In todays blog post we’re going to compare the main differences between Divi vs Elementor, two extremely popular WordPress page builder plugins.
Innovative Solutions Group offers award-winning WordPress website design services that will help your business grow. In addition to looking great and helping your brand stand out, our website designs also provide an excellent user experience. It’s no surprise that our WordPress designs are known for increasing traffic and sales.
Having said that, WordPress themes play an important role in the overall appearance of a website. However, it can be confusing knowing which WordPress theme to choose from because there are so many options available.
You want a design that is clean and simple to use while still standing out. This is especially true considering that WordPress powers 43.2% of all websites on the internet. In addition, we’ve found that the most effective way to design unique page layouts and content for WordPress is to use a page builder plugin.
Divi, by Elegant Themes, and Elementor are currently two of the most popular WordPress website themes. They each also have some of the most page builder plugins on the market.
Spoiler alert: we use Divi for our own projects and client work.
This article compares the features and user experiences of both Divi and Elementor. Both plugins are excellent, but each has distinct advantages that may be more relevant to your business. We hope that this guide will take the guesswork out of deciding which one to use for your project.
If you need expert WordPress website design or digital marketing assistance, contact our team at Innovative Solutions Group.
Using Page Builders to create Stunning WordPress Websites
When you choose a WordPress theme, you can make minor changes to its functionality and appearance. A page builder, on the other hand, allows you to go a step further and customize the individual pages and posts within your WordPress theme.
In other words, a page builder gives you more control over individual pages, posts, and areas of your theme that you can’t customize from page to page in your WordPress theme settings.
Page Builders offer a more advanced user interface for creating content. They’re easy to use, don’t require any coding knowledge, and frequently make use of drag-and-drop functionality.
Let’s take a closer look at how Divi and Elementor themes compare.
Divi vs Elementor
Intro to Divi
The Divi Builder was originally integrated into the Divi WordPress theme as its content editor. The team at Elegant Themes decided to release it as a standalone product that could also be used with any WordPress theme due to its rapidly growing popularity.
Having said that, if you’re still looking for a good WordPress theme, we recommend checking out the Divi theme. The Divi theme is a premium theme that is best-in-class for any WordPress business website. Needless to say, it offers the best compatibility with the powerful Divi Builder tool.
Intro to Elementor
When you install the Elementor tools, one of the first things you may notice is that it includes a free version. It’s a useful option that allows you to test the tool on your website. Of course, you can always upgrade to Elementor’s premium, or Pro, version.
You get the same page builder interface with both versions of the plugin. The Pro version, however, comes with a lot more templates, modules, and customization options to help you personalize every aspect of your WordPress website.
Similar to Divi, Elementor offers a free WordPress theme that you can pair with the page builder tool.
Features of Divi vs. Elementor
#1) Ease of Use:
Divi gives you access to frontend and backend visual editing, whereas Elementor only offers drag-and-drop editors. If you are a developer and need to make changes in the backend, you can use Divi builder to do so.
When you begin editing with Divi, you have three options: start with a blank page, select a premade template, or simply clone an existing page. Divi does not have a fixed sidebar like Elementor; instead, it has floating buttons.
To begin using Elementor to edit a page on your WordPress website, click the “Edit with Elementor” button. It will display both sides of the page. Elementor’s fixed sidebar is on the left, and a live preview of all changes you make to the page is on the right.
To see the full-page preview, you can also hide the sidebar. Simply drag and drop a new element onto the page to add it to the page. You can also use text to edit the elements, or simply use the text editor in the sidebar.
In terms of first-time use scenarios, Elementor is an obvious choice. Divi, on the other hand, offers more advanced features such as back-end editing to fully realize its potential.
#2) SEO-Optimizing Capabilities
When choosing a page builder for your website, keep SEO in mind. However, there are also a lot of myths surrounding page builders and SEO.
Because page builders use shortcodes, it was assumed that deactivating the page builder would leave your website with broken shortcodes, resulting in a total mess.
Unfortunately, Divi has gotten a bad rap for being one of those plugins that break your SEO. We understand this point of view, but of course, we don’t agree with that assessment. The truth is a lot of the backlash has historically been aimed at page builders in general.
As for Divi, it’s one of the first page builders ever made and it’s still standing head and shoulders above the competition.
The Divi theme is SEO-friendly, and adding a WordPress SEO plugin, such as RankMath or SEOPress (free versions will suffice), is a good idea. Additionally, you should always use an SEO plugin and adhere to some basic on-page SEO practices.
In contrast, Elementor prioritizes clean code, which is why it restricts the use of shortcodes on your website. This also improves your website’s loading time and reduces the cluster of shortcodes.
#3) Theme Builder
The Divi Theme Builder displays the backend interface for each of your pages. Additionally, you can edit those pages using the frontend editor, which makes it simple to add a tagline, a title, and other details. You can use this tool to create headers and footers for any page.
A lot of significant changes have been made to the Divi theme builder since it first debuted a few years ago to make it easier for you to design your pages.
The theme builder is only available in the pro version of Elementor. To use this feature, first, choose the page where you want to apply the template.
The theme elements can now be used to design your page. You only need to publish the page once the design is finished. Additionally, you will have the choice of where to display your page on your website.
Both Divi and Elementor have fantastic theme-building features, but we prefer Divi’s level of intuitiveness.
#4) Pricing
Divi has two pricing plans available, which are as follows:
- Yearly Access: Elegant Themes products have an annual access fee of $89 per year. With this plan, you will have access to the Divi, Bloom, Monarch, and Extra themes. These can also be used on an unlimited number of websites.
- Lifetime Access: All of the Elegant Theme’s products are available for a one-time fee of $249. Features that are comparable to yearly access are always available to you.
These are the different pricing plans for Elementor:
- Essential Plan: The Essential plan, which provides one website with access to Elementor pro features, costs $49 a year.
- Expert Plan: The Expert plan costs $199/year and includes access to Elementor Pro features for 25 websites.
- Studio Plan: For $499 a year, the Studio plan grants 100 websites access to Elementor pro features.
- Agency Plan: The Agency plan costs $999 per year and provides access to Elementor Pro features for 1000 websites.
- Elementor Cloud Website: The annual fee for the Elementor Cloud Website is $99. This plan is the best choice for those who don’t want to deal with the hassle of installing WordPress on the website and looking for hosting.
If you only need to use Elementor on one site, it will be less expensive. But Divi will be the more affordable choice if you need to use it on several websites.
The Bottom Line on Divi vs Elementor
Elementor is the way to go if you’re new to website design and don’t know how to code. You can even get started with Elementor’s free version and create your first website.
For many years, our team at Innovative Solutions Group have been big Divi fans and have built many client websites with it. The unlimited lifetime license has more than paid for itself. Furthermore, it allows us to design websites as quickly as possible.
Get in touch with us today to learn more about how our professional WordPress experts can help your business.
