Divi vs Elementor: Comparing WordPress Page Builders For Features, Price and Speed

Divi and Elementor are both very robust and popular website builder plugins on WordPress that can integrate with WordPress themes.

Both make getting online much easier for the novice non-coder looking to build a site. Which one should you use?

I’m going to break down the facts, important key features, advantages and weaknesses of Divi and Elementor using a direct comparison methodology.

Please Note: Divi does not have a free version, as such a comparison of Divi and Elementor would not be fair. For the purposes of this comparison, I will be comparing Divi to Elementor Pro.

Background & Statistics

Let’s compare the number of users, years in the market and documentation quality of Divi and Elementor.

Divi Facts and Statistics

Divi was launched in 2013 by Elegant Themes and is based in California.
3+ million websites have been built with Divi.
Over 700,000 active customers.
Includes 46 modules.
Includes 800 templates.
Premium only with 30 days money-back guarantee.

Elementor Facts and Statistics

Elementor was launched in 2016 by Elementor Ltd and is based in Israel.
5+ million websites have been built with Elementor and Elementor Pro.
Over 500,000 active customers.
Includes 90 modules (known as widgets).
Includes 300 templates.
A popular free version of Elementor is available.

Key Features

While there are a handful of WordPress page builders, Divi and Elementor are among the most popular along with Visual Composer. Let’s break down the key features offered by both of our competing plugins.

Features in bold are unique to the page builder.

Divi Key Features

Ability to save multiple designs
Backend and frontend editor
Built-In theme and page builder
Custom CSS
Drag and drop functionality
Easy access to revisions
Global elements and styles
Inline text editing
Mobile-friendly editing
Real-time visual editing
Responsive
Robust design options

Elementor Pro Key Features

Ability to save multiple designs
All-in-one element editor on single page
Custom CSS
Drag and drop functionality
Easy access to revisions
Global elements and styles
Inline text editing
Mobile-friendly editing
Popup Builder
Real-time visual editing
Responsive
Robust design options

Pre-Made Design Templates

While both page builders offer up some impressive templates and kits (Elementor Pro) Divi has overwhelmingly won this category with over four times the professional-quality selection.

Designing with Divi

211 complete website layout packs
1,500 pre-made professional designs
30 niches for easy one-click design integration
211 landing pages

Divi Visual Drag-and-Drop Page Builder

In my opinion when you’re looking at using a WordPress page builder this is the most important part. The visual builder itself.

Elementor launched with a frontend visual page builder while Divi has only had this option since version 4 of its plugin.

While Divi included a visual designer later they did well.

Divi's Right-Click Support

A fairly unique features among WordPress page builders, both Divi and Elementor have a right-click menu to speed up the design and content creation process. Both are similar, but Divi does a more integrated approach with a few more options.

With this menu you can effortlessly undo a change or mistake, duplicate modules, transform layers, lock content and even initiate a split test.

Take a look at the right-click menu of Divi below.

Designing with Elementor Pro

16 complete website packs (known as template kits)
200 pre-made professional designs
12 niches for easy one-click design integration
44 landing pages

Elementor Pro's Visual Drag-and-Drop Page Builder

While some feel the UI of the Elementor Visual Interface is outdated, I have found it more convenient.

The Elementor sidebar remains in a fixed position and cannot be moved. Divi, however, uses floating buttons that appear and vanish when needed.

Personally, I prefer the Elementor interface to Divi. I have found it to be faster with fewer glitches, but this is an issue of personal preference.

Elementor Pro's Right-Click Support

The developers at Elementor extended their right-click menu considerably from version 2 to the latest version. And while it still falls slightly behind Divi, it will save you time.

Below is what the Elementor Pro right-click menu looks like now.

Third-Party Marketplaces

The free version of Elementor is the 6th most popular download on WordPress.org. This gives Elementor a larger market potential and as such more independent developers have created add-on plugins and template kits.

Divi also has a mature third-party marketplace with add-ons to extend the plugin’s capabilities. However, Elementor’s third-party contributions are twice the Divi market.

The Modules / Widgets

Divi calls them modules, while Elementor calls them widgets. Regardless of what they’re called these handy additions extend the features and functionality of the page builders.

The right module or widget will even allow you to replace a WordPress plugin and speed up your site.

Divi Modules

Divi currently includes 44 modules. Of those over 30 are content modules allowing you to easily insert specific types of content into your page or post.

Accordion
Audio
Bar Counters
Bio Box
Blog
Blurb
Button
Call to Action
Circle Counter
Code
Comments
Contact Form
Countdown Timer
Divider
Email Optin

Filterable Portfolio
Forms
Fullwidth Header
Fullwidth Map
Fullwidth Menu
Fullwidth Portfolio
Fullwidth Slider
Gallery
Image
Login
Maps
Number Counter
Person
Portfolio
Post Navigation

Post Slider
Post Title
Pricing tables
Search
Shop
Sidebars
Sliders
Social Media
Tabs
Testimonials
Text
Toggle
Videos
Video Slider
WooCommerce

Elementor Widgets

Elementor Pro has over 50 including all Divi modules along with a few extras:

All Divi Modules
Breadcrumbs
Flipbox

Lottie
Product Rating
Product Related

Product Stock
Sitemap
Soundcloud

The Strengths

In my opinion these two WordPress plugin powerhouses are pretty evenly matched with only a few serious differences between them.

