gets picked up. So far there are a number of users with the same issue which seems to be a bug in the latest update. After 4 days I have still got any reaction from Elegant Themes themselves. I had planned to buy a lifetime developer licence from them but I am not sure I have much confidence with them now.
Thanks to you for your article and your continuing response to questions. This thread has been really helpful.
I have done two sites using X, and the process on one of them seemed to be hugely complex. It came down to responsive views and how to customize the design for different screens. It seemed that I had to ask many many questions before getting to a solution.
So I have mixed feelings about X support. Some of their answers were crystal clear and helpful, others were quickly written and not in depth at all. Of course, this could be my lack of experience or badly formed questions. But Tim’s comment above makes me ask two questions:
Is the support for Elegant Themes not as good as X? And which theme would be better for a relative beginner who also wants to customize some of the responsive screens?
Thanks a lot.
Byron,
This doesn’t sound like a problem with X theme or its support but your rather high expectations. Support team is there to answer questions regarding theme setup and functionality. They aren’t supposed to help with testing your website on mobile devices unless these are default theme content blocks. If you add some custom code, unsupported elements and other sort of things then support won’t help and you will need to have your own developer for that.
Of course theme developers will try to provide as good and accurate answers as possible to avoid negative feedback but sometimes users do ask way too much. Maybe it is not the case with you and X theme but i am theme developer myself and know how fart user questions can go and sometimes you end up building completely custom website for them just to avoid negative review and that’s not how it should be.
A concern with complex themes like Divi is speed of loading pages. How fast does Divi compare to Avada? Avada touts itself as having a Google Pagespeed score up to 96. That is mind-blowingly fast.
James,
I see that you are confusing fast with a high Google PageSpeed ranking. It shows how well your website/theme is optimized and not how fast it actually loads. Also themes has very little to do with performance. The hosting accounts for 95% of the performance of your website. Therefore investing in a good managed hosting is crucial. Once you do that you will be able to use any theme even ones that scores very low on Google PageSpeed but your site will still load fast. For example you can test how bad is our website’s score and them check how fast it actually loads on any browser and you will be very surprised.
Divi Builder is a separate plugin that can be used with any theme – allowing you to transfer your Divi site to another theme.
So why upgrading or changing from DIVI is a disaster? also they have EXTRA theme, can we take featuers from EXTRA and add it to DIVI?
Ahmad,
Those are two separate themes that uses the same page builder. If you want to use page builder elements from one theme to another it might possible but if you means ome layout settings or something like that then it is not possible to just use them for other theme. That’s why those themes are separate. However, you can get both themes with a single purchase as Elegant Themes does have this option available.
Hi, which Theme would you prefer for an easy personalized modern an innovative WooCommerce Shop with a Page Builder. Divi, Flatsome or Shopkeeper, else? Is there any theme out there with the possibilities comparable to the style of apple.com?
Timo,
All of those themes are very similar but my personal favorites are Shopkeeper and Divi. Both of them will get the job done with ease.
Currently there aren’t any similar themes to Apple.com because all of WordPress based eCommerce themes used WooCommerce and it is not easy to tweak it to make it look like it. Also theme developers are not allowed to copy existing websites.
Ok. Thank you very much 🙂
Hi Aigars!
Thanks for a great review. I am a true webb builder novice wanting to build a stunning webpage for my newly created thinktank. I was wondering how you think Divi stands up against “the gem” I love how the gem looks but wonders if it is as user friendly and easy as divi? Also divi seems to charge per year which is not the case for the gem – correct? What is you view on the gem vs divi?
Many thanks from a beginner
Louisa
Louisa,
The Gem has been around only for 6 months. Divi has been around for several years and to keep up with the latest design trends they must improve their products.
Both themes uses a very similar page builders. If you are having problem with one you will have the same with the other and vice versa.
Both are great themes and all comes down to which you like from the design perspective as that’s their main difference.
I just did a theme update and it moved the images on my pages. that sucks!
It is often thatI fear to update Divi is it is not reliable, in my opinion, and I often have to fix something before the webesite looks OK again.
This is NOT the best theme ever.
…and I just updated Divi and my customizer is not working. That sucks!
sorry, please delete my last comment. the customizer was gone because of a plugin called “widget options”
now it’s back
Divi was fine until last upgrade. Divi builder in timeout, it took a week to get this resolved only to find that the last suggestion from support wiped out all sidebar images on every page and lost all content on one page.
