Divi vs Elementor: Which Page Builder Is Better For 2024?

Are you trying to decide between Divi vs Elementor to build your WordPress website?

Divi and Elementor are popular drag-and-drop WordPress page builders. Both allow you to create a completely custom website without having any technical knowledge. Aside from page creation, they also provide theme building and advanced dynamic content integrations.

While they have many similarities, several important differences can point you in one way or the other.

In this article, we’ll compare Elementor vs Divi to help you choose the best page builder for your needs.

We’re not trying to choose a single “winner.” Instead, we’ll highlight similarities and differences to help you pick the best tool for your needs. To do this, we’ll compare Elementor and Divi in different areas.

Excited? Let’s start with a quick overview of both site builders.

Divi vs Elementor: Quick Overview

To start our Divi builder vs Elementor comparison, let’s look over the basics of both builders.

Divi

Divi is a page builder plugin for WordPress built by Elegant Themes. It has a wide range of modules that you can drag and drop into your website.

In addition, you get premade templates to help with the website creation process. Divi is a premium plugin that also includes a backend editor.

So, if you are familiar with coding, you may use Divi’s dashboard to change the code of different elements.

Get Divi

Elementor

Elementor is one of the most used WordPress page builder plugins. It is also a no-code page builder, which means you can build your page with a visual drag-and-drop interface.

There are prebuilt templates for both pages and sections. You also get a lot of customization options and excellent add-on support.

In terms of pricing, Elementor follows a freemium model. The free version itself offers an extensive array of functionality and customizations.

However, additional functionality such as theme builder, WooCommerce integration, popup builder, custom CSS, and so on are only available with the Elementor Pro.

If you want to learn more, you can read our full Elementor review.

Get Elementor Pro

Elementor vs Divi: What’s the Same

These two WordPress page builders are at the top of their game, so let’s start looking at what they have in common.

Obviously, there are slight feature differences here and there, but these are the basic features you’ll get, no matter which plugin you choose.

Visual, Drag-and-Drop Interfaces

Divi and Elementor both offer visually appealing drag-and-drop interfaces with inline editing.

This means you can build your website while seeing what your visitors will see, and you can change the text by just clicking and typing on the page.

Divi

When you launch Divi’s visual builder, you will get a full-screen live preview of your website. There is a collapsible floating toolbar at the bottom and floating icons that display as you hover over specific parts of your website.

To add content or layouts, click on the various icons. For example, the black icon allows you to add a new module.

When you add content or layout elements, clicking on it will show a popup with detailed settings. You can resize or drag this popup anywhere on the screen to personalize the interface.

You can also use inline editing for text content, which enables you to simply click and input text on the real-time preview of your webpage.

Clicking at the bottom of the page opens a menu that allows you to select different device previews, launch a backend editing wireframe view, and access additional high-level settings.

Here’s how the wireframe view looks:

Instead of the wireframe, the Layers tool is another option you can use to arrange your content into various formats.

Elementor

Elementor takes a significantly different approach to its user interface. It displays a live preview of your design on the right and a fixed sidebar on the left (similar to WordPress Theme Customizer).

This sidebar is where you’ll handle most of your design options. For example, in the sidebar, you can see a list of widgets and drag one to your design.

Then, in the sidebar, you can change the widget’s style, content, and other settings.

Most content can also be edited inline. This means you can just click and type in the live preview.

However, Elementor does not offer the wireframe view that Divi does, but it does have a very handy Navigator tool. Similar to Divi’s Layers tool, this tool provides an overview of your page’s structural layout. You can also rename elements to make them more memorable.

In addition, you’ll also get additional features like undo/redo, device previews, revision history, and more.

Overall, Elementor’s UI feels cleaner and less overwhelming because it does not use floating icons like Divi.

Styling Options

Both Elementor and Divi Builder are well-known for their styling options. So, if you’re a designer, you’ll like all the options for controlling how your design looks.