Divi Strengths

Backend Editor

Both page builders are powerful and similar drag-and-drop visual page editors from the frontend. Divi, however, also offers a powerful backend editor in blocks format. While you may not imagine using this feature, it does come in handy. Easily move one entire block of content elsewhere on the page without loading the visual editor. Fast and simple.

A/B Split Testing

Divi has a built-in feature that you may not need but marketers absolutely love.

If you are focused on marketing and growing conversions, Divi provides built-in split testing with a click.

Right-click on any module on your page and instantly create an A/B/N test. Divi stores the split-testing data for you, allowing you to optimize for sales and conversions between design, text and headline options. You can split-test anything on your page, from single sentences to images and even video.

Elementor Strengths

Popup Builder

In my opinion, the fact that Elementor Pro includes a quality Popup Builder is a huge advantage over Divi. In order to use popups for marketing purposes in Divi you would need to activate yet another plugin.

WordPress popup plugins like Hustle are notorious resource hogs. You can see this for yourself by checking your site load speed at GTMetrix. Download the Hustle plugin and check it again a few minutes later.

The ability to remove a popup builder plugin and speed up your site is worth the Elementor Pro price.

With the Elementor Pro built-in popup maker, you can easily create popups anywhere on your WordPress site, for any reason. Here are a few examples:

Additional info popup
Email opt-in popups
Lead Magnets
Login and user registration popups
Promotional popups
Call To Actions

Developers Prefer It

Elementor has a vibrant developer community around the world thanks to the plugin’s open-source freemium status on WordPress.org.

This has lead to an ever-increasing number of online documentation, community forums, experts willing to help for free, YouTube videos and so on.

While Divi has a large Facebook Group, Elementor has a large independent developer base that prefers how Elementor outputs code.

Divi code is messy and often time-consuming for developers to work with.

On the other hand, Elementor has used its positioning in the open-source community to enforce beautiful and well documented code.

The Weaknesses

No matter how powerful a piece of software is, it must have limitations. Divi and Elementor are no exception.

Both page builders are powerful and similar drag-and-drop visual page editor

Divi Weaknesses

Lack of Documentation for Experts

Divi has plenty of tutorials, videos and helpful papers around the web. That’s a good thing because their own documentation leaves much to be desired for, especially for expert programmers and developers.

The lack of advanced documentation and options in Divi can be overwhelming and slow down the design process.

No Popup Builder

Elementor has one. Divi does not. In order to power up converting popups on your Divi site, you’ll need a plugin. Plugins should only be used when necessary, as they will slow down your site and lower your page loading speed.

Elementor Weaknesses

Considerably Fewer Templates

Even with the Pro version of Elementor, you’ll have access to far fewer professional designed site templates. Divi includes an impressive 1,500+ site designs you can use to speed up your design process. Elementor has a quarter of what Divi currently offers.

Multiple Site Pricing

We will cover this in more detail below, but my recommendation is simple. If you’re looking to design one website, go with Elementor Pro at $49.

If you need a visual page builder to design or power dozens of websites, Divi’s simple pricing cannot be beat.

Site Speed & Optimization

Many optimization and speed experts have tested, compared and retested Divi and Elementor Pro and from a site speed perspective the winner is always Elementor Pro.

While Divi does have a built-in optimization tool, it is still a far larger and more bloated piece of software sitting on your WordPress hosting account. It requires more resources to operate efficiently and is not know to easily optimize beyond the basic level.

Elementor Pro has recently removed three DOMs from its code and continues to work hard on optimization. In fact, the plugin has been successfully testing an optimized DOM output extension included in version 3.

Below is a screenshot of Elementor’s DOM optimization experiment.

Pricing & Support

These two powerhouse plugins have starkly different pricing structures. One offers a single all-in price (similar to ServerWise) while the other breaks down pricing plans to number of site licenses.

Divi Pricing & Support

Divi offers one of the most comprehensive and simplistic pricing in WordPress premium plugin history.

For $89 annually, you can use Divi on an unlimited number of sites without restrictions.

Divi Pricing:

1 Site: $89
100 Sites: $89
1,000 Sites: $89

Divi Support

Divi support is available 24/7 via a remote global team of experts. Support is known to respond within an hour on average.

Elementor Pro Pricing & Support

Elementor Pro has chosen a more traditional multi-tiered pricing structure based on the number of site licenses you require.

$49 a year lets you use Elementor Pro on one single site. When compared to Divi’s $89 this is a good deal if you only have one website.

Elementor Pro Pricing:

1 Site: $49
100 Sites: $499
1,000 Sites: $999

Elementor Pro Support

Elementor recently announced pricing increases (reflected in the prices above) in order to fund a stronger support staff, faster responses and live help.

I have personally only required Elementor Support twice and found it to be helpful, but it did take two days to receive a response compared to Divi’s 1-hour average.

My experience with Elementor Pro support was after they announced a substantial investment in service and support.

But Which One To Choose?

Divi and Elementor Pro are very strong, well-designed and helpful visual page builders for WordPress. In truth, no matter which you choose, you will be able to design, manage and publish your site faster with fewer errors than using any other page builder.

So the decision comes down to your priorities.

If you need to power hundreds of sites for marketing purposes, I suggest Divi for it’s cheaper licensing and split testing capabilities.

However, if you’re powering up to three large WordPress sites and speed and page load time is a concern, choose Elementor Pro. For $99 a year, you can get a 3 site license.

My final tips to consider:

Rad Mitkov

Radoslav is a senior motion graphics engineer and designer specializing in 3D modeling prototypes for digital marketing platforms. Rad frequently writes on WordPress, site optimization and cybersecurity topics.

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