Their support is to slow, being in a different time zone you get one reply in 24 hours of of them. And they clearly to not have a best practice testing environment for the divi theme and builder. this is clearly evident from the amount of support request.
I am not impressed sofar.
I have been using Divi for about a year and loved it until the new visual editor came out.. it’s really buggy and seriously I cannot even edit some of my sites. I hope they fix it soon. I have a video that shows a site I built with the dashboard editor and since the new visual editor was upgraded too … I can no longer edit in dashboard mode and limited in visual editor mode… so they clearly have some serious bugs to work out and literally cannot edit this site anymore.
I’ve been using Divi for over a year now and I’m still impressed with the current features and the frequency with which the development team launches new features. Not everything about it is perfect; the visual editor has always been buggy and slow, migration would be a pain, and it’s not the fastest theme out there. But for someone with close to zero coding skills Divi is by far the best way to build a great looking site.
I’ve used Divi theme as a base in one of my recent works, and loved it for its easy to use yet flexible post/page editor. Not the visual one (visual editor is too slow and complicated) but the editor inside wordpress admin interface. All custom code – a bit of css, a bit of html – was integrated into the site as a child theme. If you are curious what the site it was, feel free to check out my portfolio, you’ll easily find it in the list of recent works.
I love DIVI theme as i’m a newbie in web designing i find DIVI really easy to use and there is no need of coding if you need coding then there are tutorials where the code is given so for me it makes my life easier and i have made some sites which does looks good and works fine.
Hello guys!
I really love Divi! I think this theme have simply the life of all designers but a big feature is missing. I’m talking about the mega menu functionality
I’ve been using Divi (and its brother Extra) for years, on several websites, and although I am quite happy with their flexibility, quite some tweaking in css and php files is needed, and it is becoming increasingly frustrating that every theme update seems to ask more and more of the resources, frequently causing internal server errors.Usually, these can be fixed, but every major update: boom, same. It is quite bloated with code, not exactly lightweight, unfortunately.
I’ve been designing websites since 1997. Due to back surgery, I was incapable for almost 5-years, and fell way behind on responsive design. I decided to give DIVE a try rather than have to relearn so much that I had missed.
After reading what I read in the comments here about what happens if the DIVI licensee doesn’t renew after a year, I’ve changed my mind. One thing I’ve noticed since the very beginning of the computer / Internet experience which has not changed to this very day: People are GREEDY. I don’t want to be held hostage to DIVI after hypothetically creating a site which will be nearly 200 pages in size only to have a BETTER WordPress theme come along a year later offered by someone else. It’s time for a revolution in the form of a Boycott. People can take back their purchasing power if they stick together. When I was 16 I could buy any number of 45 rpm or 33 rpm vinyl records and use them however I wished to use them forever, without paying additional “licensing” fees. Those were better days for the consumer, and even the producers got rich.
After using divi teheme my business skyrocketed! Very easy to use
Sir, is this theme available free of charge? If so please tell me I will use it Thank you.
Divi will never become available for free legally. It is among the greatest themes ever released and giving it for free makes absolutely no sense. With the purchase you get regular updates and outstanding support that is unmatched in the industry. Support alone is worth the purchase.
Sir Aigars, you know another theme that allows me to work with several clients, like the Divi?
There are were few good WordPress themes that are licensed under GPL (meaning one license for as many websites as you want) the rest are licensed in a way that you need to purchase a seperate license for every site you build. For example, all these are limited for one site only other than Divi.
That makes Divi stand out between the rest of the competition.
Hey, I started to use Divi Builder one month ago. I was surprised at how easy I can build a website. I don’t have to struggle anymore. Wish you all guys to find it simple as I found it.
Divi has killed my client’s pagespeed – we went from over 80 to 19 after the last update to Pagespeed insights in November.
Even the theme’s demo page scores just 5 for mobile in Google Pagespeed insights.
Used to be a decent and flexible theme, but it will kill your SEO in a mobile-first world.
Page speed is now part of lighthouse. If you read about it, you will realize that your results can vary. The best way to test is from within your chrome browser. That being said, I’ve used Divi since it came out, I have never had a speed issue. I make sure that my plugins are minimal, images are sized appropriately, and caching is enabled. I find with my own clients sites, that images are most often to blame for poor page speed.
Helo,
Thanks for the great content. I have a website (which I wanna make better) about Music that has many mp3 and videos on it in addition to a blog. Would you recommend Divi for this project? If not waht theme do you recommend? Thank you.
Divi is one of the most customizable WordPress themes out there. You can easily build a music-related website with it thanks to its visual page builder.