Divi

Divi Builder gives you three different tabs to control your various elements:

• Content: This lets you edit the content of a module, like text, image, background, etc.
• Design: Covers everything from typography to colors, shadows, borders, and more.
• Advanced: Allows you to add custom CSS and control responsive visibility.

And if you enjoy working with custom CSS, you have lots of options because Divi Builder makes it easy to apply CSS both to the main element and before/after the main element:

Elementor

Like Divi, Elementor also gives you three tabs of settings to stylize your pages:

• Content: This lets you tweak options like title, link, size, and alignment.
• Style: Allows you to edit options like typography, colors, opacity, borders, etc.
• Advanced: lets you control settings like custom margins/padding, z-index, animation, CSS, etc.

And if you have the Elementor Pro version, you can directly apply custom CSS to individual elements for even more control.

Overall, both offer similar options for style elements.

Responsive Design Settings

By default, any designs created using Divi or Elementor are responsive. That means your designs will work seamlessly on any device.

Both also go one step further by allowing you to modify the responsive settings for your designs.

For example, Divi and Elementor both let you use different style options based on the device visitors use. You can also hide specific modules based on the device type, such as a large image on mobile devices.

Theme Builder Functionality

Divi and Elementor are no longer limited to single-page content. Instead, they allow you to build your complete WordPress theme using the same drag-and-drop visual interface.

So, what does theme building mean?

Theme building eliminates the requirement for a pre-existing WordPress theme by letting you create your entire theme using a drag-and-drop page builder. For example, you’ll be able to create templates for:

• Header
• Footer
• Single posts and pages
• Archive pages

Aside from dynamically inserting native WordPress information like a blog post’s title, you may also use the theme builders of both plugins to enter data from custom fields.

Divi

Divi has a separate theme builder interface where you can configure your conditional rules. You can use your theme templates either sitewide or for individual content.

From there, you can build your different theme template files using the usual visual Divi Builder interface, as well as dynamic content modules to include dynamic information in your templates, like the title of a post or information from a custom field.

Elementor

With Elementor Pro, you can access a separate theme-building area to handle all of your different theme template parts.

To create the actual template, you’ll use the same Elementor interface. The main difference is that you get unique theme widgets to dynamically insert information, such as the post title or post content:

You may also dynamically fill regular widgets with content from your website or custom fields.

Once you’ve published a theme template, you can use conditional rules to specify where it should be applied. You can either use it sitewide or target it to certain pieces of content.

Overall, both theme builders are pretty powerful.

Right-Click Support

Both Divi and Elementor support right-click, which is uncommon among WordPress page builders.

Although it might look little, being able to right-click is very helpful for streamlining your workflow. For instance, you can quickly:

• Copy styles between widgets
• Duplicate widgets
• Delete widgets
• Save templates
• And more

Divi

Here is the right-click menu in Divi:

Elementor

Here is the right-click menu in Elementor:

Divi vs Elementor: What’s Different

Now that we’ve covered some of the similarities between Divi page builder vs Elementor, let’s look at some of the major differences.

1. Modules & Elements

To create your designs, you’ll need to use the modules and elements available in your selected page builder.

Divi modules have been divided into three categories: Content elements, eCommerce elements, and Structural elements.

In total, you will get 68 modules to build your site.

Furthermore, Divi also offers a thriving ecosystem of third-party plugins that you can use to expand Divi’s functionality.

On the other hand, the free version of Elementor comes with 40+ basic widgets to help you build your designs. Elementor Pro gives you access to 50+ Pro widgets. There are also several third-party Elementor add-ons available that will add new widgets.

Elementor widgets have been divided into four categories: Basic Widgets, Pro Widgets, Theme Elements, and WooCommerce Widgets.

2. Premade Templates

Both Divi and Elementor come with plenty of stunning templates that can be imported, so this is the same.

But they go about templates in slightly different ways.

With Divi, you get layout packs, which are themed template kits designed for specific niches. For example, if you want to build a restaurant website, a Divi layout pack might have multiple layouts for:

• Homepage
• About page
• Menu page
• Blog page
• Gallery page
• Contact page

Across its 352 layout packs, Divi has an astounding 2,567 different page templates, which is definitely the bigger collection between the two:

Elementor, on the other hand, offers a number of templates, which include the following:

• Site Kits: These are sets of templates that may be used to create a full site similar to Divi’s layout packs.
• Pages: These are individual page templates commonly used for landing pages and home pages.
• Blocks: These are templates for certain page sections, such as the hero or about us sections.

Overall, Divi is ahead when it comes to full website kits, with 352+ kits versus Elementor’s 120+.

However, both are extremely powerful when it comes to templates, so you will likely be happy either way. Elementor also provides a greater range of template types, which some people may find useful.

3. Popup Builder

One of the most notable feature differences is that Elementor contains its own popup builder tool, whereas Divi does not.

Elementor Popup Builder allows you to build and show popups anywhere on your website using the same Elementor interface.

In addition, you will also use Elementor widgets to design beautiful popup forms (Email Opt-in, Login/Registration, etc.).

Divi doesn’t offer a built-in popup builder like Elementor, but third-party plugins like Divi Overlays allow you to build popups using Divi.

With your Divi purchase, you can access the Bloom email opt-in plugin. It lets you create email opt-in popups. However, it’s not nearly as configurable as Elementor Popup Builder because there’s no drag-and-drop builder.

So yes, Elementor gets one more extra mark than Divi.

4. Inbuilt A/B Testing

This is not a feature that everyone will use, but if you are a marketer, you might appreciate the fact that Divi has a built-in A/B testing tool, Divi Leads, that helps you improve your designs.

By right-clicking on any module, you can instantly launch an A/B test to examine how different module versions perform.

If you want to create landing pages and other similar content, you’ll most likely find these features useful.

Having said that, you may A/B test Elementor using third-party tools like Google Optimize. You can also use a third-party plugin called Split Test For Elementor, which isn’t as handy as Divi.

5. Form Widget

Did you know that Divi and Elementor feature built-in form widgets (modules)?

But there’s a difference. You can customize form fields, change colors, and so on. However, the Elementor form widget is missing the “CONDITIONS”.

Divi’s form widget is more powerful and allows you to add conditional logic to forms, which is an important part of any form builder.

This difference may not seem like much, but it is. Those who have used WordPress form builder plugins before will understand the benefit of conditional logic.

In a nutshell, Divi’s form widget is more powerful than Elementor’s.

6. Role Editor

The Role editing option will come in handy when you’re creating websites for clients who don’t know much about WordPress or design. You can restrict their access using the Role Editor so that they do not mess with settings that spoil a website’s look.

Both page builders provide different rules for certain roles:

• Divi: Administrator, Editor, Author, Contributor, Shop Manager
• Elementor: Editor, Author, Contributor, Subscriber

Compared to Elementor’s basic rules, Divi’s role editor allows you to restrict much higher-level actions.

For example, in Elementor, only two rules are given to the Editor role:

Whereas with Divi, you may enable/disable high-level to low-level restrictions for an “Editor” and other roles:

7. WooCommerce Building (Cart and Checkout)

WooCommerce is supported by both Elementor and Divi Builder, allowing you to customize your store’s shopping and individual product pages.

Divi Builder simply allows you to use the existing theme’s cart and checkout pages. This might be the Divi theme or a specific WooCommerce theme.

However, Elementor’s WooCommerce support is more extensive than Divi Builder’s since Elementor allows you to fully configure the WooCommerce cart and checkout pages using Elementor’s visual interface.

While it isn’t as simple as building store and single product templates, you do have a lot of control over the design, layout, and content of those key eCommerce sites.

If you want to completely customize your WooCommerce store without writing any code, Elementor has a major advantage.

8. Website Hosting

The next difference is not about the builders themselves but rather how you can create a website with Elementor and Divi.

If you’re overwhelmed by the idea of building your own WordPress site from scratch, Elementor has its own all-in-one website solution that provides the following:

• WordPress hosting
• Pre-installed WordPress and Elementor
• Access to all Elementor Pro functionality at no extra cost

Simply sign up for an account and start creating your site. At the same time, you have full access to WordPress’s functionality.

Divi has collaborated with some providers to provide pre-installed Divi through its Divi Hosting list. However, these partnerships are still less convenient than Elementor’s all-in-one hosting solution.

Overall, we still recommend using your own separate web hosting for serious websites.

However, for basic portfolio websites, Elementor’s all-in-one hosting is a good option that makes it easier to build a WordPress website.

If you want to learn more, you can read our full Elementor hosting review.

9. Free Version

Page builders are expensive. That is something we all know. In addition, if you have no prior expertise with page builders, the free version would be really helpful.

The Divi page builder does not offer a free version. However, it offers a 30-day money-back guarantee without any questions asked.

Elementor offers a free version, and this is one of the main reasons behind Elementor’s popularity compared with the Divi builder.

When you look up “Page Builder” in the WordPress plugin directory, the free version of Elementor consistently tops the list (with over 5 million installations and a 4.6-star rating).

Elementor vs Divi: Performance

If you want your website to be successful, it’s important that it loads quickly.

The bad news:

Every single page builder adds some extra weight to the page versus using the native WordPress block editor.

The good news:

As long as you’re using fast hosting and implementing other performance optimization best practices, you can still build fast-loading WordPress sites with all of the page builders.

To test Divi vs Elementor performance, we created similar designs and put them through the speed test tool.

To keep things as equal as possible, we made our designs with similar sets of modules for both builders and the same information within each module.

Both sites utilize the Astra theme as their basic theme, and these are the modules we used:

• Heading
• Image
• Paragraph
• contact form
• Button

Just to make it clear, we are using the Divi builder plugin with the Astra theme to make this an even comparison. That is, we are not using the WordPress Divi theme.

Furthermore, one thing to remember is that Divi has a built-in feature to minify and combine its CSS and JavaScript, while Elementor doesn’t. As a result, Divi is better suited to limit HTTP requests out of the box.

However, you can easily apply the same optimization to Elementor using a free plugin like Autoptimize or a paid plugin like WP Rocket.

The website we built with Divi delivered the following results:

• Total Page Size: 589 kB
• Total HTTP requests: 29
• Page Load Speed: 1.4 seconds

The Elementor site delivered:

• Total Page Size: 488 kB
• Total HTTP requests: 40
• Page Load Speed: 2.1 seconds

As you can see, the Divi site loaded faster (thanks to the built-in script optimization option), while Elementor delivered a significantly smaller page size, which can improve the site’s overall performance.

Divi versus Elementor: Pricing:

Pricing comparison is difficult because Elementor is less expensive in some cases, and Divi is less expensive in others. So, depending on how you plan to use each plugin, one may be more cost-effective than the other.

Free Version

Elementor is the only one that offers a completely free version. Furthermore, Elementor’s free version is very flexible. Even with the free version, you can create some attractive designs and access the most basic widgets.

So, if you want to keep things free, Elementor is your sole option. It’s a really good one!

Premium Versions

Elegant Themes’ plans allow for unlimited usage. A one-year license is $89 and allows you to use it on an unlimited number of personal and client websites.

Aside from that, your purchase grants you access to all Elegant Themes products beyond Divi. For just a single fee, you will have access to:

• Divi theme
• Divi Builder plugin
• Extra themes
• Bloom plugin (email opt-ins)
• Monarch plugin (social sharing)

Get Divi

On the other hand, Elementor Pro offers four pricing plans:

• Essential: It costs $59/year for a single site usage.
• Advanced: It costs $99/year for up to three sites usage.
• Expert: It costs $199/year for up to 25 sites usage.
• Agency: It costs $399/year for up to 1000 site usage.

All plans include Theme Builder, Dynamic Content, Form Builder, Premium Support, etc.

Get Elementor Pro

In terms of the premium versions, here is how it shakes out:

• Elementor Pro is cheaper if you only need a builder for a single website.
• Divi is cheaper if you need a builder for multiple websites.

Lifetime License

Finally, one last important consideration is the license duration.

Divi offers a one-time license fee of $287. However, Elementor only offers one-year licenses. That means you’ll have to renew your license each year if you want to continue receiving support and updates. If you do not renew, you will be unable to add new Elementor Pro widgets. However, all the existing Elementor Pro widgets in your designs will keep working.

Divi vs Elementor: Support

Both Divi and Elementor offer 24/7 support to users with an active license. Overall, Divi has a slight edge because it provides more flexible ways to contact support.

Divi

All Elegant Themes users who have an active license get premium 24/7 support. One of the key perks is that you get live chat support via Intercom.

This is a significant advantage, as live chat help is uncommon in any WordPress theme or plugin.

Furthermore, you can continue to use their former forum support system if you prefer. However, the forum system relies on community support. Alternatively, you can help yourself with detailed knowledge base documentation.

You can also seek community help through the official Facebook group of Divi Theme Users, which has over 75,000 members.

Elementor

Elementor paying users will have access to 24/7 premium support via tickets. In addition, Elementor maintains a detailed public knowledge base that shows how to use core features, resolve common issues, and more.

Elementor also has a big official Facebook group where you can find community support from over 1,48,000 members. This is a great option for both free and premium Elementor users.

What Others Are Saying About Divi Builder or Elementor Pro?

User reviews are crucial for any product, even visual page builders such as Elementor or Divi. So, what are other users saying about the two WordPress page builders?

Let’s look at the user reviews of Divi and Elementor page builders.

Divi

Divi has received wonderful reviews from users across the blogosphere, especially on product software comparison sites such as G2 and Trustpilot.

On G2, Divi got a 4.8 out of 5 rating.

Elegant Themes was rated 4.9 out of 5 on Trustpilot.

Elementor

Elementor is also not too far behind in terms of user ratings.

On G2, Elementor got a rating of 4.5 out of 5 ratings.

On Trustpilot, Elementor got a 2.9 out of 5 rating.

However, with over 5 million installations, this plugin has a 4.5-star rating and over 6,700 reviews on WordPress.org.

Should You Use Elementor or Divi?

Divi and Elementor are two of the best WordPress website builder plugins available, so we don’t think you’ll go wrong with either.

However, we think that Elementor has edged ahead in terms of functionality and third-party support.

For that reason, we recommend Elementor to most people.

Advantage to Divi

Divi has one significant advantage: its pricing.

• It’s a lot cheaper if you need a plugin for multiple sites: The only case where Elementor Pro looks cheaper than Divi is when you only need a builder for a single website.
• There’s a lifetime deal: With Elementor Pro, you must pay annually, which increases the price differences over time. Divi allows you to pay $287 for lifetime support and updates. From a value standpoint, that is unbeatable.

If you’re on a tight budget, Divi may be enough. And when you consider how much cheaper Divi is over time, it may be the better option.

Get Divi

Advantage to Elementor

Elementor has some very distinct advantages, including the following:

• Free version: You can create professional-looking websites without upgrading to the pro version.
• Popup Builder: You can use these popups in many ways, including marketing, interface elements, and more.
• More advanced WooCommerce support: Customizing your cart and checkout pages is a huge advantage if you want to completely customize a WooCommerce store.
• Huge library of third-party add-ons: If Elementor and Elementor Pro don’t meet your needs, there is a vast library of third-party add-ons available.

In terms of functionality, Elementor has a clear advantage. So, if you want the best of the best, we recommend using Elementor and Elementor Pro.

Personally, we also prefer the Elementor interface over the Divi interface, which is another reason why we recommend Elementor. However, this is subjective, and you may like Divi.

Get Elementor Pro

That wraps up our in-depth comparison of Elementor vs Divi. We hope you found it helpful!

For more, check out these other helpful resources:

• Elementor vs Beaver Builder
• Elementor Free vs Pro
• Elementor vs Gutenberg Comparison
• 10 Best Elementor Themes and Templates

Lastly, follow us on Facebook and Twitter to stay updated on the latest WordPress and blogging-related articles.